Country mouse on frosts
They start the season for picking of sloes for sloe gin but also put paid to remnants of the summer. How much longer will Britain have them?


Last week saw the first frosts of winter in southern England. They were most welcome. As well as firing the starting pistol for picking sloes from the blackthorn to make sloe gin (the freezing helps concentrate the flavour), the frosts will have, hopefully, put paid to the insects carrying the newly arrived bluetongue disease.
The freezing nights came with crystal-clear skies and, for the fortunate not living in an area suffering from light pollution (why is more not done to counteract this?), there was also the beauty of the heavens to appreciate, not to mention spectacular sunrises to wake up to. The first frosts do put paid to various remnants of the summer; they kill the dahlias, which upsets the gardeners, but proved a great joy to Surtees' famous hunting character, Jorrocks, who was overheard in Regent's Park shouting: 'Hurrah! Blister my kidneys! It is a frost the dahlias are dead! The warmth of summer is a sorrowful thing for hunting people.'
Frosts can be a pain when travelling: freezing points on the railways, iced-up windscreens and black ice for the drivers, but we should appreciate the good a frost brings. We in Britain are lucky to have them, but for how much longer?
Exquisite houses, the beauty of Nature, and how to get the most from your life, straight to your inbox.
Country Life is unlike any other magazine: the only glossy weekly on the newsstand and the only magazine that has been guest-edited by HRH The King not once, but twice. It is a celebration of modern rural life and all its diverse joys and pleasures — that was first published in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee year. Our eclectic mixture of witty and informative content — from the most up-to-date property news and commentary and a coveted glimpse inside some of the UK's best houses and gardens, to gardening, the arts and interior design, written by experts in their field — still cannot be found in print or online, anywhere else.
-
'It’s not ironic that I really like wasps and that they nearly killed me. It’s simply a coincidence': What to do if you're stung by a wasp
After a close encounter with some wasps put him in hospital, William Kendall sought an unlikely remedy...
-
'No Yorkshire dale, no Scottish moor, no view from Westminster Bridge can match it': Charles Quest-Ritson on The Itchen Valley, his personal piece of heaven
Charles Quest-Ritson lavishes praise on the Itchen Valley, a part of Britain that's so charming and unspoilt as to restore your faith in the world.