Innholdsfortegnelse for 21-sep-16 i Country Life

Miss Zuleika Parkin Zuleika, only daughter of the late Mr Michael Parkin and Mrs Michael Parkin of Gunton Hall, Hanworth, Norfolk, is engaged to be married to Oliver Gerrish, eldest son of Mr and Mrs Nicholas Gerrish of Herbert Lodge, Bonsall, Derbyshire. They will be married at St Andrew’s Church, Gunton Park, on September 24. Zuleika runs her own bespoke cake business and, along with her fiancé, organises tours of historic houses.…

CLEARLY, from the number of letters I have received, the plight of our remaining fingerposts, which tell us in miles, half-miles, quarter-miles and eighths of miles the distance we need to go, touches a chord with many of you. These delightful signs vary in shape and design from place to place and from county to county. They have been disappearing since the Worboys Committee deemed that standardised signs should replace them in 1964. Many survived this centralised decision only to fall into neglect over the past 50 years. Today, the Department of Transport recognises their role ‘in maintaining a sense of community in a rapidly changing environment’, but many are in a perilous state. We don’t want to lose something that so many cherish and I hope more parish councils…

I'm not sure why Dolcetto has yet to take off in a significant way in the UK. We've developed a tremendous thirst for other Italian wines of frankly lesser innate interest and quality (yes, I am thinking about you, Prosecco and Pinot Grigio), yet Italy's answer to cru Beaujolais, or even village Burgundy, remains a niche choice. Why you should be drinking it Dolcetto means literally ‘little sweet one' and suffers perhaps from being considered the third most important red grape in the Langhe area of Piedmont-home of Barolo and Barbaresco-and other adjacent parts, after Nebbiolo and Barbera. This junior member of the family doesn't aspire to great complexity or longevity, but has more straightforward charms: deep-purple colour, vivid juicy fruit, a certain bounce and enough sap and tannin…

Ale Includes pale ales, bitter, old ales, fruit beers, stouts, porters. Ale yeasts like warmth and ferment quickly Lager Was black until 1842. Started in Bavarian monasteries. Lager yeasts like the cold and ferment slowly Cask Stores ‘live' ales, which evolve and develop their own natural CO2 - a British icon. Lasts 2–4 days once broached Keg Stores ‘pasteurised' beers, which don't evolve, dispensed with bought-in gases. Lasts longer Bottle Contents can be live or pasteurised. Dark glass helps guard against light-induced ‘skunkiness' Can Mainly aluminium, with water-based polymers lining. First used in the UK at Llanelli in Wales in 1935. Newly trendy…

‘In 10 years’ time, we might be sorry to have left [the EU]’ ONE March day in 1940, Henry Plumb, then 15, was summoned to see his headmaster. His heart sank when he saw that his father, Charles, was also in the study: this must be something really bad. However, it emerged that he was simply to be told that he had to leave school—he was needed on the family farm, which seemed wonderfulnews, even if the headmaster suggested the war would be over in six months, at which point, Henry would return. The boy Henry never did return to his desk at the Edward VI School in Nuneaton and, at the age of 91, is still farming: Lord Plumb has a herd of longhorns on what he calls a…

Grass seed sown at this time of year, when the soil is still warm and showers can be expected, has a much better chance of success than if it were sown in the spring. Cultivate the soil carefully to remove perennial weeds and stones. Rake the soil to a fine tilth, then tread it thoroughly in two directions until you have a perfectly firm and even surface. Sow the seed thinly, working along and then across. Rake minimally to cover some of the seed and remove footprints. Cover the area with loose brushwood to deter invaders. The prize will be yours in the spring.…

‘He travelled up to 10,000 miles a year, meticulously transcribing his findings’ TODAY, a well-preserved original of William Smith’s groundbreaking chart detailing England’s rock strata can be worth up to £150,000, but evidence suggests the value of his work has not always been appreciated. A rare copy of the map was once rescued from a smoldering bonfire in Wales, another found in a roadside skip and one was even used as wrapping paper by a Dorset bookseller. Perhaps more surprisingly, however, a pristine copy—contained in an atlas version, beautifully bound in red Moroccan leather —reported missing for decades at the Geological Society of London, was eventually discovered in a drawer, bundled together with papers and documents dating from 1907. ‘Everybody was relieved that it was found just in time for…

‘You’re stranded on an island with no way of getting off ?’ THE pouch’s appearance and disappearance has been a recurrent backdrop to summer. A threadbare ethnic affair, it was left behind at the end of term before being ‘definitely stolen’ from a French service station in August. In September, it reappeared, by post, minus £70 in cash, but otherwise intact (including student ID), having been sent by a German lady who tracked Olive down on Facebook. It cost Fraulein Schneider € 6.20 plus a jiffy envelope to post. She has now joined the long list of Olive’s angels. Olive and the pouch then went to Ireland. At 9.30pm the night before her flight, she suddenly asked whether one needed a passport (not in the pouch, nicely tucked up…

FOR several years after the financial crash in 2008, Dublin felt as if it had been shut down at the mains, so it’s a relief that money has now palpably returned to the city. The investment of big IT businesses around the Grand Canal Docks has created a prosperous and cosmopolitan district there. Tourists throng through Temple Bar and its surrounds to the accompanying sound of competing Irish folk bands. After about 5pm, it’s a doubtful privilege to watch hen parties come out in force as well. Two long-standing problems have persisted through the revival of the city. The first is work on the tram network, which Dubliners seem largely to enjoy blaming for the second: traffic congestion. Far outweighing either problem, however, is what seems to be a growing…

Time to think small AS a rural planning consultant, I felt that the article ‘Stop going round the housing crisis’ (Athena, August 17) appeared to place the blame at the developers’ door, but resistance to small development by planners is rather more to blame. Perhaps understandably, they like large developments that help to meet the local housing target, involve little more work than a small scheme and usually meet the planner’s Holy Grail of ‘sustainable development’ Thousands of small villages could accommodate 6–10 extra homes and many builders would love to put them up using local labour and local materials, however, getting permission for such development is now virtually impossible. Nigel Cant, Devon A matter of Trust THE National Trust and the Lake District have been entwined for more…

‘The V&A marks the shipwreck of many directors' dreams’ ATHENA is a great fan of the annual cultural shindig Heritage Open Days—or HODS as it’s affectionately, if inelegantly, often called. The idea is a relatively simple one. On the second weekend in September, a wide range of historic buildings and heritage sites puts on special events and openings enabling the public to experience a great deal of heritage that’s not normally on view or to experience familiar heritage in a new way—and all free. This year’s temptations included a visit to a Victorian coffin-maker’s factory, a behind-the-scenes look at how the BFI conserves its archival collection and a great deal of bell ringing (Athena very much enjoyed climbing up to the belfry of St James’s, Barrow-in-Furness). All in all, there…

‘ No husband is permitted to buy paint without a note from his wife’ STRATEGY? It isn’t too complex, really. Just A to B as fast as you can go and hope for the best. Close the eyes and pull like a dog,’ explained Paul—or, possibly, Gary, O’Donovan (it’s virtually impossible to tell the brothers apart)—patiently to a patronising television journalist before their final Olympic race. You, of course, may feel that the Rio Olympic Games is ancient history, in which case you probably don’t live near Skibbereen, West Cork, home to the silver-medal winners in the men’s lightweight double sculls. Hereabouts, the O’Donovans are pretty much the only topic of conversation. Every day, we discuss their doings. ‘Paul bought milk in Fields at lunch.’ ‘Gary has just been…

Low alcohol Adnams Sole Star 2.7%. Suffolk. Vibrant, orangey hop Rolling Stones, Sympathy For The Devil Traditional hoppy bitter Timothy Taylor's Landlord. 4.3%. Yorkshire. Floral, sweet lime hop Elgar, Land of Hope and Glory Maltier modern bitter Hobgoblin. 5.2%. Oxford. Caramel and chocolate with resinous geranium/ orange hop Blur, Song 2 Stout/porter Beavertown Smog Rocket. 5.4%. London. Only sell in (fab) cans. Smoked malts, molasses, dried fruit Benjamin Britten, Storm Barley wine Coniston No: 9. Cumbria. 8.5%. Like an aristocratic Sauternes. Honey, marzipan, cognac Andy Williams, Moon River India pale ale Thornbridge Jaipur IPA 5.9%. Derby. Ripe man darin, lychee hop as made for 1820s India Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody…

A MAN at work, making something which he feels will exist because he is working at it and wills it, is exercising the energies of his mind and soul as well as of his body. Memory and imagination help him as he works.’ So wrote William Morris—the ‘father of the Arts-and-Crafts movement’—who had his summer residence in Kelmscott. Sidney Barnsley and Ernest Gimson ran their workshops at Sapperton, making furniture for the ordinary man using traditional skills and natural materials in response to the industrialisation of the late 19th century. In 1965, Matthew Burt began his apprenticeship in the village of Kencott, close to the Barnsley and Gimson workshops: ‘Their influence was all around me,’ he says. Mr Burt was 24, with degrees in botany and zoology, when he decided…

WHEN my son left the Army some 15 years ago, he took up its offer of a three-month training course in journalism. One project was to approach three high-profile people (unaided by personal acquaintance) and request an interview. He duly approached Jilly Cooper (Interview, September 7), who generously agreed to meet him at her home. After a very amusing and wide-ranging talk, he was able to put within his opening paragraph ‘and this is the woman who left the entire draft of a book on a train to London’. She said that, when starting out in her journalism career, some established writers and publishers had been kind to her, hence her granting this favour, but what a lovely thing to do. Janie Day, Suffolk The writer of the letter of…

‘In our Oxford garden, dressing the banana is a Christmas Eve ritual’ I OUGHT to have been at the beach, like any other eight year old on a family holiday in Corfu, but I preferred a thicket of the banana Musa basjoo that grew in the hotel garden. I was captivated, never before having been so close to any plant so marvellous. Its waxy stems were thicker than my body (this was a very long time ago), up to 10ft tall and canopied with immense paddle-shaped leaves that unfurled with watchable speed. From their midst hung buds the shape and size of rugby balls and the colour of half-ripe peaches. A succession of great rubbery bracts would peel back from these buds to reveal rows of flowers, caramel-toned and…

1745 The breed is at its pinnacle, with the cattle found all over England and the cheese selling in North America, when the rinder pest epidemic starts. It lasts for 11 years, reaching Gloucestershire in 1748, when all markets are stopped 1896 A successful sale at Badminton, which then had the biggest herd, prompts a wave of enthusiasm and several new herds are started 1909 The Duke of Beaufort takes his Badminton cattle to the Royal Show, gaining official breed recognition 1919 The Gloucester Cattle Society is formed; the first herd book has 130 animals in 14 herds 1925 There are 300 animals in 25-plus herds 1927 Foot-and-mouth disease hits; numbers drop to 177 animals 1930 Records show only 142 animals in four herds 1950 The Badminton herd is dispersed-lack…

‘In a fit of buyer’s remorse, the salmon leapt, then headed for the rapids’ MORE line. Mend up. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait—hotspot. Now, stripping!’ Yesterday morning I was at my desk; this evening, I am running a conehead tube down the tail of the Home Pool, with Genna the Russian guide at my elbow. There is a silver flare in the stream and I’m into my first ever Rynda salmon. ‘My friend, you are very lucky fisher,’ he declares. Well, just being here is a stroke of good fortune. Tide-bright, 10lb, weighed, tagged and released. ‘And now,’ announces Genna, ‘many vodka.’ One of the quintessentially wild, northern rivers that debouches into the Barents Sea from the Kola peninsula, the Rynda flows through pristine tundra—there are no roads in…

ONCE, held some feet above the ground in a crack in the trunk of an old Cretan olive tree, I found what I believed, perhaps fondly, to be a fragment of iridescent Roman glass. It could have been pushed up from the earth and engorged by the seedling, but, then again, it could well have been far more recent a shard than suggested by the worn surface and iridescence. I have long thought that Roman glass would be a very satisfying collecting field, aesthetically pleasing, all the more so because, often a little wonky, it is in good supply, but at the same time not so common as to spoil the chase, and it is very varied in shapes, colours and functions. When I first did nothing about it, much…

‘Jane’s naïvety in love proved perilous’ Biography Elizabeth Jane Howard: A Dangerous Innocence Artemis Cooper (John Murray, £25) ELIZABETH Jane Howard’s literary life was a potent cocktail of writing and sex. Her impressive career resulted in 15 novels—including her popular ‘The Cazalet Chronicles’—not to mention her work as a journalist, an editor for Chatto & Windus and artistic director of the Cheltenham Literature Festival. Alongside these, and forming the meat of this riveting biography, Jane engaged in a string of love affairs, more often than not with members of the literati, including Arthur Koestler, Cecil Day-Lewis, Laurie Lee and Kingsley Amis, whom she married. Artemis Cooper’s thorough, illuminating account draws on Jane’s own writing—her frank and revealing memoir Slipstream (2002)—as well as her personal correspondence and private papers, interviews and…