Wardley - The countryside book: 101 ways to relax, play, watch wildlife and have adventures in the countryside

This book contains some potentially dangerous activities to be undertaken in the natural environment. The countryside is prone to changing conditions throughout the year and in response to changing weather conditions. The author and publisher have endeavored to ensure the accuracy of the information herein. The author and publisher cannot accept any legal or financial responsibility for any accident, injury, damage, loss or prosecution resulting from the information, use or misuse of the activities, techniques and advice in the book. Any reader taking part in any activities included in this book does so entirely at their own risk.

Bloomsbury Natural History

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This electronic edition published in 2015 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

First published 2015

Tessa Wardley, 2015

2015 illustrations and photographs by Tessa Wardley

2015 in other photographs remains with the individual photographers see .

Tessa Wardley has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.

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You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organisation acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN (PB) 978-1-4081-8703-6

ISBN (epub) 978-1-4081-8705-0

ISBN (epdf) 978-1-4081-8704-3

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For my adventurous and gorgeous girls:
Anousha, Thea, Poppy and Lottie.

Introduction

Mountain, moorland, weald and downland;
fen land, breckland, scrub and parkland.
Grassland, heathland, rock and hedgerow;
woodland, wetland, coast and meadow.
The country beside us is constant, unchanging;

everyday colour a backdrop of green.
But look a bit closer and the details exciting,
enticing, enchanting; adventure unseen.
The familiar and ordinary with more exploration
is strange, unexpected and vividly green.

We should all have our own little slice of countryside to call our own, to hold close to our hearts. A meadow, rock, tree; visit it often and make it special by knowing every sight, sound and sensation of every season, time of day and weather condition. Slip into your own little envelope of country a place to observe, without being observed, merge in.

If Norwich resembles the eye of Norfolks Cyclops then my early country envelope would have been its nose and mouth. A happy, pizza-slice of land bounded by the main roads to Ipswich and Bungay with the River Waveney to the south, and the Yare to the north, this is agricultural land, undulating and richly mosaicked with fields, lush hedgerows and woods. My fathers daily pilgrimage to work in Norwich later became my own and eventually I became blind to my surroundings.

Leaving home after my A levels I was anxious to see more of the world. I raised some funds and set off with a friend, working and travelling, experiencing life and revelling in the immensely different surroundings that we encountered on the way.

We saw many places and had many wonderful experiences and memories to take with us. But one of my strongest memories comes from the first few days back home. I remember so clearly the feelings of wonder and joy at seeing my familiar patch of land. Having become used to experiencing new places I was looking so much more carefully at what was in front of me, I was seeing it all as if for the first time. I was stunned. We go off travelling around the world to vast, desiccated continents but we have such beauty and abundance all around us at home.

It was July and the countryside was fizzing with life. Road margins were bursting with growth: dense, luxuriant green, dotted with red poppies, blue cornflowers, yellow buttercups and dandelions. The fields were full to bursting and the hedgerows were impenetrable, positively humming with insect life. The sky was an improbable blue, punctuated with airy white clouds. My early morning journey into the city was criss-crossed with Weasels and shrews and Rabbits, a Kestrel hovered over the road verge, while Swifts and Swallows swooped over the golden cornfields. As I passed along the river valley the early morning mist was still clinging mystically to the water meadows. Tense strands of cotton wool, the dense white of swans plumage, were slowly pulling apart, creating negative space as if made from an accumulation of the mist. Nothing I had seen on my travels had beaten this journey: the sight was uplifting and I felt I was discovering something more about myself and my place in the world.

The natural world becomes alive to us as we begin to take notice of it. But if we live our lives engaging with nature then it is we who are now really living. Activities undertaken in green spaces have been shown to be so much more beneficial when compared to the same activities undertaken in the built environment. Being in the countryside takes us outside physically and emotionally it brings people out of themselves and maybe that is where we are able find our true selves.

Before I went off on my travels and then saw my own countryside through the eyes of a tourist I had never really understood tourists who came to our country. Canadian and Australian relatives would come back time and again exclaiming about the beauty and the history, it was finally beginning to dawn on me what they had seen.

No one ever really appreciates what they have right outside their door; as Joni Mitchell said you dont know what youve got till its gone. Our televisions are full of the most amazing wildlife programmes, fantastic images of big game and endangered habitats but maybe, we should remember to get out and enjoy the wonder and beauty of our own surroundings. Or maybe it is only with a view of the wider world that we can really appreciate what we have.