Spring Rituals

Spring has arrived. If you need dates to fix the seasons, then spring either started on Wednesday (the spring equinox) or on 1st March if you use the meteorological definition. Looking around here, it feels as though spring is slowly rolling in. It’s been slightly warmer and a lot less windy than earlier in the

Forage, cook, eat

If you drive along English country lanes at this time of year, it would be easy to dismiss the green blur of the verges as simply boring grass.

I know a bank where the violet grows

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, (William Shakespeare) I don’t know where the wild thyme blows but I do know where the paigles, primroses and the violets grow. Several banks, in fact, where small patches of violets nestle in the shade of the hedgerows and