Nature’s real enemy: squeamish greenies

This is the time of year when the English countryside reaches peak incredible: when we rural folk mentally pinch ourselves in disbelief at our extraordinary good fortune in inhabiting the most beautiful landscape on earth.

On every walk you see something to delight the eye and lift the spirits. First the blackthorn exploding in the hedgerows like cascading white fireworks; then the ramsons pushing their lance-shaped leaves through the floor of the dingle, pleading with you to turn them into wild garlic pesto; then the lambs — so wobbly, white and cute when newborn — which turn surprisingly quickly into boisterous adolescents gambolling and head-butting and racing one another in circles; then the bluebells, a strange and precious wonder because where else anywhere in nature do you encounter that amazing anomalous blue in such profligate quantities?

I was thinking about this at the weekend as the Fawn, the hound and I wandered through our bluebell wood, me trying and failing to capture the magnificence on my iPhone camera, which you never can, unfortunately, not least because you don’t get that honeyed scent or the murmuring of innumerable bees.