Yesterday, I heard, of all things, a cuckoo. And just for a moment, it was as if time had reversed: the view of the church; trees newly greened; a tractor in the lane.
It seems we've been forever attempting to capture that essence of pure, pastoral England. Take Edward Thomas' poem Adlestrop, which recalls a journey taken in June, 1914,with its
'Willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry...
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by...'
Pure pastoral. With VE day still fresh in our memory, its worth noting that the days of war were far from idyllic; Kate Atkinson, in her novel Life After Life, conjures a 1940's life of hardship, privation and endurance. Yet for all our knowledge of those dreadful times, we persist in cloaking them in a mist of fond nostalgia.
Why do we yearn for a more simple, pastoral England, caught spellbound 'twixt hedge and field?
Dunno, but I'm on it: back to the church, the trees - and the odd cuckoo.
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