A childhood pastime goes global

Corn-dolly crafter Colette Hughes describes the bleak situations our ancestors faced. “Imagine,” she says. “It’s winter and your family is hungry and cold. It gets dark early, fresh food is in short s

PLACES TO GO, THINGS TO DO, IDEAS TO TRY

Many people associate clans with Scotland, but the word originated in Ireland in the early Middle Ages. It derives from the Irish clann, meaning children, and is used to describe a highly organised hi

Karen Youngs encounters squabbling herons and glimpses an elusive predator on a waterside walk

In the borderlands, something is stirring. A current of eclectic neopaganism braided with folk music, performance art and countercultural fashion. From time to time when the stars align these currents

When I was a child, we had a tortoise called Winnie who had belonged to my father when he was a boy in the 1950s. He called his pet Winston after Churchill, but this name had to be changed when he dis