“there’s something special about spring here in the seven valleys”

Karen Youngs revels in the changing landscape and encounters a handsome game bird on a morning walk

The village shop that sold pick ‘n’ mix sweets. A cowpat-strewn country lane with occasional glimpses of Glastonbury Tor. Leaping the wooden stile into Butterfly Wood. It’s over 30 years since I last

A short while after we married, Tom and I made the decision to leave behind our hectic London lives and relocate to the tranquillity of rural living. We wanted a slower pace of life where the countrys

CATHY grunted as she struggled to open a jar of marmalade. Standing tall and athletic, amidst boxes piled high on the scarred wooden table in her new farmhouse kitchen, she inhaled the scents of woods

With a plan to create sociable holidays in France grounded in gastronomy, Sam and Heather Lusardi were determined to do everything to make the project work, they tell Alison Hughes

Our round-up of the funny, fascinating and unusual stories this fortnight