We live in an area that’s rural in the wild sense whereas my parents live in what I have sometimes cruelly described as an agricultural wasteland.  It is the sort of place where, when you’re hiking, you tend to stick to the hedgerows and copses and be glad they’re there.  But it also offers some educational opportunities.  Antonia had never seen wheat growing before, let alone, barley, beets, corn and rape.  She learned about crop rotation and its purposes, and my mum found her some primitive horse tail plants growing in a freshly ploughed field.  Apparently these grow on impoverished soil, so that would seem to be a bad sign.

We also did some identifying of butterflies and flowers, got herded through a field by a flock of sheep that seemed unduly interested in us, and taught her the proper way of feeding a colt with your hand flat so it doesn’t accidentally bite you.