"I never leave the farm in May"

May is the farm at its most alive—light stretching, hedges bursting, birds singing. A month too beautiful, and too fleeting, to spend anywhere else.

How Harry Coleby Lost Seven Stone and Won Big

Discover how Harry Coleby defied the odds—losing seven stone at 34 to win on his first-ever ride, and learn about his remarkable journey with horses.

Becoming An Activist

The Government called us NIMBYs; now hear us roar.

Is "No mow May" causing "June bug-ocalypse"

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for no mow May, I think it's a brilliant incentive to bring wildlife back into focus and in large, it's quite an easy sell. Don't mow your lawn and get both social green points for caring about fuzzy bumbles and butterflies, while enjoying a longer break away from the…

Firsts of the year.

Leading on from the swallow thread, what other firsts are people seeing and hearing? It is good time of year for migrants arriving, creatures coming out of hibernation or hatching and plants growing. Just now my wife spotted the first hummingbird hawk moth on our garden flowers (mid Wales), never…

Three Things Learned By Being Kicked By A Tree

Writing about your own injury is self-indulgent and dull, but there are few things to be said about rural healthcare.

Time to re-imagineer extra-urban Britain's economy

To be taken seriously by Westminster, Fleet Street and Gen-Z, the countryside needs to use less medieval language

Bird nesting.

Our garden birds are full on nesting and inevitably, every year, some will nest in the most inconvenient of places, we open a shed door to find a robin nest amongst the tools or mower we need. A blackbird took only 3 days to build this nest in our “Molehole” (as we call it), where we sit and…

Read Yorkshire Jockey Joe Wright’s Story

Joe Wright has been one of the leading jockeys on the Yorkshire and Northern circuits for the past decade. Aged 28 and originally from Carlisle, he achieved his 100th career winner earlier this season and won his second Grimthorpe Gold Cup – the most prestigious point-to-point race in Yorkshire

Permission to speak, Sir?

Trying to undo two hundred years of tradition, not always good, on the chalk streams is tough for a newer generation of river keeper. Permits, paperwork and pointless permission doesn't help.

How Important is language in public discourse?

Had bit of a back and forth with Ian Coghill yesterday about how I perceived some of his comments regarding tree planting. As a forester it came across to me as a minor attack and while that clearly wasn't intended, that is still how it came across. I've been accused of being a bit thin-skinned…

Can 'Britishness' be defined by animals?

Which animals should we put on our banknotes?