Innholdsfortegnelse for 24-Mar-2021 i Country Life

With its panoramic, whitewashed houses clinging to a steep cliffside, Positano is one of the prettiest villages on the Amalfi coast and this apartment, which is situated immediately behind the historic centre, makes the most of the magnificent views over the sea and the Li Galli islands. An independent entrance gives access to the 1,500sq ft property, which has two bedrooms, plenty of vaulted ceilings, a fireplace in the living room, a small, but perfectly formed kitchen, decorated with Vietri tiles and featuring a panoramic terrace. €3 million with Mayfair International Realty's associate IB International Real Estate (www.mayfairinternationalrealty.com; www.ibinternational.it; 00 39 347 023 7502)…

Singing the wrong song There are now so few regent honeyeaters left in their Australian homeland that juvenile males are mistakenly learning other songbirds' calls, resulting in rejection from potential mates Loving thy neighbour ‘Welcome to Peopleton… most definitely the nastiest village in Worcestershire' reads the sign put up by a local farmer; he has another on his land that says ‘No trespassing. Violators will be shot. Survivors will be shot again' High-street chocolate Thorntons, chocolate-makers for more than a century, will not re-open its 61 stores after lockdown lifts…

A YEAR ago last Friday, we sent the children off to school for the last time as lockdown loomed. There was then irrepressible excitement at the prospect of escape from the classroom. Such is the universal relief to be back, however, that both children report a remarkable suspension of class rivalries as everyone savours the return. It’s been a tiring week, nevertheless. For the younger members of the family, there is the effort of making their daily journey to and from school, the excitement of seeing friends and the shock of a return to conventional quantities of homework. And for their parents, there is the imperative to catch up with everything. Breakfast has become hurried once more, evenings have become curtailed (although we made a happy exception for St Patrick’s…

Good for parties Kylie Minogue, Rosé, Vin de France 2019. £9, Tesco, alc 12.5% As well as a single-estate Côtes de Provence rosé, Kylie Minogue is behind this Vin de France, made with grapes from various southern regions. It has attractive white-blossom aromas and crisp red-berry fruit. A good choice for parties. Supple and easy-drinking Bodegas Fabre, Viñalba Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, Mendoza, Argentina 2019. £10, Tesco, alc 14.5% Viñalba's Reserve Malbecs are super, but Bordeaux-born Hervé Joyaux Fabre has made a fine Cabernet here (with 15% Malbec): supple and easy-drinking with grippy tannins on a round body, fleshed out by warm, spiced black-berry fruit. Black cherry and salted plum Pazzia, Primitivo di Manduria, Puglia, Italy 2018. £11.99, Waitrose Cellar, alc 14% This southern Italian red will appeal to…

AT the end of February, the V&A Museum announced major cuts in response to the pandemic. It’s merely the most recent national museum to do so and its situation is grimly familiar (although its reserves are substantial). With an annual structural deficit of £10 million, the museum proposes to shed 140 of its 980 staff. Among the redundancies are 30 curatorial posts and 20 posts are threatened in the National Art Library. How this devastating cut squares with the director’s recent assurances to the Telegraph that the library ‘remains a fundamental part of the V&A and the proposals would expand its remit and open it up to new audiences in the future’ is not clear. Athena is not merely concerned by the depth of the cuts, but the connected plan…

WITH their sword-shaped foliage and elegant branching heads of flowers in sunshine-rich colours, crocosmias, most of which are found in South Africa, make wonderful garden plants. Surprisingly, given that there are only seven species in the gene pool, there are plenty to choose from. They come in varying heights and their foliage can differ from neatly pleated bright green to soft brown or grey. They begin to flower in July, with the popular bright-red Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ being one of the earliest. The giant-flowered honeyed orange ‘Star of the East’ (1910) and ‘Castle Ward Late’ (pre-1985) will often linger into October. Flower and petal shape vary, differences that have attracted plant breeders ever since the French nurseryman Victor Lemoine (1823–1911) crossed a stream-side species, C. pottsii, with C. aurea, a woodland…

Summer nights Enjoy the outdoors long into the evening with the Monterey 86½in by 57in elliptical dining table with a firepit in its ceramic top. It comes with eight armchairs in Sandstone, £3,356, from Bramblecrest (01285 760974; www.bramblecrest.com) Making a splash Splash Lounge consists of eight units made from sustainably sourced prime oak that can be configured to suit your space. The cushions can be upholstered in a choice of colours, from £3,570 for a single seat (01420 588444; www.gazeburvill.com) Weathering well Made from powder-coated aluminium and all weather wicker, the Vincent Sheppard Lucy lounge chair and footrest, £1,038 for set, are meant for outdoors, from Lagoon (020–7129 1309; www.vivalagoon.com) Easy living Designed for support, the Rowena rocking sunbed is perfect for lazy days. It costs £625 for the double,…

Acer palmatum ‘Bloodgood’ (AGM). Probably the best straightforward crimson-leaved maple, this is a multi-trunked tree that grows to 15ft–20ft in height and 12ft–15ft in width. The leaves are large and deeply cut, pale red in spring, turning to dusky purple and finally to fiery crimson in autumn-handsome at all seasons. ‘Bloodgood' prefers shelter and part-shade, but is sometimes a free-standing specimen Acer palmatum ‘Crimson Queen’ (AGM). This American selection is the best of the red Dissectums. Its deeply cut leaves open red, but turn purple-crimson in summer, then finish scarlet in autumn. It mounds up to create a feathery cascade, wider than tall, its weeping habit attractive even when leafless, typically 7ft tall and 10ft wide after 15 years Acer palmatum ‘Emerald Lace’ (AGM) is perhaps the most exquisitely ‘Japanese'…

The noble form of Hydrangea paniculata is deservedly fashionable. It is the prince of late-summer shrubs. Now is the time to prune it. Bring your secateurs and cut out any puny or badly placed shoots, standing back to view the effect. Cut each remaining shoot back to a stout pair of buds. It flowers on the current season's growth, like a rose. The harder you prune, the greater the response, so cut low down to a hairbrush framework. In a fortnight, you will see the response.…

The ferrymen of London were skilled men who knew how to ride the currents and would tout for business with the cry of ‘oars oars sculls oars oars'. Fixed routes included Woolwich Ferry, mentioned in 1308, and the Tilbury to Gravesend passage, where the future Charles I and the Duke of Buckingham sought to cross incognito in 1623 and were arrested as spies when they attempted to pay with gold. In Lambeth, Horseferry Road marks where a barge carried people from 1367 and horses from 1513; Southwark Cathedral was once the convent of St Mary Overie, who, legend has it, took over her father's route from City to Southwark and founded the convent in her grief after the death of her lover. In his 1598 A Survey of London, John…

30,000BC Oldest known star chart is created in Germany on a Mammoth tusk 8,000BC Oldest known lunar calendar in the world is built in Aberdeen 3,500BC Egyptians invent sundials and shadow clocks 550BC Anaximander offers the first scientific explanation of the universe 355BC Heraclides claims that the sky is stationary and the earth spins 350BC Aristotle claims that the earth is at the centre of the universe 300BC Eratosthenes invents the armillary sphere showing the motion of the stars 129BC Hipparchus completes the first catalogue of the stars 1543 Copernicus publishes his theory that planets orbit around the sun 1608 An unknown inventor creates the first telescope in the Netherlands 1609 Galileo builds a better telescope and discovers thousands of hitherto unseen stars, the moons of Jupiter, the turning of…

If you want to sound like a professional astronomer, drop these words casually into conversation Earthshine Sunlight reflected by the earth that makes the otherwise dark part of the moon glow faintly Gibbous When a body (say, the moon) appears more than half illuminated (from gibbus, Latin for ‘hump') Libration A slight tipping and tilting of the moon from week to week. Not to be confused with libation Messier object One of 103 star clusters, nebulas and galaxies compiled by French comet hunter Charles Messier in the 18th century. Not to be confused with teenagers' bedrooms Seeing A measure of the atmosphere's stability. Poor seeing makes objects waver or blur when viewed in a telescope at high magnification…

Jelena Cvjetkovic, director at Savills International (020–7016 3754), and Jack Harris, Knight Frank associate (020–7861 1139), share their tips on how to navigate the world of remote property-buying Do your research. Ideally, you'll already know your chosen area well and have narrowed your selection down to a few key locations or even properties Carefully look at all the information that is already available online, from photographs to pre-recorded video tours Research Streetview and get to know the immediate area around the property. Check online maps to scout for railway lines, stations, major roads or other buildings for potential sources of noise Talk to the agent to ascertain whether you and the property are a good fit Prepare all your questions beforehand-what do you really want to see up close? Make…

Quiz of the week 1) Established in 1791, which is Britain's oldest Sunday newspaper? 2) In Greek mythology, what did ferryman Charon transport across the River Styx? 3) What was the middle name of Wolfgang Mozart? 4) Sirimavo Bandaranaike was the world's first woman to take up what office? 5) The brightly coloured bird Alcedo atthis is more commonly known by what name? Word of the week Daddock (noun) A piece of rotten wood; a decayed tree or log Time to buy ‘… while the sun and wind played gently in its spreading branches; the bells of the Donskoy monastery would sometimes float across–tranquil and sad–and I would sit and gaze and listen, and would be filled with a nameless sensation which had everything in it; sorrow and joy,…

The kitchen garden at Nevill Holt appears on a plan of 1661, near a dovecote and a hawk mews. These days, it is intended for guests during the opera festival, when the atmosphere is relaxed to the point of cosiness. This is because the garden is full-not with fruit and vegetables, but with plants that take up space and require little attention. Potatoes and strawberries provide a kind of groundcover, with large areas devoted to asparagus. Currant bushes offer middle-storey volume, together with flowers, which claim 50% of the space. ‘It feels intimate because we've filled it up,' says Rupert Golby. ‘It's had more and more material put in, adding to its charm and character.' Shaped yew and Portuguese laurel give a sense of formality and lavender edging increases in…

Crocosmia plants are mainly found in South Africa, but they also exist in Malawi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho, Madagascar and Tanzania. Some grow on forest fringes, others cling to watercourses and one, Crocosmia pearsei, is found only on arid basalt cliffs in the Drakensberg Mountains of South Africa. Habitats differ widely, but their petals are pigment-packed with a carotenoid named crocin, so the flowers don't fade in overhead sun. In their native land, their tubular flowers attract a range of pollinators, including sunbirds, and, when planted on the west coast of the US, crocosmias are visited by hummingbirds. Nectar is abundant and their flowers attract all pollinators, including bees, hoverflies and butterflies. They're also attractive to wasps and may even keep them from your fruit crops.…

GARDENS have featured in hospitals for thousands of years, a circumstance favoured by Florence Nightingale. Green care, or exposure to plants and gardening, has beneficial effects on mood and mental health simply by observing Nature. Even seeing images of natural scenes can help. Viewing plants lowers stress, fear, anger and sadness, as well as blood pressure, pulse rate and muscle tension. The charity MIND compared short walks through a garden with walks in a shopping complex—the former improved mental health, the latter made it worse. Working in the garden restores dexterity and strength—half an hour of digging and shovelling burns 250 calories, raking 100 calories, mowing 195 calories and weeding 105 calories—so no need to renew the gym membership, either.…

Westonbirt in Gloucestershire has the National Collection of Acer japonicum and Acer palmatum (Japanese cvs). Visit www.forestryengland.uk/westonbirt-the-national-arboretum • When buying a Japanese maple, it is best to visit a nursery or garden centre to choose the individual plant that suits you best. Sometimes cultivars, such as ‘Atropurpureum' and ‘Bloodgood', are grown from seed, but they never come completely true to type, so it is important to establish that what you are buying was grown from a cutting or grafted from a true plant. • Barthelemy Maples, near Wimborne, Dorset (01202 874283; www.barthelemymaples.co.uk) • Bluebell Nursery, near Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire (01530 413700; www.bluebellnursery.com) • Paramount Plants, Enfield, Middlesex (020–8367 8809; www.paramountplants.co.uk) • Mill Garden Centre, Armadale, Scotland (01501 732347; www.millgardencentre.co.uk) • Larchfield Trees, only at shows (024–7654 3067; www.larchfieldtrees.co.uk)…

• Hip flask or, at a pinch, a thermos flask because, baby, it is cold outside • Waterproof blanket-the best way to stargaze is lying on the ground • Deckchair (allows simultaneous sipping and stargazing) • Red LED light (allows you to see without being blinded) and compass (for obvious reasons) • A planisphere or ‘star wheel': an idiot-proof (I know, because I can use one) device a bit like a round slide rule that allows you to find stars and constellations (but not planets, obviously, as they change position all the time) like a pro astronomer • A month-by-month stargazing guide: Philip's or Collins are both excellent • A good pair of binoculars, which are easier to use than a telescope, although they won't give you anything like the…

Watch May for Draco, the cosmic dragon, a constellation that lies between the two bears. Also, for two evening stars: Venus and Mercury. Don't miss the Eta Aquarids meteor shower on the night of May 5/6 or the biggest and brightest full moon of 2021, on the 26th June This is the month to spot the wonderful summer constellations of Corona Borealis, Delphinus, Scorpius and Hercules. Watch for Antares, which rivals Mars in ruddiness. Don't miss an eclipse of the sun starting at 10am on June 10 (although it may only be partial, depending on where you live) July On a balmy summer evening, you should be able to see four planets: Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, as well as Sagittarius and Scorpius (to the south). Don't miss Aquila, the…

TO mow or not to mow. That was the question recently raised by Monty Don, provoking the inevitable flurry of outrage. Scratch at the compacted turf and it’s clear that the lawns in his sights are precision-striped, dosed with weedkiller and mown to within a quarter-inch of their monocultural lives, but his words did leave the general impression that lawns are a Bad Thing. The lawn as we understand it didn’t exist until the 17th century. The RHS Dictionary of Gardening notes the first recorded use in 1674: it refers to ‘an area covered with grass, or other plants, usually closely mown to produce a dense low cover’. The medieval lawn was a meadow jewelled with flowers, of the sort stood upon by the Lady and her Unicorn in the…

Rare birds A Lady Amherst pheasant, thought to be extinct in the wild in Britain, has been spotted strutting about in a garden in St Andrews I wandered lonely as a Buddhist Alfoxton Park, Somerset -where Wordsworth lived for a year-could become a Buddhist retreat, subject to council approval; it has been empty for 15 years and is listed on Historic England's Register Israeli archaeologists A Biblical scroll hidden in about AD132–136 has been discovered in a Judean Desert cave, the first since some 900 Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the 1940s and 1950s Silver linings Almost two-thirds of Britons (65%) say watching Nature from the window has lifted their mood this past year, 47% will spend more time outside from now on and 36% are more aware…

FOR the first time, members of the public can sponsor a National Plant Collection. The money raised will help Plant Heritage to safeguard the 95,000 garden plants in its care, via 666 National Plant Collections all over the country. ‘These “living libraries” are the key to preventing plants that have fallen out of fashion and are no longer commercially available from being lost forever,’ explains conservation manager Vicki Cooke. The 16 collections available for sponsorship include Sir Cedric Morris’s irises in Suffolk, hybrid musk roses at Dutton Hall, Lancashire, miniature orchids in Surrey, wisteria in Cumbria and Mylnefield lilies in Perthshire. Visit www.plantheritage.org.uk/how-can-you-help/sponsor-the-national-plant-collections…

MY first great passion was horse racing. I grew up marvelling at the exploits of Lester Piggott and horses such as Nijinsky, Mill Reef and Dancing Brave, but, above all, I adored the jumpers. Red Rum changed my life, I even own a small piece of his tail and because of him I left university and got my first job at Newmarket working for the great auction company Tattersalls. I rode in point-to-points and galloped horses across the peerless turf of racing’s headquarters. Last week saw the Cheltenham Festival dominated by Irish victories, including the remarkable dual Grand National winner Tiger Roll, who won his fifth race at the Festival. The sport needed a fillip after pictures of the now banned trainer Gordon Elliott had appeared with him sitting on…

THE Daily Chronicle is to be congratulated on starting a good agitation when it advocates a ‘keep to the left’ rule on the pathway. Streets like the Strand are often nearly impassable just now —indeed, they are in that condition more or less during the whole of the year; and, whether the pedestrian keeps to the left or the right, he is certain to encounter jostlers who follow an exactly opposite rule, with the result that there are stoppages and small collisions and hindrances and outbursts of temper, whereas if a ‘keep to the left’ rule were rigidly enforced there would be less danger, more comfort, and the pedestrian could move about more quickly. In the North—in Edinburgh for instance—this has been in force as long as we can remember,…

The Wild Isles: An Anthology of the Best of British and Irish Nature Writing, edited by Patrick Barkham (Head of Zeus, £25) What better way to start each day than by dipping into this attractive collection of prose writings that enrich our bond with the natural world? The author of The Butterfly Isles and Badgerlands has selected 67 pieces by our best-known, as well as many other, writers in the field under 14 broad-ranging themes. He includes a brief history of modern British Nature writing, from its birth with the Revd Gilbert White to its recent revival.…

THE rain it raineth every day’—and don’t we know it this year. My raised vegetable beds are more like paddling pools. However, far more important than my flooded garlic is the effect of so much rainfall on agriculture, which has made spring planting a huge challenge. This is particularly hard for many farmers because autumn 2020 was so wet that they couldn’t plant winter crops. They had to switch to the spring, although those crops are less profitable. Sadly, however carefully farmers plan, the weather often dictates. It’s a situation so unlike what’s normally encountered in urban life that few townspeople grasp its centrality. Yet, in the country, the weather is often the defining factor—as this year’s sugar-beet saga shows. ‘Weather has been the margin between feast and famine since…

Skye McAlpine is a chef, food blogger and author. Her book A Table for Friends is out now (Bloomsbury, £26) ‘When I was little, my parents would take me to Mass every Sunday morning. Part of the charm of going to church in Venice is the wealth of different churches to choose from–each one more splendid than the next. Most weeks, we’d go somewhere different. My favourite was San Zaccaria, a small, quite cosy church. I would sit and stare at Bellini’s altarpiece, happily gazing at it for hours: the colours so vibrant and yet also gentle, the soft light, the infectious peace of the painting that somehow always made me feel calm inside, and the ornate detailing–more beautiful than any photograph could ever be. Even now, it’s my…

1 A Year Full of Flowers by Sarah Raven (£25; Bloomsbury) A brilliantly helpful guide to filling the garden with successive waves of colour. Jonathan Buckley’s photographs make one want to rush out and start planting. This is a great book for resetting jaded palettes and includes recommendations for standout varieties, as well as a detailed month-by-month calendar of what to do that’s packed with excellent advice. Ideal for: reinventing your borders 2 The Naturally Beautiful Garden by Kathryn Bradley-Hole (£45; Rizzoli) There is no reason why even the most sophisticated contemporary design cannot embrace, enhance and encourage Nature. Written by Kathryn Bradley-Hole, a former Gardens Editor of Country Life, this book gathers together images of 30 gardens from this country and around the…

• You need to let your eyes adjust before you start. The best way to do this is to close them for five minutes and then not look at anything bright (even a distant star) for at least 15 minutes. The more patient you are, the more you will see • You'll see more when the moon isn't full or close to being full • Learn to star hop. Find one thing that you recognise for certain and then-using a star map-work your way to where you want to go • Stargazing in an area with light pollution? The higher up you can get, perhaps on the top of a building, the more you will be able to see • Hold your hand up to the heavens at arm's length.…

Barry has been up since dawn trimming a few recalcitrant blades of grass and raking up six leaves. He's easily the first in the street to mow in the spring, but a surreptitious peer over the fence when putting the cat out last night revealed some newly immaculate lines on the neighbour's lawn. Still, his daffs were out earliest and his sweet peas will be photographed for the local paper again-it's all in the timing. He keeps a weather eye-from a chair in the spare bedroom -on next door's greenhouse. Barry will sweep the board at the veg show anyway, but local annoyance is mitigated by the generous supplies of cut flowers to the church and seedlings to the village school. KG…

The best known of Ford Madox Brown's paintings, Work, occupied the artist for 13 years, beginning in 1852. His inspiration was two-fold: a group of working men he saw digging a trench in Heath Street, Hampstead and Thomas Carlyle's view that ‘all work, even cotton-spinning, is noble'. The busy, peopled composition includes a woman carrying temperance tracts, entitled The Hodsman’s Haven, or Drink for Thirsty Souls. Jesus Washing Peter’s Feet is also typical of Madox Brown's attempts to re-create for his own time the religious subjects of the Old Masters. As so often, he worked on the painting over a number of years, including re-working the figure of Jesus, who originally-to critics' disparagement-wore only a towel around his waist.…

Crean & Company is an online contemporary art gallery that was only launched in December. Its first one-man show, ‘Soho to Montmatre' by Rupert Shrive (LaLune, right), includes a suitably titled series of ‘Lockdown Lives' (until April 30; www.creanandcompany.com). Although influenced by the School of London, notably Bacon, whom he knew in Soho, and one can happily play references from El Greco to Cubism, Mr Shrive is very much his own man: ‘My practice is much more about blurring the lines between genres.' I hope that it will be possible to make a physical visit to Messum's Wiltshire for its annual International and British ceramic show (until May 2; www.messumswiltshire.com).There are lovely things, by Koreans Lee Hun Chung and Ree Soo-Jong alongside Magdalene Odundo, Alison Britton, Carol McNichol, Martin Smith,…

SHOW me your garden,’ said Alfred Austin, who made a better plantsman than he did a Poet Laureate, ‘and I shall tell you what you are.’ Actually, I know what I am: indolent. I see myself as being like Isak—the protagonist in Knut Hamsun’s 1917 Nobel Prize-winning novel Growth of the Soil—living a peaceful, simple, industrious existence close to Nature. He was a man who found that ‘the majesty of the earth and what was above the earth filled him with a deep devoutness many times a day’. Indeed, Isak wanted nothing other than to work his land—to plant and harvest, clear and tend, hew and draw. Whereas the truth is that, although I like the idea of gardening, and enjoy it once I get started, beforehand I am inclined…