Countryside Contemplations: Reflections on Our Wild Wonders

By Trigger Publishing

'In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.' - Margaret Atwood.

Through evocative passages and quotes inspired by the countryside, this stunningly packaged book offers a rare opportunity to slow down, step back and receive the natural restorative power of nature. The contemplative words will transport you to a space of quiet reflection as you simply sit... and be.

'Soon will the high Midsummer prompts come in Soon will the musk carnations break and swell Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon Sweet-William with his homely cottage-smell And stocks in fragrant blow Roses that down the alleys shine afar And open, jasmine-muffled lattices' ...- Mathew Arnold, 'Thyrisis: A Monody to Commemorate the Author's Friend, Arthur Hugh Clough.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trigger Publishing
• Release date: Mar 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781837963317

Trigger Publishing

Trigger Publishing is an independent publishing house specialising in books on mental health and wellbeing. Our aim is to open the conversation around mental health and to promote wellbeing.

Book preview

ON LANDSCAPE

To the lost man, to the pioneer penetrating a new country, to the naturalist who wishes to see the wild land at its wildest, the advice is always the same – follow a river. The river is the original forest highway. It is nature’s own Wilderness Road.

EDWIN WAY TEALE, naturalist

There is pleasure in the pathless woods,

there is rapture in the lonely shore,

there is society where none intrudes,

by the deep sea, and music in its roar;

I love not Man the less,

but Nature more.

LORD BYRON, poet

The hot day is the first day of summer. The day when you realise that there can be too much sunshine, the day when the heat strikes up from bare soil and reflects back from walls and buildings, the day, above all others, when you can truthfully say, ‘Thank goodness I am not in a town.’

RALPH WIGHTMAN, farmer and broadcaster

PAUSE FOR THOUGHT

What a scene was that corn-field under the hot August sky! Fiery red glowed the faces of the harvestmen, against the golden back-ground, a sea of waving wheat, the famed ruddy-hued wheat of Talavera. Not a cloud obscured the burning blue heavens, whilst beyond the standing corn showed here and there a bit of foliage, lofty hedge starred with wild roses or low pollard oaks of deep rich green.

As the afternoon drew on the sultriness increased, and these brilliant contrasts of colour grew more intense. Southern warmth and gorgeousness seemed to invest that Suffolk harvest field. But the bucolic mood of the reapers had passed. As the sickles moved automatically backwards and forwards, not a word passed their lips, a regiment of deaf mute were hardly quieter. From time to time, at a signal of the leader, each stood up, wiped his brow, shook himself, took a draught of beer, interchanged a word with his fellow, then resumed work vigorously as before.

The sun sank behind the pollard oaks and twilight succeeded, hardly bringing coolness. A little later, although no breeze sprang up, pleasant freshness lightened their labours; another and yet another drink from the master’s can lent new strength, long after moon rising, that mechanical swing of twenty arms, that gleam of twenty sickles went on. Deep, almost solemn silence reigned over the corn-field. Only the rustle of footsteps and wheat falling on the stover broke the stillness, a stillness and