Tuesday, 11 July 2017

Changing Colours.

Something I find pleasant about a mixed rural landscape is watching the colours in the patchwork of fields act as a seasonal marker.

Through winter and early spring the pastoral fields remain green, but the arable fields are the dull brown of ploughed earth. As the spring develops and the arable crops grow, the view becomes uniformly green. When high summer comes around the wheat and barley fields are gradually gilded until the patchwork is coloured green and yellow. After the harvest it’s green and tan from the lying straw. And then the land is ploughed, the muck is spread, and we’re back to green and brown.

The only time I don’t find it appealing is when there’s been a snowfall and the landscape is uniformly white. Most people find that strange. ‘But you’re supposed to like snow,’ they say. (Actually they mostly don’t, but that’s what they’re thinking.)

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