So honoured to have the absolute legend that is @maryannochota.bsky.social choose #TheFlow as her pick on Radio 4 A Good Read today. Available to listen at leisure here www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Protective gear when pruning… husband repurposing Dad’s Royal Berkshire Fire Brigade Officer’s helmet. Dad would have approved. Paramedic-Fire Brigade jokes would ensue about rescuing cats from trees & picking drunk people off the floor. Both with knowledge of what we cannot know; however close.

The planes just came over as I wrote this. A new blogpost about how the countryside is often not natural, and this includes being a place for war. open.substack.com/pub/susannah...

Some hold to the misguided belief farmland does not sing to the witch. They fetishize ferality to the point they exclude the truth that every place has it songs. Fields sing of what is buried below, sing of libation thirst. Their tangled borders are spirit trap. – #EmilyCBanting #WitchSky

Saturday's Together Alliance march was incredible. We know that the far-right are looking at the USA - the mass arrests, the political violence, the deportations - and they see a blueprint. Here's how we stop them:

A blackthorn winter (this morning’s sky.) Rainy village now ringing with the shouts & singing of DoE teen walkers. Massive backpacks & lots of terrible shoes, but it’s joyous. Some are lost, then return, righting themselves, others encourage & cheer those that are struggling. The kids are alright.

Submissions are open! Delighted to be a judge for Natasha Carthew & Octopus Books’ Common Ground Nature Writing Prize, for writers self-identifying as working class. 1,000 words or less, in any form & great prizes! Further details & link to submit, here: www.octopusbooks.co.uk/landing-page...

Will you take a look at these? All our eras, remade … so clever & beautiful (& ordered!) #SmallProphets

Loved this book, & these women! @sarahjlonsdale.bsky.social

So lovely to talk across the Atlantic to @katiehillwriter.bsky.social for Offrange, 'the untold stories just beyond the fence line of American agriculture.' We had a lot in common! ambrook.com/offrange/per... #GhostsoftheFarm #WomeninAgriculture #ruralwomen @chelseagreenbooks.bsky.social

So lovely to talk across the Atlantic to @katiehillwriter.bsky.social for Offrange, 'the untold stories just beyond the fence line of American agriculture.' We had a lot in common! ambrook.com/offrange/per... #GhostsoftheFarm #WomeninAgriculture #ruralwomen @chelseagreenbooks.bsky.social

Fresh for galloping!

Even though it’s officially Spring , #Dartmoor still like to send us hail 🙂, Plasterdown this afternoon, #Devon. #photography

Another reason why we never light fires on this farm. We pile up the logs and make dead hedging with the brash, creating new edge habitats for invertebrates that, in turn, feed birds and hedgehogs. Sadly, other farmers see this as eccentric, even subversive.

Remembering to stop for lunch by the treat of a Guardian Country Diary from the ever-brilliant, galvanising @katebradbury.bsky.social! ‘I stop tree surgeons & ask if I can take a log or two, replacing the sadness of another felled tree with the hope of the life its dead wood will support’.

It’s the time of year when I remember the Swedish word ‘gökotta’ – roughly: getting up early to experience birdsong – and I commend both the word and the activity to the house.

A blackthorn winter, a lambing storm, a foal-storm. I could hear the lambs, one field over, bleating & running to their ewes for cover & comfort under their woolley bellies. Sometimes, still, the weather & seasons remember their pattern.

My old Library has been reopened as an Arts, Culture & Community Hub & I couldn’t be more thrilled @cornexchangenew.bsky.social (The big new Library recently had its 25yr anniversary.) Positivity, joy, collaboration & expression in these dark times. Keep the light on, eh?

Dog (not ball obsessed) watching his friend watching a ball with a collie-stare meant for commanding flocks. Occasionally, that stare pierces my book, like a magnifying glass focusing the sun. This dear pair of doggos are the ones that broke my (now healed) leg & are the key to me getting fit again.

1/2 Huge thanks @bsbicountries.bsky.social @nicwilson.bsky.social @nicolawriting.bsky.social #MelissaHarrison #TiffanyFrancisBaker #TristanGooley #Petermarren @akpurkiss.bsky.social for making our #WatchingNarrowly Natural History Book Day @gilbertwhite.bsky.social #Selborne a wonderful experience

It's a storm pegs and prayers kinda day for the laundry #Shetland

Whether you’re a fan, or have not read @theguardian.com’s daily Country Diary before, don’t miss this from @amyjanebeer.bsky.social Writing at its finest, about the fragility, resilience & beauty of the world, the things we live with, & are living through.

Do not pander. Do not dumb down. Trust your audience to be smarter than you. Trust them to be curious. Don’t erase your own voice for spurious bowing down to factors that bring nothing to the stories you need to tell. #Writing

& still sometimes you look up from yr desk to a vertigo of sorts - the ionic tower of the power station, the flat topped hill, are in the wrong place & with wrong distance between them - nothing is where you laid it down

Thanks to @foldedorset.bsky.social and Shaftesbury Book Festival for the brilliant Reading the Land event. The only festival where the speakers were briefly eclipsed by the discovery of some nearby Miner Bees. So lovely to talk with @nicolawriting.bsky.social about her wonderful Ghosts of the Farm

Wonderful time at Shaftesbury Book Festival for Reading the Land - a fantastic gathering of speakers & a full-house for me & @sarahjlonsdale.bsky.social’s talk about brilliant women in history defying expectations in ‘Her Outdoors.’ What a line-up & setting too!

Lovely Festival day @gilbertwhites.bsky.social, in the most beautiful, historic setting. Thanks team for the warm welcome! (With @nicwilson.bsky.social)

Believable though. Suspicion spreads to other Wallops (Over & Middle) who point to nearby Wildhern, where the faithful gamekeeper, promised a house for life by the same Marquess, & who donated his life's collection of predator & man traps to @themerl.bsky.social, also finds himself disinherited.

Had a great time at Shaftesbury book fest. Spoke to a full house about The Lie of the Land & recent wins on the Land Registry, land use framework & pheasants! Was lovely to see @lucylapwing.bsky.social talk about her new book, & catch up with @drmjwarren.bsky.social @nicolawriting.bsky.social

Such a gorgeous day!

Tea with a wonderful 94yr old & his niece nr the Bloomsberries Ham Spray House, under the downs. A rambling house filled with love, art & books & a garden of fritillaries, light & daffodils. They’d read #GhostsoftheFarm & knew the incredible ’MdeB.’ A mile away, but deeper into the storied land.

Missed this yesterday. Wonderful action & words. Made me teary. @derekniemann.bsky.social ‘I can look all the way across the stick-sprouting field today & understand that all our hope & belief comes, not from what we see in the future, but what we won’t.’

“Any idea that this is part of some time-honoured English tradition is absolute rubbish. This is an almost wholly unregulated industry. I am glad to see it being licensed.” I spoke to the Times on why we shouldn’t let landowners release 50million pheasants per year: www.thetimes.com/uk/environme...

Daughter has given me permission to share this, driving with Dad around Swindon’s Magic Roundabout. This, skirting its edge on a quiet day. And other roundabouts in the town are actually worse… yeet those L plates girl! Ayyy ladz. #ThisCountry

What a beautiful day. Tons to do & a world to worry about, but inbetween, I nicked out to begin wilding up the garden we now share with Mum (we are compromising) with wildy plants bought from Hungerford Market, heard the first chiff chaffs & watched the sun go down through a filter of Saharan dust.

Daughter has given me permission to share this, driving with Dad around Swindon’s Magic Roundabout. This, skirting its edge on a quiet day. And other roundabouts in the town are actually worse… yeet those L plates girl! Ayyy ladz. #ThisCountry

For those that have been following the pain & frustration of the UK #drivingtests situation, particularly the inequality for rural teens, SWINDON IS CONQUERED! L plates have been yeeted, adult life can start, near-NEET* be damned, & the clock-watching worry begins again (3rd child.)

Just a few tickets left for the Shaftesbury Book Festival Reading the Land event, where I'll be in conversation with @nicolawriting.bsky.social to discuss this wonderful book, and Wildly Different. We've called it "Her Outdoors"! Shaftesbury Book Festival www.ticketsource.co.uk/booking/sele...

The first-ever Land Use Framework for England has been published. I think it is the most far-sighted plan for England's land since the Second World War. Here's my thoughts on what it does (& doesn't) do: 1/ www.gov.uk/government/p...

'One of the finest rural affairs & nature writers out there' @mrjamesob.bsky.social @lbc.co.uk? Thank you! Great interview with @guyshrubsole.bsky.social: 'this country belongs to everybody & this is about creating a greater sense of belonging in England. That’s what true patriotism... should be.'

Ghosts of the Farm, a lively, haunting fusion of memoir & historical biography: of forgotten, rural women’s lives, 60-80yrs apart, in the same fields. Shortlisted @rjaward.bsky.social A Spectator Book of the Year, feat on BBCR4’s Ramblings. ‘Nicola is the John Clare of our time’ (Guy Shrubsole) 1/3

This is a game-changing, hugely important piece of work that history will remember. Hard work, diligence, resilience & tenacity paying off for the greater good. @guyshrubsole.bsky.social is a folk hero for our times. 'An ambitious step towards making England a greener, fairer & more pleasant land.'

This! @sarahjlonsdale.bsky.social’s book Wildly Different is an incredible achievement. Chasing down the ghosts of these pioneering, forgotten women, it’s a wonderfully vivid account. Our ‘ghosts’ have much in common. Thrilled to be chatting with Sarah this Sunday! www.shaftesburybookfestival.com

Know that, even in your most relaxed, off-guard & safe states, there is almost always, a duck, watching…

At Shaftesbury Book Festival’s Reading the Land this weekend, & couldn’t be more excited. Amazing line-up. Speaking with Sarah Lonsdale about the incredible women in our books (her Wildly Different is brilliant!) Only a few tix left! www.shaftesburybookfestival.com

This is such good news. Amazing, otherworldly birds. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Had the utter joy & honour of a #BBCCountryfile #Plodcast with old friend & former editor @blorengeviews.bsky.social - & boy didn’t we cover a lot! Accompanied by the spirit of Julia White & the #GhostsoftheFarm, the modern rural, & too much laughter from me! @chelseagreenbooks.bsky.social

We have wild beavers! A brilliant, exciting, informative meeting at St John’s Church (rebuilt after a WWII bombing raid) in Newbury. Well done Action for the River Kennet @beavertrust.org Vital to work together in these times of nature/climate crisis & welcome such a key animal back to our rivers.

The familiar, thunderous roll of big guns, the beaten air of hedge-hopping chinooks, & low, unlit night-flights of army helicopters from Salisbury Plain, will never not be unsettling. But woken for the 2nd night by big US planes from RAF Fairford is giving chilling, 1980s Greenham Common vibes.

Wonderful evening celebrating @lucylapwing.bsky.social’s book launch #LoveisaToad. Humbled to be one of the nature nerds in this brilliant, sparkling book. Chris Packham spoke so eloquently & movingly about why this book matters, why what we care about matters, & what we must continue to do 1/2