It is good to know that quality tools built to last a lifetime are still around and will find a place in our lives again. Written in exquisite prose, The Running Hare tells the story of the wild animals and plants that live in and under our ploughland, from the labouring microbes to the patrolling kestrel above the corn, from the linnet pecking at seeds to the seven-spot ladybird that eats the aphids that eat the crop. Happiness can truly be enhanced by soil - scientists at the University of Bristol report that a specific soil bacterium Mycobacterium vaccae activates a set of serotonin releasing neurones in the dorsal raphe nucleus of the brain - the same ones targeted by Prozac. That’s why our carvery features three succulent meats and a veggie option, and is served daily in three different sizes. But Stemple brings all the same powers of observation and erudite rural knowledge, the same passion and nostalgia to a wheat field that he brought to his mountain farm meadow.

Fields once filled with birdsong, insects and wild flowers have become “silent, sterile, open-roofed factories for agribusiness”. Each has pamment or brick floors throughout the ground floor with a secure outside space at each, making them ideal for dogs who are very welcome at no extra cost.His history of farming in England, Woodston, published in 2021, also became a Sunday Times bestseller. He has written on a range of subjects from Native Americans to fatherhood, but specialises in military history and natural history under his family name. What John Lewis-Stempel achieves in such a small area and in so short a time, not to mention his ability to bring it all so vividly to life for the reader, is nothing short of astounding.

which only serves to reinforce the argument many people have with environmentalist/re-wilding movements which is that you have to be extremely wealthy to begin with. Fans of Lewis-Stempel's bestselling Meadowland will find here the same easy-reading prose fuelled by daft-as-a-brush enthusiasm and embellished with lyrical flourishes . If you spot brown hares 'boxing' in the fields, it is most likely that you are watching a female warding off the advances of an amorous male, not two males fighting. By taking an abandoned field close to his farm, he observes in minute detail the behaviour of plants, birds and animals that are being displaced by agribusiness. He also includes some beautiful poetry and lots of interesting facts about the creatures that he comes across.Our overworked and abused farmlands have long been avoided and abandoned by wildlife and birds who have gradually lessened or even disappeared with the removal of old traditions.