Words as to the inner emotions do not come readily to me, for I have led an isolated life mentally and spiritually.

Candleford Green was but a small village and there were fields and meadows and woods all around it. As soon as Laura crossed the doorstep, she could see some of these. But mere seeing from a distance did not satisfy her; she longed to go alone far into the fields and hear the birds singing, the brooks tinkling, and the wind rustling through the corn, as she had when a child. To smell things and touch things, warm earth and flowers and grasses, and to stand and gaze where no one could see her, drinking it all in.

The luxuries of the few were becoming necessities of the many.

It was still the custom of the countryside to build with local materials produced as close to the selected site as possible, for transport was difficult, even the best of country roads being more fitted for horseback traffic rather than heavy loads.

So quiet and subtle is the beauty of December that escapes the notice of many people their whole lives through. Colour gives way to form: every branch distinct, in a delicate tracery against the sky. New vistas, obscured all Summer by leafage, now open up.

We cannot bring the good old days back but, if we must eat mass-made foods, get laws passed to insist upon its goodness and purity.

It is the fashion to talk of our changing climate and bewail the hot summers and hard winters of tradition, but how seldom we pause to marvel at the remarkable constancy of the weather from year to year.