I was born, bred, and spent my earlier years in stone wall country, and I still miss it after and absence of 65 years
. Now we live where most of the boundaries are fences or hedges. When we used to go riding down the local bridle paths we could see over the hedges beautifully. The local farmer and his brother were often out in the winter months layering the hawthorn hedges in the time honoured fashion. Nowadays, where do you see a layered hedge? Driving along our country lanes earlier I was struck by how damaged some of them were. The use of tractors and mechanical cutters mutilate them horribly. Some have grown so much they are more like linear copses. one road near us the hedge has grown so wide that although trimmed on both sides it has what I can only describe as a Mohican haircut its whole length. Another road, with hedges either side, they have been allowed to grow so tall that only the sides can be cut and the tops have grown to meet each other and form a tunnel for a couple of hundred yards or more (or possibly metres
).
This "tunnel" did afford us a beautiful experience not so long ago however. We were just driving into it when a red kite swept down and got trapped in the tunnel in front of us. It was flying at about the same speed as I was driving so we followed this enormous bird with just about 10 feet between it and my windscreen and it's forked tail. When we reached the end of the "tunnel" it just soared high into the sky.
Eric H.
