Country Life
BY IAN NIALL
ANOTHER milestone in the progress of the season—the hawthorns are in flower again. There is always something nostalgic in the scents of may, honeysuckle and meadowsweet so far as I am concerned. Meadowsweet is associated in my mind with summer grown old, like the scent of the tea-roses that were trained on the wall of my grandfather's house and carried their heavy blooms round about harvest time. Honeysuckle and meadowsweet are at their best in the evening but the flower of the white thorn is, I think, a morning delight to be enjoyed fully after a gentle shower. The scent takes me back to days when, as a small boy, I searched the banks for the nests of yellow-hammers, partridges and hedge-sparrows, or paddled the stream to tickle little trout sheltering beneath slabs of rock. The may is in full flower again and it is a long time since I caught trout with my hands or disturbed the nesting yellow-hammer, but every year there is a moment when I stop, take a breath of hawthorn-scented air and day- dream a while.
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