Walk around Juniper Hill and Fringford
10 miles
with Flora Thompson
Lark Rise to Candleford
is a 3 part semi-autobiographical account
of Flora's life in the English Countryside
before the industrial world began to expand.
If you love nature and the beauty of
small villages you will love her writing.
I would classify it as a "love song"
to a bygone era.
Favorite quote
"Nearer at hand were the trees and
bushes and wild-flower patches beside the path
she had trodden daily.
The pond where the yellow brandyball waterlilies grew,
the little birch thicket where the long-tailed tits
had congregated, the boathouse where she had sheltered
from the thunderstorm and seen the rain plash
like leaden bullets into the leaden water,
and the hillock beyond from which
she had seen the perfect rainbow.
She was never to see any of these again
but she was to carry a mental picture of them,
to be recalled at will, through
the changing scenes of a lifetime.
As she went on her way,
gossamer threads, spun from bush to bush,
barricaded her pathway,
and as she broke through one after another
of these fairy barricades she thought
"They're trying to bind and keep me."
But the threads which were to bind her
to her native county were more enduring than gossamer.
They were spun of love and kinship
and cherished memories."
