Nic has been a Country Diarist for The Guardian since 2020. She feels privileged to be able to write about the local landscape and wildlife that she loves.
Recent Country Diaries:
- Therfield Heath, Hertfordshire: Soft and felty beyond belief, these springtime tremblers are also highly scarce – yet here are tens of thousands of them As spring days lengthen and “smale foweles maken melodye”, like Chaucer’s “sondry folk” I long to go […]
- St Albans Cathedral, Hertfordshire: The chapel here is a wonderful curiosity, thanks to its restoration by a green-fingered Victorian sculptorAll’s quiet in the Lady Chapel, sheltered from the bustle of the city by thick limestone walls of Totternhoe clunch, quarried just […]
- Hitchin, Hertfordshire: It’s not quick, it’s not graceful, but these early nesters are hard at work in preparation for egg-laying in a few weeksIs it too early to whisper the S word? If so, I blame the magpies. Every day for […]
- Waresley, Cambridgeshire: In a near-freezing lake, I’m treated to an up-close view of one of my favourite birdsThe spring-fed lake is a picture of tranquillity this morning. On the far side, ivy-clad trees touch trunks with their watery counterparts, creating an […]
