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It’s such a shame many tourists are in a mad rush, visiting Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania in just a few days,” said Amanda, as we arrived at Mālpils , a classical 19th-century manor with baroque-style grounds and now a design hotel and restaurant. “But things are changing – people are becoming more interested in Latvia’s nature.” A wood is always in the past tense. There was a slight breeze through the tracery of the silver birch. This, as Samuel Taylor Coleridge noted, is the most beautiful of trees, ‘the Lady of the Woods’, but it’s tough. It was the first tree to colonise Britain after the last Ice Age, so the sound of the wind in the birch’s naked branches was the sound of England’s February 10,000 years ago.” Had I been better acquainted with British names of flora and fauna, I would have enjoyed the book even more. I was sometimes not able to envision the animal or flower spoken of; I would guess and wonder which flower, plant, shrub or animal was referred to. Even in one language, terminology is not the same from country to country.
I'm not a fan of authors reading their own work, narration is a talent or skill that is better left to the professionals. Here though it is one of those exceptions, I would go so far as to say that I don't think anyone could have done it any better. Mark Wood is a true original and that comes through on the audiobook, where there is a sense of mischief and fun, especially where he reads the comments of friends and colleagues. There is one piece where he is quoting Joe Root and he can barely do it without sniggering and snorting, here is a man having too much fun, but it is infectious. Latvia’s tourism board is fully behind this shift. It wants to encourage visitors away from Riga, which is popular with both rowdy British stag-dos and city breakers enticed by the medieval old town and art nouveau architecture. It wants tourists to use Riga as a launch pad for trips into Latvia’s green lands for bird-watching, forest hiking and bog walks. I've been everywhere, from Barbados to Brisbane, Chester-le-Street to Chennai, waiting rooms to operating tables. I've played in some of the most exotic locations in the world and eaten margherita pizzas in every single one of them. Lewis-Stempel is a truly wonderful writer. I was going to call him a nature writer, but that's a term he baulks at. In his words he's a countryside writer - The quirky accommodation at Orchard Wagon features a spacious Shepherd's Hut with a hand-made double bed, there's also a field kitchen and campfire, with all cooking equipment provided. Cooking can be done on gas hobs, over an open fire on a BBQ grill or even using an old fashioned Dutch oven hanging from a tripod.
The Wood Life
Woodman’s Wagon is an unusual, hand-crafted tree house with views through the tree tops and out to sea. It has been loving built by woodsman, Matt Bate, and is set in its own 8 acre woodland. Imagine the freedom of a wild and wonderful woodland experience. Returning home from a holiday or business trip, the first thing he does is enter the wood to note the changes and to let it work its usual magic on him.
This is probably my first non-fiction book of the year. I’m not a huge fan of non-fiction and this one was largely a cover buy, although the fact that it had to do with a British Wood made it intriguing. My own foray into these immense woodlands was a four-day tour of the Vidzeme region, which covers central and northern Latvia. Despite being home to the capital, Riga, Vidzeme is characterised by forest, rolling hills (including Mount Gaiziņš, Latvia’s highest point at 311 metres), morainal lakes, the cliff-lined Gauja River and historic towns with medieval castles. It is a proud region, known as the “cradle of Latvian culture” for its rich artistic heritage. Lewis-Stempel, a very busy farmer, always took time out to sit in a cheap plastic picnic chair by the pond in the woods and allow himself to become immersed in his surroundings. First impression from the cover, the man himself with that expression and raised eyebrow, this is going to an amusing quirky book. On this score I was not disappointed.
Plants, fungi and lichens
I’ve been everywhere, from Barbados to Brisbane, Chester-le-Street to Chennai, waiting rooms to operating tables. I’ve played in some of the most exotic locations in the world and eaten margherita pizzas in every single one of them. Latvia is one of Europe’s greenest nations. Forest covers about half of the country (in the UK, it’s 13%). And this vast swathe of trees – over three million hectares of conifer, birch, white alder and aspen – has more than doubled in size since the 1920s.
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