Country diary: Waking the sleepers to a garden of riches

Madingley Hall, Cambridge: I find my students a fallen bird's nest and a cuckoo flower. They teach me a new way to hear a greenfinchMy students are still abed when I slip into the gardens on my morning recce. Though all are gifted writers, most have slept a lifetime without waking up to nature. My task this afternoon will be to fuel their senses into producing a country diary of their walk around the grounds of this university hall. Most hail from different countries, different continents even.One student from the Gulf will not hear this dawn chorus; unnerved by the silence of England after dark, her lullaby is an aircon app. Another told me over dinner of hearing a "techno bird", and now I enter her aural world in the treetops - the drowsy, distorted amp buzz of a greenfinch. Rave on. Continue reading...