Country diary: Ice has turned basic tasks into a careful sport | Nicola Chester

Inkpen, North Wessex Downs: The fields are puddingy underfoot, the lanes still glassy. Winter is not done with us yetThe grass that continued to grow long after it should is now frost-flattened and pale. I take hay to the horses. This is an easier task now that the lanes have thawed a little; of late they have been rippled glaciers, effectively icing us in.Still, feeding the horses has turned into a careful sport. I twist four wedges of hay up in a neat baler twine handle and, avoiding 100 metres of glassy lane, I lug it across a field and through the wood. Continue reading...