Country diary: Summer is waning at this rich band of edgeland | Jennifer Jones

Oglet, Merseyside: Squeezed in between a famous airport and river, this is my rural escape. Today I am treated to succulent blackberries, plump acorns and surging swallowsOglet, from the Anglo-Saxon for "oaks by the water", has been described as "the last piece of countryside in Liverpool". But to local people, this braided edgeland of fields, scrub and river is known simply as "the Oggie".The place is packed with heritage and history, from 300-year-old cottages to pyramidal tank traps, relics of wartime anxiety. Today, my footsteps mirror those of the adolescent Beatles. Mike McCartney once recalled how he and brother Paul "soon got fed up ? and headed for the Oggie shore cliffs", while George Harrison reminisced: "I used to go all the time down to Oglet ? I could walk for hours along the mud cliffs." Continue reading...