If you’re not cut out for country life, don’t go

Three cheers for the Lancashire farmer who has put up a sign warning would-be dilettante townies about the birds and the bees. And the smells and the noises; of cockerels and horses and pigs enjoying healthy congress.

Stephen Nolan erected a notice telling everyone in general – and his bit-picky neighbours in particular – that if you do mind these sort of everyday activities, you shouldn’t buy a house in a sylvan spot and then complain vociferously about all the things that make the countryside the countryside.

It sounds obvious. But not to everyone. Some years ago, we went camping with several other families in Suffolk. It was idyllic and life lessons were learned; the children rampaged about in the woods and got stung by nettles but decided, on balance, to stay where they were, rather than run the half-mile back, screaming hysterically.

Result! Even the most loving of parents really don’t appreciate being interrupted when they are drinking warm wine in a field.

My friend learned that outrageous light pollution isn’t confined to major cities. “I didn’t sleep a wink,” she complained, crawling bleary-eyed out of her tent the first morning. “That farmer left a bloody huge lamp on and it shone into my face all night.”

That farmer was God. The bloody huge lamp would be the moon.

But a weekend negotiating a compostable loo and remembering to close gates is very different from buying a small holding, only to be small-minded. It seems crazy to get aerated about hens making a racket, or cow dung on the road, when you’ve just come from a conurbation choked with traffic and fumes. Perhaps, then, urbanites should be kept in a holding pen and acclimatised before they are released into the (relative) wild?