I’ve come to learn more about the regional flora and fauna, discovering similar plants to those at home, though perhaps with different names. Cow parsley(tall stocks with a canopy of white flowers, butter cups, stinging nettles, clover, Welsh poppies, moon daisies, a type of orchid that comes in white and also purple, mole plants, Queen Anne’s Lace, wild garlic (a low plant with white flowers). 
The ancient woodlands are composed of large oak, ash, silver birch, hawthorn, occasional sycamores, willow, and beech. In some areas the woods have been coppiced (cut down to a certain level of stumps, then allowed to shoot out and grow again), which seems a more sensible way of harvesting the wood, yet not killing the trees.
Becoming familiar with the local customs and activities is a delight, whether it is eating Winstone’s double ice cream with fresh blackberries, visiting a water-wheeled mill where pool table cloths and RCMP serge uniforms are manufactured, watching kite-flying and picnicking families enjoy their day on the broad commons, or simply driving through pastoral landscapes and villages snuggled in the hills.
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