{"id":592986,"date":"2026-04-08T07:55:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T07:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/592986\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T07:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T07:55:08","slug":"country-diary-watching-the-cows-chewing-on-memories-of-protest-and-parenting-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/592986\/","title":{"rendered":"Country diary: Watching the cows, chewing on memories of protest and parenting | Environment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thirty years on from the impassioned action of the road protests, the Newbury bypass soars above us on the old railway embankment. I can\u2019t entirely accept it even now, having been part of the campaign<\/a>. Today, walking in The Chase, the nature reserve that lies adjacent, the roar of traffic slips into a background hum, aided by other memories I\u2019ve\u00a0built up here.<\/p>\n

Many of those have been with my dearest friend, Sarah. She volunteers as a \u201ccow watcher\u201d for the National Trust, and I\u2019ve come with her as she checks their whereabouts and wellbeing. They are conservation grazers; keeping coarser scrub in check, spreading seed and poaching areas, and encouraging greater biodiversity and plantlife.<\/p>\n

The reserve was once common land, with a sheepwash and blanket mill that gave this village its name, Woolton Hill. It was enclosed for hunting in 1819 and eventually became a National Trust property in 1944.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also been my playground. I remember trees like spilled pencils after the great storms of 1987 and 1990, and later more felled trees when it was clipped by the Newbury bypass; I was pulled down from the branches, flicking cable ties into chainsaws to jam them up. Sarah and I recall devastating sewage spills that killed invertebrates, fish, lampreys and native crayfish.<\/p>\n

\u2018We wade across a stream to find the cows grazing among wild daffodils and golden saxifrages.\u2019 Photograph: Nicola Chester<\/p>\n

But we also remember coming with our children, losing boots, falling (or simply lying down) in the streams; \u201cwelly walks\u201d with grandparents, watching great spotted woodpecker chicks fledging from a hole in a Corsican pine, waiting for otters in the alder carr, and following silver-washed fritillary butterflies.<\/p>\n

Sarah tracks the cattle on her app, via a collar round the neck of Colchis, one of six hardy black, red and white Shetland cows with upswept horns. We wade across a stream to find them grazing among wild daffodils and golden saxifrages.<\/p>\n

Our circuit complete but our chat not yet done, we agree to meet at the garden centre cafe. Thanks to the brain fog I\u2019ve been bemoaning, I head in error to the pub. When I eventually get to the garden centre, I follow the zigzag caterpillars of peaty-black mud from Sarah\u2019s boots across the polished floor of the cafe. Apologising, I add my own, with a little jus of cow muck.<\/p>\n

Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian\u2019s Country Diary, 2018-2024, is available now at guardianbookshop.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thirty years on from the impassioned action of the road protests, the Newbury bypass soars above us on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,75,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-592986","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}