Ronald Blythe is one if my favourite authors. His wonderful book “Next to Nature” is a book that I love to dip into. It contains remarkable observations of country life in rural Essex and Suffolk. These daily writings appeared for many years in a weekly column in The Church Times.
Blythe had a long standing friendship with another of my favourite writers, Roger Deakin, whose most well known work “Waterlog” is another book that I’d recommend most highly. They had a common interest in the English countryside and the natural world.
In “Next to Nature”, Blythe describes his friend Deakin as “somehow mature, although he had never quite grown up”.
It is a quote that made quite an impression on me and now in my 70’s I find myself aspiring to this – maturity without quite ever growing up.
The Old Guy Does Yoga 