Publisher's Synopsis
"Nostalgia is a disease of middle age and I should have taken precautions against it, but I succumbed." With this gentle self-deprecation, William Woodrow introduces his charming memories of the Norfolk of his childhood and teens. In a series of engaging vignettes, he allows the reader to glimpse his early life in its many aspects. We see him among family, where he watches from the sidelines a matriarchal war over quince jam and learns from his grandfather to appreciate the beauty of nature, at play in the countryside fishing and boating on the Broads, and experiencing his first crushes. The stories, however, are given unity by one factor: the author's intense and lasting love of the countryside. They are rich in the detail of local flora and fauna, dogs and horses are characterized with as much love as if they were family and we learn of villages so tight-knit that a woman who married "outside" - even if this meant to a man in the next village along - would be ostracized forever.
