Drought is pushing England to the brink

The heat is somehow different — prickly, dry, searing. The fields have turned a strange desert-like khaki, and the endless blue above is empty of clouds. The sheep and cattle hug the shade beneath the oak trees, and flick their ears to shift the black flies. The streams have either dried up completely or are sad little trickles between the rocks. Dust rises behind the cars on our farm track in clouds, and settles like chalk on the oak leaves. Surrey, perhaps, is familiar with the parched-brown cricket pitch look, and Kent has long been golden yellow with barley and wheat in summer. But for most of us, England really was, until recently, a green and pleasant land. Dark green oak trees, set in hazel-green hedges and edging shadowy green lanes, created a patchwork landscape of lush fields. No