Wow. A whole week away from the Book Club. Does nobody else read but us two? 🙂
Speaking of Agatha Christie – I finished reading Hall of Mirrors a couple of days ago and that was a jolly romp in the countryside. Fowler might have been having more than a gentle poke at the late Lord Bath in that one?
While my own childhood “adventure playgrounds” lacked the frisson of discovering the occasional UXB (for much-debated reasons the Luftwaffe famously never bombed the City of Oxford – https://www.oxford-royale.com/articles/oxford-second-world-war/ ) we did have the excitement of falling/pushing each-other into, and getting dragged out of, the canal, the Sheepwash and the Thames at various points. The boatyards had a magnetic attraction but, as with everything else old and interesting, it’s all been sanitise, modernised and converted into trendy apartments for commuters. It even has a Community Centre and holds Street Fairs!
Port Meadow is now rather graciously described as “a riverside common” but what it really is, at best, is a boggy marsh without any really interesting wildlife, assuming it isn’t under 2 ft of water because it’s a flood plain. Think about it – Oxford’s been around for over 1,000 years and that patch of flat ground still hasn’t been built on!