Country diary: From the pavilion end, a pied wagtail

Marylebone, London: These irrepressible birds can cheer up a motorway services or a railway platform. But their true home, for me, is on the pristine lawn of a cricket groundTime rolls on, defying our efforts to slow it down for the enjoyable bits. I tick off the markers of spring’s progress. Far out west, in Ealing, a singing skylark evades detection in the boundless sky, its silver chain of sound offering no clues as to its whereabouts. In “leafy Barnes”, sand martins duck an