Country diary: mistletoe decorates a lime with its pearly berries

Sandy, Bedfordshire Up in the crown of the tree, a mistle thrush gave a rattling call, as if exerting its planter’s rightsUnder the unkind umbrella of a spreading oak, a stunted horse chestnut tree had received a white feather. Dropped from a dove, it had landed on a big brown bud as sticky as a toffee apple. The winter elements had then set to work, soaking and battering the kiss-curl of down into limpness, laying it out in the bud’s protective goo and soiling it with dust, seeds an