CountrySlide

Richard P is joined by George Browne and Nick Adams for an unusually representative cross-section of the British countryside: a lazy wood botherer, an aesthetically elevated writing wrangler and an angry man who stares at trees.

George arrives bearing the signs of time spent butchering a Muntjac deer, Nick has celebrated turning another year over 40 by removing the roof from his shed just before heavy rain, and Richard has discovered that decades of questionable drainage decisions have created a sump beneath his house.

Elsewhere there are Highland cows taking over British homeware, barn owls, Grand Designs Grey, forestry mistakes that may outlive the forester, the agricultural equivalent of the middle of Lidl, giant catering packs, pickled eggs in bags of crisps and a dog apparently capable of opening a packet more carefully than most humans.

CountrySlide is a podcast that looks at farming, conservation and life in the British countryside.

You can contact us by email on: contact@countryslide.co.uk 

Edited and Produced by Amy Green. 

DISCLAIMER
Views are those of individual speakers and do not necessarily represent SideCountry, its presenters, contributors, partners or sponsors. For general information and entertainment only. Laws, seasons, access and guidance change; check official sources, obtain permission and act within your competence.

This week, Callum follows Richard Negus on another side quest, this time to Barkway Literary Festival, where Richard has somehow been entrusted with explaining hedges to a live audience.

Before they get anywhere near the subject there are M&M riders, Gemma Collins, a broken heating system, an increasingly judgmental dog and a collection of male wasps apparently spending their final days getting drunk on ivy.

Eventually Callum McInerney-Riley asks the fairly fundamental question: what actually is a hedge layer?

Richard explains why hedgelaying is almost as old as farming itself, how cutting and laying a hedge encourages new growth at the base, and why something that can initially look suspiciously like a wildlife crime can become considerably better habitat within a couple of years.

From there, the conversation broadens into the role of working farmland in nature recovery, why conservation has to work for the farm as well as the wildlife, and Richard's defence of farmers and gamekeepers whose work often involves managing both habitat and predators.

All recorded in front of an actual literary festival audience, before Richard wanders off to sign copies of Words from the Hedge and discovers that bringing a pen might have been useful.

Useful links:
Support SideCountry on PatreonBarkway Literary Festival
Words from the Hedge by Richard Negus
National Hedgelaying Society
High Suffolk Farm Cluster: Patrick Barker on nature-friendly farming
SideCountry

DISCLAIMER
Views are those of individual speakers and do not necessarily represent SideCountry, its presenters, contributors, partners or sponsors. For general information and entertainment only. Laws, seasons, access and guidance change; check official sources, obtain permission and act within your competence.

Harvest Festival is here, which gets Richard Negus and Callum McInerney-Riley wondering whether any of us actually know what is in season anymore.

After an opening involving harvest hymns, Sunday school, Sandhurst church services and the possibility of a religious denomination based around lager, they eventually get onto food.

Why can you buy asparagus and strawberries all year round? Have supermarkets disconnected us from the seasons? And why aren't we better at celebrating the particular foods grown in particular places, rather than simply importing the same things whenever we fancy them?

There is a December blackberry cheesecake, the defence of the Sunday roast, memories of proper British food and some fairly unpleasant processed food from childhood. Richard remembers bedrooms full of stored apples, they discuss pickling and preserving gluts, and eventually conclude that the easiest gateway into eating British may simply be a full English breakfast.

Richard also has details of the Big Breckland Breakfast in aid of rural mental health charity YANA.

Useful links:SideCountry
SideCountry Network on Patreon
Big Breckland Breakfast
YANA: Rural Mental Health Support
British Food Fortnight

DISCLAIMER
Views are those of individual speakers and do not necessarily represent SideCountry, its presenters, contributors, partners or sponsors. For general information and entertainment only. Laws, seasons, access and guidance change; check official sources, obtain permission and act within your competence.

This week, CountrySlide comes from somewhere between the burger van and the chainsaw demonstrations at APF 2026.

Richard Prideaux is joined by forestry contractor and SideCountry writer Nick Adams for a wander around the 50th anniversary show at Ragley Estate, where the machinery is enormous, the fish and chips cost £16.50 and somebody appears to be selling a 16-foot shovel.

They compare APF with the Game Fair, consider the financial commitment involved in some seriously expensive forestry machinery and attempt to record a podcast while seemingly every chainsaw manufacturer in Britain starts a demo nearby.

Along the way there are broken brush cutters, George Browne attempting to handle tools, a chance meeting with a Richard Negus fan, Nick's latest SideCountry article, beavers, strange Warwickshire road names and the discovery that the forestry world is small enough that somebody at every stand appears to know somebody else.

All recorded with the 'gentle' background ambience of petrol engines, tannoys and two men waiting for their cheeseburgers.

You can contact us on social media, using the messaging system on patreon or emailing - contact@countryslide.co.uk

Links
-APF Exhibition
-Forestry Contracting Association
-Nick Adams: Rewilding Is No Panacea
-Morakniv Woodcarving Knife 106
-Grizzly Peak Enterprises axe scabbards
- T-shirts are still available on - store.sidecountry.co.uk
- Sign up to our newsletter - The Rural Register
- SideCountry Network
- Negus' book tour dates can be found here

DISCLAIMER
Views are those of individual speakers and do not necessarily represent SideCountry, its presenters, contributors, partners or sponsors. For general information and entertainment only. Laws, seasons, access and guidance change; check official sources, obtain permission and act within your competence.

Content note: This episode includes discussion of suicide and mental health.

This week, Callum considers building a moth trap, Richard Negus explains the existence of "hyper moth season", and Richard Prideaux admits to a surprisingly strong dislike of small dusty insects.

From there, things drift into some of Britain's stranger countryside folklore. There is the Owlman of Cornwall, Cornish knockers, Hangman's Hill, Black Shuck, the Essex Serpent and the question of why some parts of the country seem to accumulate far more weird stories than others.

Eventually they arrive at the modern rural legend that refuses to disappear: big cats in the British countryside. Were panthers and other exotic cats genuinely released decades ago? Could any still be out there? And if they were, wouldn't one of the country's gamekeepers have found one by now?

Patrons also get the aftershow, featuring an accidental rally stage in an ageing Freelander, lions roaring beside a Suffolk marsh and Callum having a professionally awkward moment while photographing a politician.

Useful links:
The DPJ Foundation
The Farming Community Network
RABI
Samaritans
Butterfly Conservation: How to make your own moth trap
Butterfly Conservation: Finding and recording moths
Support SideCountry

DISCLAIMER
Views are those of individual speakers and do not necessarily represent SideCountry, its presenters, contributors, partners or sponsors. For general information and entertainment only. Laws, seasons, access and guidance change; check official sources, obtain permission and act within your competence.