Sarah Todd: Looking for my own Mr Rochester and missing signs of the times

There was a trip to the cinema to see Jane Eyre (I’m on the lookout now for a poster of Mr Rochester on his black stallion for the tack room) and another the next day to the Harrogate Flower Show.

It must be about three years since I visited this autumn horticultural event and it was a real tonic. The Lurcher got a new basket and The Husband was bought some sprouts, his favourite vegetable.

Another purchase was a sign saying “please close the gate” as some seem incapable of sparing a second to see if the handgate in the garden has clicked shut.

It’s so dull to say, but people don’t seem as switched on about things like shutting gates any more.

Does the Countryside Code still exist? Are children taught the basics of how to behave when visiting rural areas? My offspring have certainly never come home from the classroom with the kind of “dogs on leads” and “beware of the bull” handy leaflets we were given as youngsters.

Talking of signs, I have written to our parish council asking about the possibility of reducing the speed limit and getting some signage warning of horses using the road.

Perhaps readers have experience of getting road signs such as “Slow Horses” or “Children Playing”?

I found one of the metal triangular horse warning signs just like the highways authority use for a little over £50 on the internet.

If a few local riders clubbed together, would we be allowed to put them up? Something makes me think it will only be the local authority that has the power to do so.

How best to get something done? Surely the current situation – we simply say a prayer before the blind bend in our rat-run of a road – shouldn’t have to be put up with.

On a lighter note, there was a piece in the Farmers Weekly that made me smile. It was about how to spot a farmer on holiday. Written by a farmer’s wife, it made it sound like they have a sign over their heads. She’s a teacher and says the last thing she wants to see or talk about on holiday is children.

Her husband, on the other hand, loves nothing more to bump into a fellow son of the soil. She complains that the pleasure in cooked breakfasts is taken away by talk of the price charged compared to that made by the producer and she says farmers can often be spotted on the beach, own shovel in hand, making elaborate irrigation systems. They can also be overheard pondering aloud how local farmers get anything to grow in the holiday climate. What is your sure method for spotting one? From stallions to signs, maybe another trip out is needed…