Goodbye, Jim Perrin (Country diary, 12 April). I’ve enjoyed your tales from Wales. Country diary often gives me a lift among the gloomy news, and your observations of a secret glen were no exception. I cut out and keep some of these snippets of rural delight, and I have one from you, Jim, about young robins in the garden, dated 8 August 2020. Thank you to all country diarists – keep up your quiet work.
Barbara Foster
Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire
• People should be eating herring instead of mackerel as the latter is overfished, says the Marine Conservation Society (Report, 9 April). What planet are they on? My fishmonger says he can’t get herring. How I would love to make a herring, onion and potato pie. Herring are fishmongers’ equivalent of unicorns.
Robert Howard
Beeston, Nottinghamshire
