Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Country Life

By: Giles Wood, Mary Killen
Narrated by: Giles Wood, Mary Killen
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

The Nutty Idyll


Former townies Giles and Mary swapped city life for rural Wiltshire over thirty years ago, and they've each embraced it in their own very different ways.

Mary has happily traded sophisticated London salons for monthly lectures at the Farmers' Club, competitive school quizzes, church interactions and local Auction House sales. While Giles has immersed himself in the catastrophic consequences of conventional farming, his organic no-dig veg-patch, the increasingly disproportionate response by local landlords to harmless trespassers and the strange death of the village house martins.

For recent city escapees and indigenous country folk alike, Giles and Mary sift through the unhelpful dreamy myths and offer a practical reality, with robust back and forth on every aspect of life in rural outposts, including but not limited to planning wars, class wars, dog thefts, tree-felling fights, misunderstandings between incomers and natives and the role of the Heron Appreciation Society.

The much-loved Wiltshire couple share their combined, hard-earned lessons, so we can learn the secret skills of grumbling and bumbling our way towards a new contented country life.

©2023 Giles Wood and Mary Killen (P)2023 Penguin Audio
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Diary of Two Nobodies cover art
Oh Miriam! cover art
Rambling Man cover art
Leon and June cover art
The Unlikely Duke cover art
Alan Bennett: Diaries cover art
Backing into the Spotlight cover art
Alan Bennett: Untold Stories cover art
Ivor's Ghosts cover art
The Farmer's Wife cover art
The Last Word cover art
Kerry Katona: Whole Again cover art
Return to Akenfield cover art
Ring the Hill cover art
The Accidental Duchess cover art
Musicals, Marigolds & Me cover art

What listeners say about Country Life

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    20
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    21
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    19
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Another good audio

Love Giles and Mary. This second audiobook doesn’t disappoint. Hope they do another in the future

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Love these two

I find Giles and Mary fabulous story tellers and could listen for hours them recounting moments from their lives or views

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Sharing their story

Very interesting and informative..an inside view of the Giles and Marys lives in Wiltshire and beyond.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Honestly, just lovely and surprising

So glad I listened to this. It not only explores country life and "indigini" versus city decampers, as described, but it also delves into the family past of Giles and Mary, their contrasting heritages; and also the effects of the Pandemic on attitudes on where and how best to live your life. Really well read by them both too. Thought-provoking easy listening

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Simply lovely

A wonderfully wholesome and fascinating look into country Life with Giles and Mary interspersed with references to their first book which I enjoyed in equal measure. Ten out of ten.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

So enjoyed it

Hugely entertaining, very funny,so enjoyed it. The same could be said for so many villages More please.
Diana francis

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Country Life

As a young girl all my time was spent in a rural idyll. Freedom, small local farms were my life.Haymaking,,, anddriving the tractor from a very young age. Country lanes, no street lights, quite happy to play outside all day. How lucky to be born in 1947. This book has been a joy to read. Thank you Giles andMary.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!