Country Living is one of a growing number of titles that aim themselves at the wistful market.
You read Country Living because you long for that pastoral country based lifestyle that never existed in the first place outside books and movies, just like the journalists writing from smallholdings all over Britain, in praise of the rural lifestyle, and cushioned by their freelance work from its grim realities.
The best place to read Country Living is in a cosy chair next to the fire on one of those gloomy rainy English summers you should really be spending in a country house.
Reading through the magazine it is easy to imagine yourself strolling through to the garden room to arrange some flowers, or nestling deep into a leather armchair in a huge library next to a roaring fire, with afternoon tea just the ring of a bell away.
However this is country living with a modern twist.
Inside its glossy pages you will find pages of beautifully crafted objects at crazy prices - Kim Harrell's gorgeous silverware, spoons lovingly crafted with handles like twigs alchemised into precious metal - yours for only £92.
You can mentally bookmark that weekend away learning how to work a pole-lathe, an ancient woodland skill as writer Helen Bratby puts it.
If that does not stir your jaded limbs then how about simply admiring the beautiful textiles made by Caroline Zoob? An article in the January issue is overflowing with beautifully composed photographs of her work, handmade textiles made from vintage fabrics and embroidered with folk art birds and flowers.
In the January issue, as can be expected from a magazine about this pastoral version of the country, there are articles relating to the re-emergence of the wild boar in Britain, and to the famous snowdrop collection at Colebourne Park.
There is an interesting debate between organic farmer Jonathan Dimbleby, and Oliver Watson, who uses agro-chemicals to grow his crops. This however is the most down-to-earth section in a magazine that is pure fantasy and aspiration for the majority of readers.
The Grass Roots pages which promise to contain news of rural and green campaigns, proved to contain news of a swan sanctuary, and short articles on the decrease in wild flower and bird species in the British countryside. Laudable? Yes, but I am not sure what working rather than gentleman farmers would make of it. There is however an interesting article about a web site that promotes farm shops - www.bigbarn.co.uk - and another about the practical help the rural clergy offers to farmers facing increasing financial pressures and isolation.
Country Living is purely a lifestyle magazine, and like most magazines of this kind it bases its premise of gracious country living on a gossamer web of middle-class fantasy that is all to easy to buy into. If that lifestyle appeals to you and you have the vast funds to accommodate your fantasies of rural bliss, there is a property section which includes Readers’ Homes (although more tastefully photographed than the Readers’ Wives you might find in other publications based on fantasy). The Bargain of the Month is only £315,000, and even offers that Holy Grail of the modern middle classes, the potential barn conversion.
An article entitled “A Magnificent Obsession” by Debbie Childs chronicles the painstaking restoration of an Elizabethan estate over the course of 40 years - still ongoing, and a monument to the National Trust fever endemic amongst the moneyed classes of this country, who fawn over this whilst sneering at the likes of Chris Evans when he re-modelled his country house in much the same way as the nobility did theirs during the heyday of the Country House centuries ago.
Buy this magazine for the beautiful photography, and because it showcases crafts such as pottery, textiles and silversmithery, but don't expect it to be about the real gritty country.
The reality of country living is poor and inadequate transport, few amenities, and life in a factory on the verge of financial disaster- even if it is a green and pleasant land.
Although my review is critical of the ethos behind this kind of magazine, I would buy it again, for the emphasis on crafts and the beautiful images it contains.
Country Living comes out every month priced at £3.00, and is available from most major newsagents and supermarkets.
Find out more by surfing to www.countryliving.co.uk
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