In this episode, lifestyle and countryside author Fennel Hudson explores the concept of 'countryside contentment', comparing it to the fashionable contentment trends 'hygge', 'lagom' and 'cwtch'.

He looks at how natural history and lifestyle authors have described rural contentment, with a quote by Elizabeth West summing up the appeal of the simple life: “For nine years we have been living in comparative isolation and with very little money upon a windswept moorland in North Wales. What effect has this had on us? We are very much more aware of natural things – the feel of the wind, the direction of the sun and the movements and sounds of other living things…We have our own interpretation of Gandhi’s philosophy of ‘enoughness’. We want enough money to live our sort of life – we don’t want more than enough. And in living the ‘simple life’, it is time we are usually short of, not money.”

Full transcript of the podcast is available at: http://www.fennelspriory.com/contented-countryman-podcast