In praise of … Rutland

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/17/in-praise-of-rutland

Version 0 of 1.

A fittingly small earthquake, measuring 3.2 on the Richter scale, has struck England's smallest shire county (18 miles from north to south, 17 miles from west to east). The geological excitement fleetingly thrust Rutland into the spotlight almost for the first time since it was temporarily abolished in 1974. Sometimes mistaken for a blink-and-you-miss it place on the A1 between London and Edinburgh, this is a county that has literally fought its way back from extinction, surviving not just administrative obliteration but the flooding of thousands of acres of farmland at its centre. Now Rutland Water, a kind of inland sea in a landlocked county, has grown into one of England's finest wetland nature reserves with internationally important wintering populations of gadwall and shoveler as well as five pairs of breeding ospreys, which produced 14 fledged young last year. There are no reports that they were disturbed by the earthquake.