It was very bucolic, very Country Life, so much so that we received a letter from a reader who reportedly left her granddaughters ‘agog’ after explaining how much work had gone into the backdrop. A proposal should be intimate, putting no more pressure than there already is on your partner to respond a certain way. The Bittern bites backThe Yellow Bittern, a notorious restaurant-cum-bookshop-cum-communist newsagents in north London, is back after closing for three weeks this summer. Sign up for the Country Life Newsletter Exquisite houses, the beauty of Nature, and how to get the most from your life, straight to your inbox. It felt briefly as if The Yellow Bittern had crashed and burnt, its reputation dwindling as more recent openings drew the chattering classes.