A familiar and idyllic scene

And then England--southern England, probably the sleekest landscape in the 
world. It is difficult when you pass that way, especially when you are 
peacefully recovering from sea-sickness with the plush cushions of a boat-train 
carriage under your bum, to believe that anything is really happening anywhere. 
Earthquakes in Japan, famines in China, revolutions in Mexico? Don't worry, the 
milk will be on the doorstep tomorrow morning, the New Statesman will come out 
on Friday. The industrial towns were far away, a smudge of smoke and misery 
hidden by the curve of the earth's surface. Down here it was still the England I 
had known in my childhood: the railway-cuttings smothered in wild flowers, the 
deep meadows where the great shining horses browse and meditate, the slow-moving 
streams bordered by willows, the green bosoms of the elms, the larkspurs in the 
cottage gardens; and then the huge peaceful wilderness of outer London, the 
barges on the miry river, the familiar streets, the posters telling of cricket 
matches and Royal weddings, the men in bowler hats, the pigeons in Trafalgar 
Square, the red buses, the blue policemen--all sleeping the deep, deep sleep of 
England, from which I sometimes fear that we shall never wake till we are jerked 
out of it by the roar of bombs. 

This is the last paragraph of George Orwell's 'Homage to Catalonia' (1938) in which he records his time spent in the Spanish Civil War. This is his return to his home country as he finally leaves the war behind the him; a familiar feeling for this and. I'm sure, and many modern counterparts.

It was referred to on Broadcasting House on Radio 4 this morning, by a gentleman who said he would much rather be reading this in the cowslips on the South Downs than using a computer. And I could picture myself doing the same with a well worn Penguin copy of this :)