Rhododendrons
In sultry heat, I took a path that climbs relentlessly through Blacka Plantation to Blacka Moor and the Hathersage road. The light was as fabulous as the stunning green foliage and ferns all around me and I had just heard a cuckoo, somewhere in the woods. Overhead, the sky was as blue as a robin's egg, up there above the canopy. Though I was climbing at a sensible pace, as I reached the top of the gradient I admitted to myself that I needed a short rest to catch my breath. There was a large smooth-topped rock in the middle of the path and it was wordlessly inviting me to sit there, so I did. The cuckoo kept calling with its woodwind sound. Two notes over and over. To me the most reassuring sound of any English summer. Only the male calls "Cuck-oo!" as he declares his willingness to mate. The female has an entirely different call, a trilling sound that is less commonly identified than the plaintive male call. And as I sat there on my rock, I thought I would never leave. ...