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A rare sight

The path winds up like a ribbon around the contours of the slope, hard-baked and dusty after weeks without rain. In the quiet of the grass, away from passing feet and shade of the stunted trees, once rare cowslips spread out amongst buttercups. Bright yellow beacons, ankle height, nodding in the strengthening breeze. The path skirts past low crags of shattered, fossil-packed limestone, evidence that this now high place, 900 feet up and out of sight of the coast, was once the turbulent, busy bed of a warm shallow sea. But that was 150 million years ago. Today, mercifully, the heat of recent days has dissipated, replaced by cold steel skies and purple-tinged clouds fizzing in from the east. A better day to run and to be alone. Almost as soon as I arrive at the top of the hill, I am descending, initially down a rock-strewn gully and then spurring off across the hillside on an increasingly faint path that cuts down across slope, legs whipped by gorse. That’s when I hear it: ’Cuckoo!’. Th
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The seldom seen hill

From the village a deep lane winds up between head-high hedgerows, gaps offering fleeting glimpses into other worlds - the farms and fields and hills beyond. Our feet move quickly above a metalled surface matted with straw at first, then strewn with twigs and stones and marbled by mud that flows from steep banks. The detritus of recent storms.  At the end of the lane we turn right, skirting the hillside until a tight bend marks our exit point and we turn off and climb steeply, hands pressed against knees in a vain effort to add power to burning legs. The angle eases and we hold conference at a marker post, huddled over a photocopied map scant on detail. Rightwards looks best, and after a gate and ankle deep mud we enter a gully of loose, red stones with low slung briars that snatch at skin and snag clothes. A winter stream flows silent beneath our feet, stealing dirt from our shoes and tumbling quick in its eagerness  to join the river in the valley below.  The country then opens out
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