Country diary: The flower that seems to shine on a wet summer's day | Ed Douglas

Foolow, Derbyshire: The meadow crane's-bill fringes this entire landscape, showing best under a lightly overcast skyCycling through Hope, I spotted a family of anoraks looking up doubtfully at the clouds. Moments later, the first few drops of a shower wet my face. This had been the story all month, one band of rain succeeding the next; a close grey blanket that had muffled summer. I passed a large board advertising the Hope Show, held at the end of August, and offered a prayer for all event secretaries in north Derbyshire anxiously refreshing their weather forecasts. In Bradwell, damp bunting added a little colour to the village's miners' cottages and a small sign pointed to the village's well-dressing. There would be a similar sign in Foolow. Giving thanks for a reliable water supply is an appealing Derbyshire tradition, but this summer, I reflected, not such an urgent one.The road from Bradwell to Foolow headed south, climbing a steep hill to the top of Bradwell Dale, where I turned south?east along a straight, flowing lane flanked with limestone walls and a lush verge peppered with luminous purple flowers. Derbyshire's county flower is Jacob's ladder, appropriate as the county is among its few native strongholds. But the purple flowers I now encountered were, for me at least, a more certain touchstone of a Derbyshire midsummer. For while Jacob's ladder has the biblical backstory, meadow crane's-bill seems to fringe the entire landscape. For the next several kilometres this humble geranium would keep me company, a constant companion at the corner of my vision. Continue reading...