Country diary: Invisible crickets add to the summery hum | Mark Cocker

Millers Dale, Derbyshire: On this breathtakingly abundant bank, scent and sound blend into something magicalBellamy's Bank is a 200-metre-long reef of limestone running in an elevated line along the north bank of the River Wye. If there is a more beautiful, more flower-rich spot in Derbyshire, I don't know it.This week, when it's been at its peak, it has assaulted all the senses, although the sheer abundance of colour is perhaps its most powerful attribute: from the dense yellow of goldenrod, or the balls of bright red in the orpine, to the starbursts of magenta from heads of greater knapweed and the long stretch of saw-wort, which runs from the eye, tall and swaying in the breeze, in a great recessional of quaking pinks or pale purples. Continue reading...