A sunny day in Wycoller

As the sun shines down in the azure blue sky, high above us in towering, tall beech trees a half-a-dozen black as coal cawing carrion crows welcome us to the halcyon hamlet.

Now past the sadly closed tearooms (no hot buttered crumpets today!) and into the historic hall where we meet a friendly couple from Barnsley. As Ruth chats to the cordial lady visitor, the genial gent says to me: “Just how old is the ancient building?”

With a smile I take him to the date-stone carved out in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

“How about that!” I say as he captures on film the time-honoured date of 1596, the year the heroic Sir Francis Drake died on board his ship and William Shakespeare wrote “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.

As we bid farewell a flock of whistling starlings fly overhead.

Now we cross over the stream to see a host of meadow brown and large white butterflies fluttering around the red campion and rosebay willowherb, then suddenly we spy a stunning peacock butterfly with its “eyes” on show to ward off predators. Ruth quietly takes out our camera and the truly beautiful butterfly is on film forever as seen here in our column picture.

Yes, as always, our Wycoller ramble has been a magical day.