Just started going out walking again in the North-West after months away from Manchester.

The part of the Peak District just east of Macclesfield has a special magic for me. I made an easy start this time, walking from Tegg’s Nose over to the Forest, then around the Forest and up to the summit of Shuttlingsloe.

To my delight I heard a cuckoo in the forest – the first I’ve heard this year, and given how rare they are now it could be the last, though I hope not. There were also great clouds of orange tip butterflies, though they were so restless that the only sharp-focus picture I could get shows one on dead leaves, rather than the flowers where I tried in vain to catch them!

Maybe the most memorable sight was the vast drifts of bluebells covering hillsides under the trees; and these are the old English bluebells, the frailer, gracefully drooping ones, rather than the stiffer and apparently more robust ‘Spanish’ ones – lovely though these can also be.

A great day anyhow; and it’s good to be back writing this blog after such a long absence.