Late April/early May is Bluebell season. Needless to say the "rural rambles" aspect of this diary is on hold due to the lockdown so I will have to recall one of my favourite walks at this time of year. It begins in Pewsey in Wiltshire then up onto the range of chalk hills overlooking the Vale of Pewsey.

 There are sweeping views towards the edge of Salisbury Plain on the horizon.

 That alone makes the walk worthwhile but I head across the hills to Gopher Wood.

 It's a classic Bluebell wood by which I mean Hyacinthoides non-scripta, our native Bluebell (also found in northern Europe but most extensively in the UK).

 The woodland floor is carpeted in a haze of shimmering blue-violet. Gopher Wood is pretty wet most years, probably a deposit of clay among the dry chalk grasslands that surround it.

 The Bluebells occupy about half the woods and the other half is an equally dense carpet of Ramsons (Allium ursinum). They meet in the middle like two tides converging. The Bluebells fill the air with a sweet perfume, the Ramsons reek of garlic!