RAINCLOUDS SWEEP DARKLY over the Pennines as I stand in this isolated hill on the rich loamy Solway Plain above the Firth. There are much higher hills encircling the blue distance, looking down on this spot. The Pennines to the north-east, Lake District fells to the south, patched now with sun, and beyond, over the shining Firth, Scotland’s Criffel looms blue and ghostly on the northern horizon.
I am visiting the new Watchtree Nature Reserve, which also happens to be the mass grave of animals lost during the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak of 2001: 448,508 sheep, 12,085 cattle, and 5,719 pigs, ...
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