Another Border Crossing – into Denbighshire

.........or Middle Earth?

The seven mile trail around Alwen Resevoir on the Denbigh Moors is one of my favourite walks.  The route is clear, no need to wrestle with maps.  Today is soft and glowing and quiet enough to hear crispy leaves land on the gravel path.  The trees are statue-still and draped in cob-webby lichens.  I half expect to bump into Miss Haversham or maybe a Hobbit

Up on the rippling moor we wait for the zoom of a peregrine, the whizz of a merlin, but get the tail-flicking scolding of a wren when we squat in her sheep fold to wrap our hands around steaming cups of coffee.

At home I discover that ‘Wales, for its unit area, has the highest diversity of lichen species in the world.’

And, according to an article on the BBC News Mid Wales page, ‘Lichens in Wales may hold the key to antibiotics resistance.’

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-mid-wales-22150618

www.wales-lichens.org.uk