BEARING in mind the need to keep away from the threat of foot and mouth, I spent some time in Downham and looked up towards Pendle before driving over the "big one" towards Barley.

Downham must surely be the most idyllic village in the North West -- and that to me means Britain.

The stream and the church on the hill are wonderful and between them is a snuggle of cottages.

At this time of the year the beauty of the flowers almost brings a tear to the eye.

All this is glory and man-made but Mother Nature has also painted a wildlife picture all of her own.

I did not have long to wait to realise the beauty of this picture. My first sighting was of a six-spot burnet moth, which was sucking nectar from a knapweed plant.

In August the black and yellow caterpillars of the six-spot will be greedily feeding on ragwort.

This is the time to give a timely reminder of how dangerous ragwort (which contains traces of cyanide) can be to livestock, especially horses.

The countryside has taken enough of a battering in recent months so everybody associated with horses needs to be extra vigilant with regard to ragwort -- we certainly cannot expect the six-spot burnet caterpillars to eat all of this pest plant,

A much more useful plant is the heather and over the next few months the purple flowers will gradually develop. Given enough rain and sunshine Pendle and our other hills will take on a wonderful purple glow as summer gives way to autumn.

The road from Downham to Barley has lots of safe places to pull in.

The views across the Ribble Valley are magnificent and you do not have to walk into areas where foot and mouth could be a problem.

I confined myself to a picnic by the roadside. I enjoyed the flowers such as honeysuckle, meadowsweet, harebell, heath bedstraw and kidney vetch.

I remembered to take only photographs and I took my litter home.

We should enjoy our countryside but we should also respect it and leave it as we would expect to find it.