As everyone knows, the time to kiss is when the gorse is in flower, which, as this photo proves, is all of the time. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of benefit from flowering at the moment since there is a distinct shortage of bees, or indeed any other pollinating insect. With gorse bushes growing all around Croft Hill and the quarry, their yellow flowers provide a welcome splash of colour to our rambles when everything else in the countryside is keeping a low profile. Gorse around here thrives to the extent that it regularly has to be cleared and burned every summer to give other wild flowers and shrubs a fighting chance of establishing themselves.
