My favourite bench reclines in a slender, rather steep-sided valley about half a mile from the nearest hamlet. Framed by foxgloves and a rising bank of wildflowers, it faces one of the quiet roads that thread through our little range of hills. I sat there for an hour dandling a pen and empty page on my knee. One car passed. A couple of ramblers. Under the hedge, a calf slept. Flying overhead, the clap of a woodpigeon’s wings stirring the stillness was the only event. Then the cuckoo started. The unmistakable two-tone note rose from the hill above the bench, travelled over the valley and striking the woods on the far side, echoed back. Time after time the bird called, each cry instantly returned. Was the bird listening to itself, confused by the precise but rather ghostly echo? The a