Weather; grey and rather raw.

Time:45minutes

Start at the Clapper Bridge (353654)near Pillaton where there is a good parking spot. Turn righ from the  small car park and then right again walk southwards along the quiet lane with Torr Wood on your right. After a gate on your right that looks as if it has been borrowed from a London park there is a stile with Defway markers indicating the conservation walk. I did this twice as it was hard to find the way markers following the route anticlockwise. It is (marginally) easier clockwise. Follow the way markers through a small field and enter a wood - the way marker is there - just a bit difficult to spot. The way through the wood is clear(ish) with some navigation required round fallen trees. Press on through what feels like a primeval swampy landscape then take a right turn down into the field. This was very boggy when I did it. The field is a water meadow and the path turns right walking upstream by the river.

Flowers: the first primroses of the season.

Birds: a very noisy but invisible woodpecker in the tree before turning back upstream.

Small joys: the amount of frogspawn in the field ponds, recently laid as the spawn was still at the full stop stage