The climb, round the pool and on the bank.
1. Really, the climb up on to the common is always the hardest part of the walk. 2. We cut across a housing estate -- busy with car washers and gardeners and hedge snippers and flags -- and dart down a twitten past the playground to find Georgian cottages squatting calm and cool around a spring-fed pond on the edge of the woods. 3. Around the next corner, over the next stile, we find a cool spot by the stream that is not taken. We sit down with a bag of sweets to watch black dragonflies that turn iridescent green when they cross a sunbeam. I think they might be Calopteryx virgo, otherwise known as 'beautiful demoiselle'.