Latchmore

Latchmore Brook is one of the forest streams which wont be being remodelled and restored to it's pre Victorian course in the pursuit of bog woodland restoration. Sad really, as lovely as the photo makes it look, for the most part the Brook is a straightened drain, broad and deep, which could support a lot more diversity than it does. Don't misunderstand me, Latchmore Brook is lovely, and great walking, though it and its environs could be so much more. I've seen it done elsewhere, sadly some people just didn't have the vision.  Today's walk was certainly a mentally stimulating one, so much to see. We'd not walked in this part of the forest, in fact in most of the forest above the A31, for maybe 5 or 6 years. Not since the publicising of the 'Alabama Rot' outbreak, which had seen a cluster of cases in this part of the forest. Excluding the north of the forest cut dramatically into our roams, some of our favourite walks were now off limits. I knew walking these old tracks again would be bitter-sweet. It was great to see how the landscape has changed in that time, and it has in many ways, but the landscape is steeped in memories too, memories not visited for as long as we'd not walked here.