Plungen: this  morning I have come to the place that I used to head for every morning, closer to home. From here to Clyce Hole [a mile downriver, between Glastonbury and Street] the river has not just been embanked but straightened and re-routed. The water level in the river is actually higher than the surrounding fields. This was done in order to create a mill race, which originally fed the mill stream which in turn powered the mills at Northover and Beckery. It was a major work of medieval engineering.

Here too the former shape of the landscape is to some extent still visible. From here the river used to flow closer to the town and then Wearyall Hill, and when there has been a lot of rain the standing water lies in the lowest places and approximately marks what must have been the original course of the river. Sometimes the field here still floods completely, which must once have been a regular occurrence.

Following Llewellyn's Four Point Plan [I talk about this in 'The River'] I am trying to find the Cry from the Heart, a deep emotional response to what has happened to the environment. As I sit here in the peaceful early morning countryside, beside the river, it's not so easy to touch such feelings; but I still remember clearly the outburst that came to me one day: 'What the Earth needs for her healing is our tears'.

A small thing that helps is picking up rubbish, and every week or two I do that and fill a carrier bag from along the road and beside the river. Yesterday I was walking home with my bagful and a woman stopped and said 'I think I'm going to start doing that'. She had noticed the litter and her response had been 'Why, why do they do it?' But something about seeing me picking it up must have changed her perspective – after all, what is more important than blaming people is doing something simple that makes a difference. It was nice to stop and talk to her.

I arrived beside the river this morning and made my 'payment' – a few stones from the riverbed at Marchey, the other side of the moors where the Brue used to meet the Axe. It's a bit more cloudy this morning, but it looks like it will clear and be hot before very long.

I wrote yesterday that it was the river spirit who had led me to this spot. I felt encouraged to do my best to engage with her when a friend suggested that the land itself held the memories of – for instance – the seventh century; that I should get in touch directly rather than relying on research and books ...

A pair of swans are quietly making their way past me, swimming slowly down the river ...

I don't really know how to tap into that memory of the land, all I can do is follow what presents itself and trust that I shall get where I need to. Some of it though is quite visible: between Baltonsborough and Glastonbury there are flood banks, built perhaps a thousand years ago to extend the grazing period on the land either side of the river. Before that, flooding would have been very frequent. The land is entirely flat and even in summer the water level in the river is not much lower than the surrounding fields. The banks have tamed it and contained it; before they were here the landscape would have been quite different, 'wetland' in the real sense of the word, treacherous to cross if you didn't know the way.

The reeds, the water plants, insects, birds, would have spread with the water across the low, flat landscape. Now this community of species is settled down along the narrow, winding strip that is the river; once, at least for much of the year, the swans would have had a much wider area in which to explore and feed. This is quite accessible to the imagination ... and this is how the land would have been in Petroc's time.

It's a bright sunny morning, though the sun is already taking just a bit longer to get up in the sky than it was a couple of weeks ago. Fish are breaking the surface of the river, after insects. On the way here there were warblers and skylarks, but here it is quiet except for the occasional splash from a fish. I am sitting on a wooden post in a cool spot, right beside the river.

Two weeks ago I lost my notebook – and it took a while to re-order and replace – and also I hurt my foot; so I took a couple of weeks' rest from my early morning walks. Losing the notebook meant losing two months of daily notes, observations, thoughts and ideas ...

There go a pair of bright red and brown birds, I don't know what they are called, flying downriver, almost straight at me, then past me and on downstream. I saw one such bird once before ...

On my way this morning I found myself still looking out for the notebook, it seems difficult to believe that it has just disappeared. I did come back and look, but never found it. My intuition says it was someone here, probably children, who found it and threw it in the river. I don't begrudge it to the river.

During these two months I have been walking further than to the place I used to stop, at Plungen. I am on the way towards Baltonsborough, and according to Jim the taxi driver who often walks his dog Molly down here, the turning off from the road is 2.6 miles from his house in Glastonbury. So it's a good 5-mile walk here and back.

I felt I had been directed here by the river spirit. She had been drawing me upriver, and once my book about Petroc was complete I followed here beckoning, walked all the way to Baltonsborough and back one Saturday afternoon, and found this spot (nearer to Glastonbury) on my way back. I am not the only person who comes here, but I am the only one who comes before 7 o'clock in the morning. 

Sometimes I see ducks and swans here, but not today; just those speedy little red birds.

It’s remarkable how much the scenery by the river has changed in the last few weeks, with all the new growth. The month begins with thick grey skies though it is nevertheless warm and muggy. There’s a reed warbler warbling his heart out just across the river, which brightens up the morning, though I also have a feeling of sadness as I notice more and more evidence of humanity’s lack of respect for the natural world – not quite grief, though it’s worth keeping in mind that it was grief that I wanted to get in touch with when I set out on this expedition. Neither is it despair, particularly as there is in fact so much wonderful natural scenery still left to see and to be part of: the river here, now enclosed in reeds and summer growth; the bird life at Steart marshes, which I have recently been to visit, there actively encouraged by peoples’ conscious actions.
 
I remind myself to offer gratitude to the river spirit. The next morning there’s a skylark as well as a reed warbler, both of them in full voice. That evening I give a talk to the local Conservation Society, and I have decided to talk about the recent period of the river, since the second world war, and this brings in all the conservation issues. I was surprised at how well received this was. Meanwhile, there is plenty of rubbish that I can pick up, which has appeared over the last few days.
 
The foliage around the river continues to grow – grass, reeds, all manner of wild plants; the river, though still, is very much alive – lily pads, insects, fish – and the little birds in the reeds. The reed warbler across the river sounds happier than ever; and there’s something else singing in the riverbank a little further along – there they go, a pair of them, fluttering around and then back again, then hopping about in the plants. The weather has changed to misty in the mornings and warm and sunny later, and grass growth is so lush that it’s become a local talking point. It’s been cut for silage earlier than usual, perhaps not just because of the weather but also the excess carbon to be absorbed from the atmosphere.
 
The thunderstorms that seemed inevitable never come, though eventually there’s some drizzly rain that freshens up the air. After a few days of this the water in the river is moving a bit faster than it has been. This mixture of rain and warmth ensures that the prolific growth continues, so much so that sitting on the riverbank I can hardly see the river!
 
One morning I am surprised to find that the water level has risen by as much as a foot, the current moving through at some pace, and the reeds that had grown up across much of its width almost completely submerged or washed away. There’s a lot of muddy sediment washing downstream too – the character and mood of the river have completely changed. It soon settles down again, and the reeds reappear, though summer solstice is the wettest day we have had for months. The state of the river, the water level and the rate of flow, does not seem to match the weather very well, so probably has more to do with management practices; maybe the dam above Bruton, especially if there has been a heavy downpour on the hills above the town.
 
The next day is beautifully sunny, whilst the river has risen following the previous day’s rain and the flow has again speeded up a lot. There’s still plenty of silt in the river, though it’s steady rather than rushing downstream, and the sunshine has it twinkling on its way towards me, embodying the spirit of the solstice. It’s now exactly a year since my walk along the length of the Brue and the Axe.
 
Towards the end of the month everything seems to be settling down: the weather, the warblers’ mating songs, and also the traffic on the A361 which has been noticeably heavier during the past week or two during the build-up to the festival – but now, after a major traffic jam when the punters arrive, this has stopped and I notice an unusual silence as I walk down Cinnamon Lane. When I get to the river a duck flies by and lands rather abruptly on the water – which is still muddy, though that’s clearing too. The sun coming out from behind the clouds delivers a sudden feeling of summer.
 
The EU referendum puts in jeopardy the Water Framework Directive, the Birds Directive, the Habitats Directive, and plenty more European legislation on which the hopes of conservationists have been pinned. The one I know a little about is the Water Framework Directive – and the truth is that it has done very little to reduce the pollution of rivers, it has mainly created a huge amount of bureaucracy, and whether it will actually make any real difference will now be up to the UK government. I continue to bring my ‘payments’ to the river, and to pray for a change in the right direction.

In the real world the sense of settling down continues; it’s very peaceful, with the breeze rustling the reeds a little but everything calm and – not exactly still, but moving gently. The river itself slips by quietly. The sun peeks out between the clouds, providing a brief flash of brilliance … There are occasional splashes in the water, I assume this must be fish though I don’t see them … A mother duck comes into view, with her duckling tucked behind her out of sight … There’s one patch of reeds with a warbler in it, singing loudly, perhaps one that never succeeded in mating, now left behind and literally singing its heart out; otherwise the riverbanks and reed beds are now procreating quietly.
 
Soon there is a new set of sounds – young birds getting excited about the arrival of food. Yellow lilies appear on the lily pads before the end of the month. The weather is still changeable and much wetter than usual, which according to humans of course is ‘bad weather’ (the Festival was reported to have the been the muddiest ever); the river, however, is looking very healthy as a result, and the birds all seem happy.