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Sinnington’s Maypole was readied for action, the grass mown in a circle around. We took our springtime delights up the lovely River Seven. Rooks cawed from 20 high nests, a grey wagtail posed over the shallows, layers of limestone reflected in the clear waters where plates of the rock form the riverbed, good but it gets better.

Three adults, two sheepdogs and six children were about to cross the river at a ford. We moved on upstream and into the woods taking narrow paths through the flowers up and above the Seven. And the flowers are gorgeous. The slopes of Hob Bank Wood are dominated by wood anemones, though dominated seems inappropriate for such a delicate plant, but they cover acres, sparkling white, the best show of them I've ever seen and the prettiest sight I've seen this year. Here and there they are sparked with a violet and there are clusters of pale flower spikes of toothwort which is a leafless parasite. There is a sequence of woods along the Seven here. Spring Bank Wood and Coppy Wood hint at a history of coppicing, and that how it looks, coppiced hazel and above that various standard trees.

The next beneficiary of these ancient woodlands is the garlic, it’s virtually the only plant of the steep slopes of Cropton Bank Woods. Its flowers are swelling, if you walk with a party along these smooth single file paths and you like pungent garlic then walk at the tail of the crocodile to benefit most from the boot bruised leaves.

Take a little detour to admire a rebuilt footbridge over the river, a good arch of steel with a timber superstructure. Stand on it for a view to the moors.

A family of walkers passed within a hundred yards, a family of cyclists rode a nearby ridge, we took a path wet with a rivulet that locals probably avoid.

It was all so nice here, including the only house painted white, the only farm, a bank of primrose and a bank of daisies.

Upstream about a mile is the village of Cropton, go there if energetic or thirsty, it has a brewery. Nevertheless we turned away from the river, passed industrial scale pheasant farm pens and headed south on Cropton Lane, sorry about this road but it’s ok, not that busy and with nice views of Ryedale and good verges.

A hillock allowed traffic watching half a mile away on Wrelton bank, and then it was quiet as we entered a very pleasant shallow valley divided up by the hedges of black thorn flowering white and hawthorn in green leaf, plus a willow or two with large creamy gold male catkins. The farms here are Coppice Farm, Low Coppice Farm and High Coppice Farm. For history more ancient you cross Double Dike.

Then there was the only ploughed land en route, dry and cracked 2 inches deep. The final half mile continued the pleasure, a bench at the Woodland Trust’s Roffe Wood, an interesting gable end at The Hall, and Sinnington’s greens again. You might find a note on your windscreen, a friendly note reading ‘welcome… enjoy… honesty box for green maintenance’. They like you parked on the grass rather than its threads of little roads.