Toad numbers are in freefall.It's in our power to save them

After becoming engaged at Christmas in 1998, my new fiancé and I were confronted by an enormous toad on the way to meet the vicar.

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I've always loved toads, happily carrying them out of harm's way, and grew up where Kenneth Grahame wrote part of The Wind in the Willows, featuring the reckless, hapless, aristocratic Mr Toad. But my reaction resembled that of a spooked horse.

Perhaps a subconscious superstition at this important juncture in my life was stirring. It felt like a confrontation. The church's belltower shadow had fallen long on the path, and there the toad puffed itself up with air, stood on three of its legs and raised the remaining foreleg as if to stop us. Not so much a 'who goes there?' but more of a 'none shall pass'. What could this mean? Were we, perhaps, not meant to go through with this?