Diary of a Riverkeeper on the River Test, Hampshire

Apparently there's been a referendum,

Who knew?

Graphs and charts demonstrate that baby boomers and the grey vote mustered in numbers to carry the day,

So we are where we are.

We all thought long and hard about our own decision based on facts presented and voted accordingly.

Democracy has been done,

Although Septuagenarian Norman, an ex pat in Torremolinos, who rang in on the radio one lunchtime this week did cause me to spill my soup when he explained that he had voted to leave the EU because of immigration.

Once again: We all thought long and hard about our own decision based on facts presented and voted accordingly..............

except Norman,

who may have been muddled by the moronic campaigning on both sides of the debate during the preceding weeks.

Whatever

Democracy has been done,

Time to make the most of the situation we are presented with, make a few friends and attend to the Far Right who disturbingly seem to be under the misguided impression that their relevance has in some way increased.

Apologies, I'll have to break off there and pop out into the garden.

Back again,

Our garden parasol just shot past the window and now lies in many pieces.

Yes the Renewable energy and yes the Ben Ainslie, but in the modern age is there any real need for wind.

Anyway, how's this for irony?

Our local town, that last Thursday voted to leave the EU. This week ,for the first time, played host to a French market on its beleaguered high street. Real French people peddled their wares from Brittany, Normandy and Picardy and business was brisk.

To continue the theme of exits from Europe, the English football team continue to maintain their standards on the international stage.

And as to Roy Hodgson querying his attendance at a press conference following the debacle's denouement, you picked up fourteen million zobs for your four years and a few games of football Roy, the least you can do is rock up and offer a few thanks for the gig.

Having attended to Europe I shall now give a report of my recent movements.

Not a leger (should that be ledger as I've Arlesey bombs on my mind) of my time on the toilet, although I am increasingly aware of the necessity to keep an eye on such movements,

but my work on the river.

Earlier this week I was once again required to give an account of my movements to village elders via the medium of photographs and obfuscation. A difficult crowd, there were the usual troublemakers, but I like to think I justified my actions over the past twelve months while my employer distracted them with cakes and tea to draw their fire.

The river continues to be in tip top condition. With plenty of water, weed and fly, and few heron, cormorants and otters, the fish are having a high old time of it and numbers in the book are up for the time of the year. Some of the showers have been quite intense and with verdant growth both on the river and in the wood there are a lot of branches and vegetation that have dropped down across paths and into the river.

I spent one afternoon chopping up a substantial willow that cashed in its chips under the weight of its wet leaves and fell right across the road although I don't think we made the traffic news. We are still seeing the odd mayfly and a fish was caught on a spent pattern at the start of the week. With perfect conditions for grass growth mowing is proving to be an interminable business. Some years in July you could fish in suede loafers and not get your feet wet. Wellies are a must this year, with some bits of bank quite mushy and weed may have to be cut quite hard in July to drop the water an inch or two. Orchids are out in all the usual places, as are the lilies on the flight pond, the only obvious negative about a river valley that is currently in sparkling form are the ash trees, many of which look in pretty poor health.

I have just popped over to the Itchen and was delayed in the lane that exits the parish by a convoy of crack troops. They had taken a wrong turning somewhere as the dozen or more vehicles had to put in ten point turns to retrace their steps to the camp on the other side of the village. I don't know what went wrong and there are those that would point the finger at satellite navigation systems guided by malfunctioning space hardware that increasingly deliver long lorries to inaccessible small streets in Cornwall, or possibly Devon, but does this kind of thing happen often on manoeuvres? We were stuck for ten minutes, which I didn't mind as I found it quite amusing, but the sixty year old chap in the car in front got very cross and started stamping around in the road, until I pointed out to him that the convoy had machine guns and possible air support and shouldn't he return to his car and calm down.

On occasion I'll sign this guff off with the epithet "We are increasingly led by loons" but it doesn't seem appropriate at the moment as we appear to be a little short of leaders and a watching world that tutted last Friday, must now be pondering, whatever are they up to now?

Gripping stuff, but events over the past week or so may lead some to question their faith in Old Albion, although the excellent coverage both on radio and television of the battle of the Somme centenary must go some way towards a restoration of faith.
Well done the BBC for the coverage.

Apologies for the delay in posts, and to the person who got in touch to ask if there was job going, I'm still here, just been a bit busy keeping up with grass and marginal growth that is growing at a remarkable rate and one of the heaviest July weed cuts in recent years. I hit our weed reasonably hard for a July weed cut in order to keep the river within its banks. left unattended it would have choked the stream and flowed out across the meadow, at which point I could go on at length about the need to manage chalk streams properly, the nonsense of re-wilding and undertaking a watching brief on chalk rivers and hey how did it go with some of that clever "woody debris" this weed cut.

But I won't as its really hot and am in wine attending to aches and pains that have developed on this husk of a body following days of work with a scythe. Think Poldark with a slight stoop, high forehead and a chest that's slipped a bit and you'll get the picture. Otis has been out in weed cut taking the opportunity of a dip in the hot weather although he has been caught out a few times by rafts of weed that have affected his course while swimming.

As is often the case during hit mid summer weather fishing has become difficult and many feed sub surface so the dry fly only rule has been abandoned and we are hard at it with the nymphs, although fish rose to a good hatch of sedge in the last hour of light yesterday.

News just in, we have a Pokemon in our bedroom, I don't know which one or what it does there but it promises to add a certain frisson to night time activity. There was also a Pokemon in the wine aisle at Tesco in Winchester next to some white Rioja on offer and we also saw Pokemon gathering at tables in Winchester and managed to get a picture, but are not sure which ones are which as our Pokadex is a little out of date.
I didn't understand Pokemon the first time, but they're now the stuff of Derek Acorah and I am working on my Yvette Fielding scream whenever I am informed of a Pokemon's presence.

We have a few broods of pheasant about, a few days old some of them which does seem late. Most of the duck are fully grown now and young kingfishers are on the wing, we also have a merlin about again and a barn owl hunts the meadows most days. No sign of any woodcock nesting despite perfect conditions with much mud in which they could probe. It's nearly twenty years since I disturbed a Mum with two young in the wood while mowing and she briefly flew around my head before dropping to the ground to lift each youngster eight or so feet away from the path of the tractor

I've been asked a few times about what Brexit will mean for fishing. I won't go on, I've chucked up some guff on the matter for the magazine and have had my fill of the subject.
We are where we are, nobody needs to justify a decision or attempt to apportion blame, we must all unite on as one as only hate will thrive in any void left by division. Call me an old hippy or even Doris day because it may benefit us all to remember the lyrics of Que sera sera.....

I've just heard that Sam Allardyce has been appointed as manager of the England football team.

Sam Allardyce???

Good Grief!

Ok, we can breathe a sigh of relief that Alan Pardew wasn't considered, but Sam Allardyce, really? does nobody remember the style of football his teams play?

Andy Carroll will be pleased?

Child A's graduation last week for her Masters.

Sandi Toksvig hosted and if you ever get a chance to hear her speak don't pass it up, she is quite brilliant.

As is Child A who now has the letters BSc hons and MRes after her name and has secured a position in the control centre of Thames Valley Police beginning in August. Parents very proud as we only have punctuation after our names, sometimes a full stop, occasionally a question mark.

Child B has almost completed his year working for a planning consultancy in Southampton and returns to Cardiff University in September to complete his studies. He currently has no letters after his name but is keen for it to be known that he was Longparish Cricket Club Fielder of the year in 2008 .

For the past few months Madam and myself have been engaged, deep cover, with the forces of HMRC.

Only now do we feel comfortable breaking cover to tell the tale of our travails with the collector of her majesty's taxes.

The battle began at the start of the year, when Madam received a directive that she had failed to file a tax return in time and consequently owed £100. Our finances are not particularly complicated but for ten years or so Madam and myself have been required to submit self assessment tax returns, which we have diligently completed many months before the final deadline in order to have money owed applied to our PAYE tax code as we can't be trusted to squirrel money away, because hey, we like a holiday, so in October 2015 we held hands and dutifully entered figures for each of us onto the seven bridges of Konigsberg that is the You Gov website. A few months later we received confirmation of our tax codes for the following year that acknowledged our little bit of income not covered by PAYE and true to form we kicked back and spent every last penny on our next trip, and then in February the email arrived informing Madam that she had not submitted a return and could HMRC have another £100. Phone calls were made and after many minutes on hold we were assured that the matter would be looked into.

After hearing nothing for two weeks Madam rang back and was informed that she now owed £200 and could she run through the course of events again as there didn't seem to be any record of her previous enquiry. Madam resubmitted her enquiry and, frustrated at her inability to resolve the problem, burst into tears and our jolly evening was gone.

Two weeks passed before Madam received another email, she now owed £300 and could she get in touch toute de suit to talk about it,

Which after many minutes on the phone, she did, and was advised to resubmit her tax return,

which she did,

live,

with the HMRC chap on the other end of the phone, who assured Madam that a confirmation of receipt would arrive from the Yougov website by email within the hour.

Two hours later, a confirmation of receipt had failed to arrive and Madam burst into tears.

The following week she received an email informing her that if she didn't submit a tax return for the relevant period within a week the fine would increase to £400,

and tears flowed once again.

So a phone call was made, and, after many hours and another evening lost we paid the tax owed for the period in a lump sum rather than through the PAYE, but could we appeal against the fine?

Which we did, on three sheets of A4, detailing events and pleading our case, and that was another evening gone.

The following week Madam received an email informing her that she now owed £500.

You can take the tears and frustration as read, a phone call was made, many minutes were spent on hold and after much passing around we eventually spoke to someone who informed us that because we hadn't used the actual word "appeal" in our letter they could not consider our case, and did we know the fine was on the cusp of rolling over to £600.

We resubmitted our appeal with the word writ large in red all over the envelope and we also wrote to our MP Caroline Nokes,

another evening gone.

Today we have received a phone call from HMRC informing us of their error, no money was owed, all fines were off, the YouGov website did receive Madam's tax return in October and could we give them permission to contact Caroline Nokes to inform her that the matter is now resolved.

Which we did, and tears (of relief) flowed

There was no apology, and lesser ladies than Madam may have cut their losses at a few hundred pounds and stumped up.

It shouldn't have taken intervention at a ministerial level to resolve the matter. Madam made every effort to sort the situation out and was frustrated at every turn at the inability to speak to a human being with the required authority to sort out what was an error of their making through a Yougov website that has a plethora of glitches. .

The penalty system for late payment is akin to the methods of the mob, and if a payday loan shark applied a similar level of interest (Madam only owed four hundred pound) we would quickly condemn them as corrupt.

Today we also found out that the head of HMRC who left her post during these shenanigans due to an ineffectual performance and poor customer service received several million pounds on the way out of the door.

Well done! hasn't Old Albion been kind to you.

Thank you Caroline Nokes, you're a top banana and congratulations on your new job, I suggested to Dave in my last letter (remember broadband) that you should get a promotion. I've a met the odd oily MP but La Nokes is the real deal, as are a few others I have had dealings with in recent times.

On a lighter note we had a tremendous day at the Lords Test. Been every year since 1993 and it remains a highlight on the calendar. We enjoyed the extra leg room in the half built Warner stand, thank you very much Mr Graham for the tickets.

I also received another invitation to fish the Avon at Chisinbury, it isn't a big river but a great place to spend an afternoon fishing off a pub lunch. Mayfly hatched throughout the afternoon, as they do on the Avon although few fish rose, but I did catch two half pound trout on a caddis nymph near the top of a very long beat. Thank you Mr Hodder for once again inviting me.

And that's the end, I'll try not to leave it so long next time, but with the way of the world at the moment it takes a lot just to keep looking up and not down, and froth occasionally feels a little out of place.

Up your game Tim Peake,

I'm delivering for Amazon now!

Well fishing's slowed up a little, but not to the extent that it did midsummer of 2015. There are bits of algae present and blanket weed is on the rise, but then it is August. Compare the photo on here twelve months ago featuring foam and cloudy water with the current state of play and it is clear that water quality was being impacted upon upstream in 2015 and whatever shenanigans were going on upriver are now diminished or have ceased.
Many fish concentrate on feeding subsurface with daytime surface feeding fish rising sporadically to a steady trickle of olives and hatches of sedge that build from mid afternoon on.

And at that point I'll break off to attend to some of the nonsense currently employed by media regarding the Olympics.
Despite the best efforts of the written press in recent months, I predict that many will welcome a sporting event that, the Russian bear aside, manages to bring unity to a disparate world, and hey naysayers over the last few weeks in the written press, good luck Rio (not you Ferdinand you lucked out years ago) I am sure the games will be a great success. If ever a year needed a lift with a few life affirming tales then it is 2016 and I hope the Olympics and Para Olympics will deliver on that score wherever.

But somebody add some barley straw or introduce tench and lillies to the fetid pit that Tom Daley and his compatriots are required to tumble into.

In the middle of the night a twenty one year old called Adam won the first medal for Old Albion. A dedicated individual who hadn't lost a race for two years, I was made aware of his triumph via Madam's phone, who, ever the newshound had wired it up for BBC news alerts.

Bleary eyed over breakfast (we couldn't get back to sleep) we discussed the merits of smart phones and tablets in the bedroom, but agreed to hold hands and watch the highlights of the race later that day.

Which we tried to do on three occasions,

but rather than show the one minute race in its entirety, the BBC prefer (and I blame Eddie Butler for this fad, after setting slow motion rugby players to poor prose) we are treated to super slow mo vignettes as the commentator delivers his piece (with much editing and several takes) Look at the camera we've got and didn't our commentary go well?

Hubris doesn't come close,

Adam's achievements could never be improved by some digital sexing up of the pictures and audio. Just show the thing as it happened in real time with live commentary, warts an all and then step back and say well done.

The red button is worth a push, as it offers several sports sans commentator and pundit, which can be quite refreshing at times.

Anyway, we've a meadow full of butterflies, drawn to hemp agrimony, that like much of the other vegetation is a foot taller than previous years. The willows have also enjoyed 2016 and have put on substantial growth, although one of the eight year old cricket bat willows has shed all of its leaves and cashed in its chips, which is a little surprising as willows thrive in this parish.

There are rumours of some funny raptors about. I have seen a ring tailed hen harrier with my own eyes, and the merlin is a given, but four chaps with cameras were waiting on the bridge over the A303 for a honey buzzard that has taken up residence in Harewood Forest and there is talk of goshawks getting jiggy in the valley. One of our regulars described a bird that could have been such a thing up near the flight pond, and I carry my camera in readiness, but have yet to confirm the sighting, although I was distracted by the butterflies (see photos).

And well done Wendy Craig for that, we revisited a few episodes when we last experienced a broadband connection capable of delivering such a service, could have been rural France, Seville or that Croatian island an hour off the coast of Split, I don't remember exactly but it was definitely in Europe.

I didn't appreciate how clever Butterflies was as a child of Primary school age, and at this point can we all tip a tile to Dolly Parton.

Dig deep, and you'll find that this gal made a significant contribution to the backing track of three decades or more.

Cricket can be all consuming at this time of year for three parts of our family, although Child A did attend a cricket match last weekend if only to ignore match proceedings and gas with friends on the boundary, which is part of the charm of club cricket, and I too find myself increasingly distracted by the social scene on the boundary and miss large chunks of the game. Fortunately Madam is the scorer supreme (The Hampshire Cricket Leagues' scorer of the year 2014 sash hangs from the post of our bed) and fills me in on matters I missed while giving forth elsewhere when we get home. A regular visitor to the ground is a former Times cricket correspondent, he's lived all his life a few yards up the road and even in his ninetieth year shows a keen interest in all the Longparish sides.

He's brim full of knowledge on many subjects including fishing, particularly on chalk streams that he has lived on all of his life. He kindly took me to a stretch of the Avon on several occasions where he held a rod and he fished many weekends at home on the Dever and even filled in on the beating line on shoot days a couple of times with his spaniel Googly.

We attended his 70th birthday party , his 80th birthday party and earlier this week his 90th birthday party, we hope to be invited to his 100th birthday party as ten minutes in his company on the boundary remains one of the highlights of any game of cricket wherever it's played.

And so to the Duke of Wewstminster, not the pub, but Gerald Grosvenor who passed away this week

For a few years we stocked his two acre garden pond at Eaton Hall with our home grown three pound brown trout for his children to catch. On the first occasion I was given a tour of the estate by the deer manager, who had a meat processing room that Waitrose would envy and a narrow gauge railway circumnavigating the estate to transport the seven hundred or so fallow culled each year.

I didn't meet Gerald on that occasion, but I was well acquainted with the estate as, each year during my formative years our cub scout and scout troops undertook a sponsored walk about the premises to raise money for I forget what. However our paths did cross once when a quorum of my fourteen year old friends travelled south via back lanes from Tarvin to Llangollen to sojourn in my parents caravan for the weekend.

To celebrate crossing the Anglo Welsh border my introverted friend chose to pop a wheelie down the middle of the B Road on which we were travelling , at which point the Duke of Westminster rounded the corner ahead in his green range rover causing my friend to abort his wheelie and the duke to swerve his range rover and wag a finger.

I met his wife once when I was 17. I was charged with presenting her with a cheque for the Save the Children fund after a group of us were sponsored to push a supermarket trolley from Cheshire to London, and she was radiant throughout (the presentation, she didn't come on the trolley push)

It will have been written many times, but he did an awful lot for Field Sports

If confirmation were needed that a certain sector of the UK's urban population is increasingly disconnected from an everyday tale of country life (and hey Archers I'm including you in this) then an article in a newspaper last Saturday espousing the virtues of "green gyms" shall serve as exhibit A, B or C in any case presented.

The writer (or his house) paid money to join a "Green Gym" for a week, where the group undertook physical work in the outdoors in simple clothing, breaking occasionally to connect with the rest of the group through easy unpressured conversation. Accommodation and provisions were simple fayre, often taken in the field. Courses are being run throughout the year, and are reasonably priced at £600 pp.

I believe people pay good money for mindfulness classes in which they are encouraged to clear their heads (and their purse) by concentrating on a single spot while sitting in a yoga type position.

I've said it before, and I predict a wicker fishing basket will be the next yogic accoutrement required to attain the third level of enlightenment,

but fishermen who fish the float or the quiver tip have known this for some time.

On several occasions last year, four or five people paid money to lift weights and be shouted at by a man who had travelled many miles in the name of "Boot camp" exercise, while Ludgershall and myself chopped and stacked logs on the other side of the fence,

you could have helped us out for free and we wouldn't have been anywhere near as shouty.

Last winter Lord Ludgershall and myself spent many months in the woods attending to trees.

This year Professor Ludgershall and myself will be running a series of short courses that promise to promote mental clarity via the medium of gentle cardio exercise, moving wood and ribald conversation

Refreshments and lunch provided each day and will be taken outdoors.

Packages are individually tailored to the client's needs

Standard package - £200 pp per week (I think that's reasonable)

Gold package - £300 pp per week - includes proper coffee/posh teabag, "non jacket potato" lunch option and scented candles

Please note, accommodation not included in either of the above packages, there is a Travelodge just up the road.

Back again, albeit in an Olympic reverie.

But first we shall attend to Malham Tarn, where a press release, gleefully accepted by national radio, trumpeted the release of a hundred captive bred Water Voles into the Tarn to boost numbers of Ratty.

The News piece revealed that this centum of voles had been raised on carrots and apples, and I confidently predict that in the coming weeks a well meaning Joe Public will don walking shoes to fling all manner of fruit and veg into the Tarn to sustain the poor creatures

This release contradicts current thinking with regard to re-establishing populations of freshwater fish stocks, where the release of captive bred stock and supplementary feeding are strongly discouraged.

Why was this release of Water Voles made public? Why not wait a few years until the Tarn has been repopulated successfully and has a sustainable population of Voles, because hey kids, a lot of that first hundred ain't gonna make it.

I like a Vole, but I can't help thinking that the Malham Tarn lot have been let down by this press release.

Anyway,

We love the Olympics,

there I said it

it's good to emote, innit?

Rowing, Sailing, Boxing, Gymnastics the full gamut (even Equestrian) holds Madam and myself rapt.

The Football season ( a winter sport) started recently, and premiership matches screened live during the Olympics seem a little vulgar as hey Tony Cascarino (Is he still playing?) et al, these Olympics achieve much without the wash bag and headphone culture. During an entertaining half hour with Prodnose on a recent Saturday morning Roger Black revealed that Athletes rock up at the track in their kit and do not shower at the stadium after the event, which is one in the eye (or ear) for the old adage of scrubbing behind the ears.

Compare post event/match interviews of Olympians and Footballers and your Olympian is a far more rounded individual with a capacity for stringing sentences together, win or lose, in the depths of recovery from physical exertion. But then can we all remember that wiseacre Alan Pardew who, irked at the success of London 2012, sought to remind the British Public that footballers too are capable of Corinthian deeds, before head butting a footballer twenty years his junior playing against a team he was managing at the time a couple of weeks later.

Watch and learn Premiership footballers, you do not possess the god like status that you think your wage packet infers, that status is left for true Olympians, and hey Brian Cox, if you happen to find another planet somewhere, can we please, ignore the campaign for Planet Sheldon and name the thing Usain?

Or perhaps Planet Nick Skelton, as a gold medal at the age of 58 has isnpsired me to search for Pole vault poles on ebay.

Well done everyone, Well done!

Returning to Alan, the weed cut is on and having gone through much of the back catalogue of Desert Island Discs on my clever wireless headphones, I have purchased an audio book to occupy the few grey cells that remain during Poldarkian swishings with my scythe. I Partridge - we need to talk about Alan is a permanent fixture on my phone and is a work of genius, but today I have cut weed to a book that pushes it close.

My Lords, Ladies and Gentleman, I give you......

Toast on Toast, Cautionary Tales and Candid Advice.

I knew the book was out,

but like I Partridge, We need to talk about Alan, I wanted to hear the evidence from the horse's mouth.

If you were walking near the river sometime today and saw a chap up to his chest in water laughing his scythe off then this book was the cause.

Alan Partridge and Adrian Mole stand like beacons as true seers of their respective ages, and I'll confess to being a bit spoony over Matt Berry (The IT Crowd, Mighty Boosh, House of Fools, Snuff Box) he's a genius, and Steven Toast now run Alan and Adrian close in the race for a place at the centre of my heart,

Just outside family, close friends and the black dog obviously.

Returning to matters of work,

But before I do, I'm typing this blind, as the letters on the replacement keyboard purchased from Peking after I inadvisably marinated my laptop in vin rouge, have all rubbed off.

I used to get quite cross with Sting in his free jazz phase when he played a bass guitar with no fret marks, and once came close to taking him up on the matter when I passed through his garden on the Avon a few years ago on a business trip, but having banged out guff on a keyboard free of markings over the past few weeks I can concur with the Sting that it is a freer way of playing/typing,

I've never felt more alive, it's akin to riding a bike commando,

A practice also promoted by Sting during his Tantric sex phase, and a significant proportion of the cast of Carry on Camping.

August fishing is what it is, and as ever we look forward to September. Fish are being caught and a look through the book will confirm that with regard to numbers, catches are all that they should be for the season and well up on last year when water quality was significantly poorer. Many anglers have remarked on the dearth of big fish. Not one for a grey area or obfuscation I consulted catch records for the last thirty years in search of FACTS ( a word that seems to demand capital letters in the modern age) and the average size of fish caught each season has dropped these past two seasons.

We don't stock heavily, and brown trout introduced have rarely exceeded a pound and half in weight throughout the past twenty odd years. There are fish in the book of many pounds, the size of which have not appeared in recent seasons, and at this point it may be pertinent to examine where these "bigger" fish came from. First up, we didn't put them in. They were either derived from natural stock, or were canny stocked fish who matured in the river and hung around for several seasons (mixed sex) and spawned successfully.

This valley now plays host to a herd of Otters, and the big fish are the first to end up dead on the bank and last November/ December there were significantly fewer sexually mature fish kicking up redds in this stretch of river, which is a worry.

While many will wax lyrical on the merits of apex predators, this one is starting to impact upon the fish population of this river valley. It is not just the big trout that end up half eaten on the river bank, big pike, big roach and big grayling have all been hit hard these past two years, and in the lake the fifty forty year old carp were killed in a space of a couple of winters along with a shoal of bream weighing between five and eight pound.

Don't get me wrong, Otters should be present in this valley, but Unlike Hugh Finty Tittingshill, Tarka doesn't do sustainable fishing and we are currently heading towards a situation where the fish population falls to a sufficiently low level that the Otters are forced to move elsewhere for a viable food source and face their principle present day foe, the motor car.

There is a sensible conversation that needs to be begun , (don't expect any organisation ending in the word "Trust" ( Angling Trust excepted) to put their head above the parapet) and not on social media or the internet, and reading this back I anticipate the customary anonymous emails, so I'll get my response in early in that I am immensely proud that biodiversity has increased substantially on this stretch of river during my twenty five season tenure, Otters included, but for some aquatic environments in the UK, a burgeoning Otter population has fast becoming the elephant in the room.

Moving on, and with a nod to Esther Rantzen, who I once had the pleasure of meeting (I seem to have picked up a name dropping habit in recent weeks) and can confirm is a very nice lady and a sharp cookie to boot, here's a photo of an unusually shaped salad vegetable,

Ladies and Gentleman I give you,

Cucumber by Henry Moore.

If anyone would like to buy this unique work of art in the medium of cucumber by the leading sculptor of his age, please send several thousand pounds to:

Vegetables are far more comfortable in their own skin now we're out of Europe
Bransbury
Hampshire
Engerland

Cyril

Apologies for delay in posting but Madam and myself are fresh in from the Balkans. The Split environs to be exact, albeit a different Isle from last year.

Flying out on a dawn plane that we nearly missed after experiencing nocturnal conniptions induced by the midnight machinations of the South East Motorway network, we took in the best Hook, Fleet, Camberley, Frimley and Farnborough had to offer in the early hours as we followed yellow signs in our efforts to catch our flight.

If the South East of England's major road network were subject to an Ofsted type report, much of it would be classed as "failing".

Anyway, we caught the plane, and arrived at Split airport where we were assigned a turquoise car in which we set out for our digs an island hop away up the coast.

No ferries this year, just a couple of bridges and a wiggly road through Trogir a UNESCO heritage site through which every vehicle must pass to access the island of Ciovo where we were due to stay in an apartment just back from the beach in a small village looking back at Split.

A bridge is currently under construction to bypass Trogir. Part funded by the EU the project began in 2007 and was due to be completed in 2013, but it remains some way from being signed off. It's no white elephant, like some EU funded projects, (some developments in a Spanish city beginning with the letter V spring immediately to mind) it will prove to be a real game changer for the island, but with only a handful of blokes seemingly employed on the project it has the depressing whiff of money having been siphoned off to chuck up Vila in the hills and a bridge completion date some years away yet.

The lady who met us at our billet was desperate for the thing to be finished.

Embedded deep cover on the second floor, the top one as it happens (is this phrase OK post Saville?) as there are restrictions on the height of new development within so many metres of the shore, we began to take stock of the situation we had placed ourselves in for the next nine nights. There was a pool below, a few minutes stumbling down the road and we were in the sea, we had a beautiful view across the bay to Split and a big fridge full of beer and unfortunately some pretty ropey rose, oh well, it would have to do for the next nine nights.

Dinner was taken by the harbour ten minutes walk away and consisted mostly of meat with a green leaf for garnish. They like their meat in Croatia and the quality of the steak surprises many, my mixed grill was a festival of meat and met my protein requirements for the following forty eight hours. The food isn't fancy, mostly done on the grill with none of your delicious greek island mutton that's been cooking for days, but it's OK. We failed to strike lucky with the local vino, and when we were reduced to adding lemonade to our pre meal Rose gave up and stuck to Italian grog, although the bar had been set particularly high by some pre holiday English pink fizz that my parents had snaffled during disembarking from their last SAGA cruise. This part of the Adriatic is popular with Italian set and consequently the Italian food and wine is pretty good and a welcome change from the grilled meat and fish. One establishment dished up Pizza as good as anything we have eaten in Italy in the past couple of years.

Last year, for bedtime TV, we enjoyed the Croatian take on Pointless. This year it was Space 1999, or possibly The Clangers. The plot was a little tricky to follow, and I'm sure our hero should have had SMEG writ large on the top of his space helmet,

But the whole thing fell apart when after going boldly where no man had been before our heroes reached for their maps and compasses.

A pattern was soon established of activity in the morning, a long lunch followed by time on the beach, reading, snorkelling or watching the rich variety of air transport that operates to serve the region. A sea plane service to the outer islands of Vis and Hvaar, those magnificent men in their yellow fire fighting machines who swooped low over the waves to scoop up water to dump on fires raging on the hills, the passenger helicopters who criss crossed the islands, always with their doors open, and the three flights an hour into Split airport, five miles away across the bay.

A white pebble beach with some super snorkelling, it was rarely busy and each afternoon the local saga set massed to chew the fat in the shade,

and in a scene redolent of Osbourne House in the latter half of the 19th century, twin bathing costumes with mourning hats.

Morning activities include a long walk on a precipitous path in high heat to the Sanctuary of our Lady of somewhere or other, which was shut (Apparently the church are notorious for this kind of thing)

The interior of the island is relatively uninhabited and full of wildlife among the Olive grove and scrub, whether this will remain the case when the bridge is built is up for debate.

Returning home for lunch we took a wrong turn in our turquoise car and ended up parked on the local helicopter Landing Pad, which was a first in our captain's log.

Church on the right day (Sunday apparently) was quite the draw with the crowd spilling out among the tombstones to sample the sermon via a PA system.

The following morning we visited Trogir, a small town on an island between our island and the mainland and a couple of miles up the coast, it is very old and a favourite of the super rich and cruising set.

Here's one of me having just taken tea with Simon Cowell

The tiny stone streets soon fill up as the day progresses. There was a market one day and each day we visited we sought respite from the heat in tiny shaded squares sipping superb coffee and licking away at Pistachio Ice Cream.

The 14th Century castle that guards the gate to the quay provided a fine view of the town and the surrounding hills

and also of the local football pitch where I can confirm that the remainder of Europe buff up their penalty shoot out technique from an early age.

That evening our postprandial entertainment comprised a local five a side football league match in the outdoor cage by the harbour. The visitors were a team from the mainland and drew quite a crowd.

Technique was reasonable, and the score was logged by a chap with a digital display on the roof of the local bakers, which too, seemed reasonable.

The next morning we were up with the lark, or the Pheasant at the very least as the Olive grove behind our billet was full of the things, to catch the 8.00am passenger ferry from Slatine to Split.

Two sovereigns there and two sovereigns back, the journey takes half an hour and the craaft was full. (note to self, for audiobook version read in the manner of Steven Toast)

On our outward journey we were treated to the site of a pod of four dolphins whacking into sardines in the oily water of early morning.

We'd visited Split last year along with several million other people.

Arriving early was a different experience altogether and for the first hour we had much of the Diocletian Palace that serves as the town centre to ourselves. It's a fascinating place, coffee was taken on the roof of the Department store, not quite Pollux in Lisbon, but a terrific view of the old town and the harbour all the same, before we perused the sprawling market that peddles the inevitable tourist tat,

but also a superb fruit and veg market and the fish market replete with tame gulls who pluck the sardines tossed in the air by the fish vendors a few feet above the shoppers' heads. Split was full by midday so we headed home for lunch and the beach on the 1.00am ferry.

A boat was hired towards the end of the week, a small craft and possibly the slowest in the Adriatic,

we jousted with the super yachts and ferries in Trogir before creeping round the back of town to the busy shipyard where a multimillion pound super yacht was being tentatively hoisted out of the water

and an even bigger cruise ship was being attended to in a floating dry dock. Heading back up the coast a Haar descended and thunder began to roll around the hills behind Split so we ran for home guided home by our turquoise hire car conspicuously parked on the sea front.

A ridiculously relaxing break ended all too soon and it was time to return home.

It's a beautiful part of the world and most of it is well done. Front of House in many establishments could be a little more friendly, but brusque may be the accepted way although our hosts were charming and we developed a good relationship with staff in the shops and restaurant that we used most regularly.

There is a recycling cult born out of money back on plastic, glass and tin, and hey everybody remember Corona. It certainly works as you can feel the eyes upon you as you swig the last dregs of your water on the beach.

The plane home aborted its landing on approaching Gatwick which was a little hairy but we were soon down on the ground and heading for home enjoying the delights of the M25 and M3 and a three hour journey that we have done previously in seventy minutes and the inevitable discussion on how the road system in this corner of the country does not function as intended that concluded with the desire for another holiday.

Apologies but there are a few parish messages to which we must attend,

First up a link to an article sent to me recently by a friend.

It's a bit of a worry

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/07/us/in-puzzle-of-oklahomas-earthquakes-new-data-may-provide-clues.html?em_pos=large&emc=edit_nn_20160908&nl=morning-briefing&nlid=74230850&_r=0

Further Parish Messages.

2: A report on our whistle stop tour to the Ypres Salient.

Like last year's overnight visit to the Somme I feel compelled to write something down, for my own sake if nothing else as I don't want to forget.

You may agree with what you are about to read, you may not and I'm not particularly bothered, this is what I felt twenty four hours after our visit to the fields of Flanders. No clever conclusions or judgement with the benefit of hindsight, just my own observations on a region that few could fail to be touched by.

Lord and Lady Ludgershall would once again be our eminent and excellent guides and we pitched up in Calais a little before 9am. Provisions were purchased in Auchan before we made haste through the hops for Poperinge, the gateway to the Ypres salient and headquarters for much of the war machine operating on that part of the Western front.

It also served as a site for soldiers on a break from time in the front line or in reserve and it was to Talbot House that we headed first. Founded by the Reverend Tubby Taylor it served as an "Everyman's club" for soldiers of all rank in the British Army and provided a brief sanctuary from the madness that is the business of war.

It is remarkably well preserved and still provides accommodation. The Garden in particular must have provided particular solace from an environment reduced to deep mud by bad weather and intense artillery fire.

There was a rudimentary cinema on the first floor and in the roof a tiny chapel. He sounded like a thoroughly decent chap did Tubby Taylor and was obviously highly thought of, as were most of the chaplains who spent time in the front line.

Out of Talbot House and after making brief acquaintance with a statue of Elaine Cossey, known as Ginger to soldiers from all corners of the British Empire for her red hair and vivacity she embodied for many a reminder of human dignity and life that they carried into the hell of the trenches as a spark in their hearts.

The town hall next and the cells where soldiers were held for all manner of misdemeanours including desertion and cowardice, the penalty for these two, being tied to the post that stands in the courtyard and a bullet through the head at dawn. PTSD would be today's diagnosis for many who went this way, but at the time the army relied on Tommy Atkins having enough fire in his belly to climb out of his trench, brave the artillery, machine guns and gas and engage the enemy by whatever means possible, be it rifle, bayonet, club or spade, it was a brutal business maintained by at times brutal discipline.

Off to Ypres next, a city at the heart of the bulge in the Western Front known as the Ypres salient. It started the war as the third largest city in Flanders after Bruges and Ghent and was dominated by the 13th century Cloth hall and like so many cities in the region was protected by 17th century fortifications by the vaunted Vauban.

Unfortunately his bulky buttresses and clever ravelins proved no match for several years of Teutonic artillery bombardment from behind the low ridges that surround the city and by 1918 the city was reduced to a pile of rubble. A million or more Flemish acquired refugee status when the war came to their area and crossed borders to take cover from the conflict in other countries. Lots went to Holland, some went to Britain, others went to more peaceful parts of France. When the armistice was signed some stayed where they had ended up, but most returned to where they lived before war broke out. The British called for Ypres not to be rebuilt and stand as a memorial of the many battles that had taken place there, but the Flemish had other ideas and rebuilt the city as it had stood before the bombs began to fall.

And well done the Flemish for that

I'm not relatively religious, but there is something to be said for resurrection and after all that war has gone away, your everyday Joe can emerge from the wings chuck up a host of wooden huts to live in and restore order.

It's a city that strikes the right balance between reverence and the requirement to move forward.

It is all too easy to forget that within Pandora's box, hidden beneath all the bad stuff, lay hope.

The Menin Gate straddling the Menin road down which so many trudged never to return stands as a fitting monument to the missing,

although the Last Post in tourist time in high heat was a bit of a scrum as it is an understandable box to be ticked on any organised tour of the area.

It may be more evocative witnessing the event on a bleak day at the end of October in conditions more familiar to the sixty thousand names on the gate.

Kicking back in Ypres, because yes, it is not a maudlin place. We devoured a fine repast ( Flemish stew, Moules, Shrimp Croquettes, Steak and no little wine) in a popular restaurant in the square before heading home to bed.

After the conventional European breakfast we headed to the In Flanders Field Museum housed in the rebuilt Cloth market.

It's a very good museum.

We shared the place with people from many nations who fought on both sides of the war.

As well as the excellent and informative exhibits, it is worth paying the extra two euros to climb to the top of the clock tower which gives an excellent view of the city and the route out of town to the front line and the low ridges held by the Germans.
It takes two hours to do the museum and pick your time to climb the tower as during the rebuild they installed a clever carillian that strikes every fifteen minutes. It's an elaborate series of gongs to signal the passing of time and the stairs to the top pass within a few feet of the many bells, Lord Lugg timed his run wrong and had sparrows circling his crown (see The Beano) for quite a few minutes.

Heading out of town, it was off to Essex Farm and the advanced dressing station where the Canadian Medico John McCrae wrote "In Flanders Fields" after seeing his mate obliterated by a direct hit to his artillery battery on the bank of the nearby canal.

We visited McCrae's grave on our trip down the coast to Etaples last year. Madam's school use the text each year when the curriculum requires them to make mention of the First World War. How McCrae came up with such easy prose in the most desperate of circumstances is beyond me, but then I refer you back to the top of this guff, it is impossible to comprehend what was possible in such circumstances with hindsight.

Vancouver corner next and a stunning art deco memorial of a brooding soldier that marks the site where a Canadian division were subject to one of the first gas attacks during the second battle of Ypres
.

The designer of the memorial had finished second in a competition to the chap who came up with the Vimy Ridge memorial.

The Vancouver corner memorial may be substantially smaller than the winner of the competition, but the impact is the equal of Vimy Ridge.

And so to Tyne Cot, the largest CWGC site going, sitting atop the Passchendaele ridge looking back across all those Flanders Fields to Ypres.

In preparation for our visit I'd read "Passchendaele" by Nigel Steel and Peter Hart. It's a good book that relies heavily on anecdote from those who were there, the German take on matters is a little lacking , but it is evident that men (a lot of whom had already been through the misery of the Somme) were operating at mental and physical limits difficult to comprehend today. Dreadful Weather and intense artillery bombardment rendered the field of battle close to impassable. The Germans held the higher ground and constructed a series of pill boxes that covered each other if attacked. The Allies adopted new tactics of "Bite and hold" with the objective of a decisive breakthrough abandoned they sought smaller gains of a thousand yards or so that they would then endeavour to retain in the face of the inevitable German counter attack. This was then abandoned briefly with disastrous results before a return to a more prepared approach under the command of a Canadian. While all this was going on the artillery guns slugged it out guided by observation balloons and the army air corps and in bad weather the fields of Flanders became the very embodiment of hell.

The approach to the ridge was a desolate swamp, over which brooded an evil menacing atmosphere that seemed to defy encroachment. Far more treacherous than the visible surface defences with which we were familiar; deep devouring mud spread deadly traps in all directions. We splashed and slithered, and dragged our feet from the pull of an invisible enemy determined to suck us into its depths. Every few steps someone would slide and stumble and weighed down by rifle and equipment, rapidly sink into the squelching mess. Those nearest grabbed his arms, struggled against being themselves engulfed and, if humanly possible, dragged him out. When helpers floundered in as well and doubled the task, it became hopeless. All the straining efforts failed and the swamp swallowed its screaming victims, and we had to be ordered to plod on dejectedly and fight this relentless enemy as stubbornly as we did those we could see. It happened that one of those leading us was Lieutenant Chamberlain, and so distraught did he become at the spectacle of men drowning in mud, and the desperate efforts to rescue them that suddenly he began hysterically belabouring the shoulders of a sinking man with his swagger stick. We were horrified to see this most compassionate officer so unstrung as to resort to brutality, and our loud protests forced him to desist. The man was rescued, but some could not be and they sank shrieking with fear and agony. To be ordered to go ahead and leave a comrade to such a fate was the hardest experience one could be asked to endure, but the objective had to be reached, and we plunged on, bitter anger against the evil forces prevailing piled on to our exasperation. This was as near to Hell as I ever want to be.

Private Norman Cliff. 1st Battalion, Grenadier Guards.

The hope that sprung from Pandora's box is evident in the rebuild of Ypres, the desolation of war is all to evident at Tyne Cot. It is an affecting place sited on the low ridge looking back at Ypres across the Flanders fields in which so many met a miserable end.

You enter the cemetery on a path with hidden speakers through which the voice of a young woman issues a roll call of the dead. Most were around the age of my own children, which raised the first lump in the throat. Enter the visitor centre and a minimalist display draws the eye,

as do some quotes on the wall

but driven by the background roll call

the eye is drawn to a screen on the end wall displaying the photo of each person announced,

and at this point I nearly went because after all the grave stones, crosses and memorials there were human beings with their own identity and story to tell behind each set of eyes.

Here's a quote from one who made it home

"The next night my pal came out with me. We heard one of their big ones coming over. Normally within reason, you could tell if it was going to land anywhere near or not. If it was, the normal procedure was to throw yourself down and avoid the shell fragments. This one we knew was going to drop near. My pal shouted and threw himself down. I was too damned tired even to fall down. I stood there. Next i had a terrific pain in the back and chest and I found myself face down in the mud. My pal came to me, he tried to lift me up. I said to him, "Don't touch me, leave me, I've had enough, just leave me" The next thing I found myself sinking in the mud. I don't hate it any more- it seemed like a protective blanket covering me. I thought "well this is death, it's not so bad" Then I foudn myself being bumped about and realised I was on a stretcher. I thought "poor devils these stretcher bearers - I wouldn't be a stretcher bearer for anything" I suddenly realised I wasn't dead and that if these wounds didn't prove fatal I should get back to my parents, to my sister, to my girl who I was going to marry. The girl that had sent me a letter every day from the beginning of the war. I thought "Thank God for that!" Then the dressing station, morphia and the sleep that is so badly needed. I didn't recollect any more till I found myself in a bed with white sheets and I heard the lovely wonderful voices of our nurses. Then I completely broke down."

Bombardier J.W Palmer, 26th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery laying communication lines who had survived three years in action.

It is difficult to portray the scale of Tyne Cot with a camera from the ground so here's one from the air.

Many of the graves and names on the wall are of soldiers who travelled a long way around the world (when transport was not so simple as today) to fight the hun. Rows and rows of Australians, Canadians, Africans, Indians and corners of Europe that I had previously thought unaffected by the war.

And then it was time to go home.

The final display in The Flanders Field museum states that this was the war to end all wars,

it wasn't, and there is a list of every war that has taken place since 1918 above the exit.

It is important that we continue to remember and hope we reach a generation who decide it is time to settle national or religious differences through a method other than armed conflict

Clicks Playlist containing Joan Baez, Bill Withers and Country Joe and the Fish and sits back slightly dumbstruck, but grateful never to have experienced war at first hand.

Regular visitors to this parish will acknowledge that hackneyed phrasing is a given, so here goes with another oft repeated line:

Crikes! where did all the water go?

I can feel another bit of hackney coming on,

I can't believe the speed at which the river has dropped during the past month.

You will be aware of a disregard for official figures particularly those regarding quantity and quality of water, because they are mostly made up, or adjusted to suit some other agenda (normally big business and the bottom line) But here's a FACT (Thank you to Rafa Benitez for ensuring that this word is now forever written in capitals) if we were still using our earth ponds to produce brown trout, the fish would have been moved elsewhere several weeks ago because there isn't enough water for the ponds to function as a unit for rearing salmonids. The twelve inch pipe that used to feed water through to the fish is higher than the water level of the river.

This has not been the case during my time falling in and out of this river.

Hackneyed phrase number three is imminent,

We need a lot of rain in the south this winter.

Thankfully the wallahs at command centre central are on to this and last week issued a press release warning of a diminishing water supply in the south of England and could we all be a little less profligate with the old eau.

Although we are now entering the silly season regarding rain with DJ's and Journos bemoaning a grey day and drizzle and don't expect anyone to put a positive spin on a spell of wet weather in the south of England at any point this winter.

Fishing remains hard. I was kindly invited to fish the Anton earlier this week and goodness the fish were spooky. I managed a couple of grayling off the top on a red tag but like here on the Dever most fish were bunched up in holes, spook one and they all go off in a nervy spaz.

Fish have been caught this week including one brown trout of two and a half pound that had the body length of a three pounder, which is a worry as there shouldn't be thin fish about at this time of the year. Hatches of fly early on in the season were reasonable although like Liverpool of late with their high energy pressing game they have tailed off a tad during the second half.

We still have House Martins about, although most of the swallows and swifts have exited stage left and we also have an early egret stalking the shallows. We retain a quorum of swans, but not far downstream several beats have been hit hard by high numbers of Gielgud who played fast and loose with river restoration work and much replanted ranunculus has been plucked from the river bed.

All this river restoration work driven by habitat directive is highly commendable and hopefully the funding will continue to be available post Brexit but forgive my ignorance, as I am but a stupid riverkeeper, but shouldn't a holistic approach to habitat management attend to all areas of the chalk stream environment.

Which brings me to a tale to rival the Court of King Caractacus that began with a Fishery Management Consultation (expert advice for no little fee and brim full of your rewilding) upstream from here five or so years ago and will hopefully reach a conclusion following a meeting with some big noises from command centre central in a few weeks time. I'll not furnish you with the details just yet as I'd prefer to keep my powder dry for said meeting in early October. But it concerns the dramatic decline in numbers of sexually mature fish of all species in the river.

I'll report the outcome of what will hopefully be a productive meeting, early next month and the river's fish population will make preparation to return to the level recorded in command centre central surveys five or so years ago.

Oh yes, the storm.

A tremendous panjandrum that rolled around the valley for four hours one night last week. Many parts missed it, but for the following twenty four hours the river ran eight inches higher and assumed the colour of the Grand Union Canal. Not the best kind of rain as not much gets down into the aquifers, lots of branches were forced to dip and bow and a day later all the water had flowed away (Oh for a series of hatches to retain water on a meadow to soak back into an aquifer) but quite a weather event (I believe this is the current meteorological parlance) all the same.

In other news, I was once again required to cook a pig for the cricket club presentation evening, which to date, passed without serious illness, and we received news that my parents had been press ganged in the back streets of Glasgow and were held on a boat making its way east along the English Channel. We intercepted the sloop and boarded at Portsmouth. It was quickly established that they had in fact signed up of their own accord.

We took rum and hard tack

but then scurvy set in

and we were forced to seek out some vitamin C/cake/sausage rolls/ prawns in batter for dippin.

They were on a Saga cruise to infinity and beyond, and we were invited aboard as guests.

They're a canny bunch the Saga crew, our clubcard points , internet history or some other paper trail has betrayed the fact that we are only eighteen months away from qualifying for membership of the club and are trying to tempt us with a ship full of food.

At home, Child A has purchased a pink car and continues her work for Thames Valley Police. It sounds a little gritty at times, especially the Saturday night shift, although there are lighter moments. I don't think I could do it, as I am sure that with a distraught person on the other end of the phone I'd try to lighten the mood a little with some such nonsense or other, which is not what is required apparently.

Child B has transferred to Cardiff for his final year. Here he is on the left with the rest of his Cardiff crew climbing a mountain in Wales. It's a bit like Inbetweeners do Wainwright, with neither a carabiner, compass, freeze dried food or survival bag in sight.

This is not how I remember scaling mountains in Wales,

Welsh mountains may not be as high as they used to be.

The lady who sleeps on my left has just returned from the biennial school trip to Highclere castle with the scathing indictment,

"They couldn't give a fig about school trips ticking the Egyptology curriculum box now they've got Downton"

So keep an eye out on ebay for treasures from Tutankhamun, particularly from the seller 1922Carnavon

And there we go, two weeks left of the season and a long list of tasks and trees to be attended to this winter. We've a couple more trips away to look forward to in coming months, one of them complimentary, and at that this point I'll warn you to expect a hard sell for a particular establishment in the coming months. For the purity of the piece I've turned down several requests to place adverts in and around this guff,
but with the years proceeding and an erratically performing personal pension pot (more of a crucible than a pot) I've sold my soul for a complimentary overnight stay with dinner and breakfast in one of Dublin's top hotels in Temple Bar (the pitch starts her folks) to take in David O'Doherty (one of our favourite comedians) at Vicar St Theatre (one of our favourite venues, no really, that last bit was sincere it is a terrific place to watch comedy) later this year - report to follow.

Morning everyone,

Yes morning, and an early one at that.

Was woken by a text at 5.00am from someone called the Taxman informing me that I had overpaid by£198,25 in 2015 and could I click on the link to provide bank account details and reclaim my booty.

I didn't, as a quick check of the number revealed that it was someone from Russia, possibly the lady who sent me one of my very first emails in the heady days of Compuserve and our excellent dial up internet connection, and proposed marriage and could she have my home address in order to come and talk about table decorations, wedding lists and where her relatives would be staying. My betrothed appears to have been in touch most weeks since with all manner of proposals and repeated requests for bank account details and photographs diverted off to my junk mail.

I'd turn the phone off, but both of our near neighbours are ladies who live alone and may need assistance at some point in the night so I may have to change my mobile number if Babushka persists with her early morning messages.

Anyway, I'm up now and I can hear a fox barking outside, probably the same b~#%$3 thing that killed all of our hybrid chickens and Khaki Campbell ducks one night last week, only took one away but killed the rest for fun.

I'm on your case Toby

We've bought some replacements (chooks not foxes), eight five week old hybrids in a partridge pen by the woodshed with a security light and a security door on the hen house. I like keeping chooks, and one day we'll end up living somewhere where it will not be possible to keep them so I'm making the most of the opportunity now. I find them very soothing, there's something very satisfying about keeping a fit fat hen who gives the gift of an egg most days, but we are a few months away from any ouefs emerging from this bunch of raw recruits.

Up the river the opening skirmishes of Autumn are already underway. Much of the weed in the water is on the wane but there is noticeably less blanket weed than one would expect in low water which suggest that the quality of what water is flowing down the Dever is of a better quality and carries less nutrients than twelve months ago.

Trout fishing closed this week.

An OK season with numbers up on the last, which was the hardest I have experienced during my time here. Hatches of fly have been a little disappointing during the second half although the mayfly continues to be spectacular each year. The final week saw fish a little more active as they prepare to spawn and on the final day a brace of chunky lumps around the three pound mark were put on the bank. Our first fishermen targeting the grayling arrive next week. The grayling have been reasonably active and several have been caught off the top in recent weeks by trout fishermen.

Once again there is a lot of chainsaw work to attend to this winter both on and away from the river, plus another bridge that needs replacing

and we may have to attend to some of the big ash trees that have looked very ill all summer, there are a couple in particular that could be dangerous if allowed to lose limbs next summer.

We have enough wood stacked up for the next few winters but extra ash is always welcome, although I don't know how much ash will be going into wood burners in twenty years time because this "die-back" disease has got a grip very quickly in this part of the valley.

And so to the parley with the big noises from command centre central.

And there's a tale to rival that of King Caractacus that culminated in our meeting which I think is best not recorded here, feel free to enquire directly but be warned, the reply may be lengthy and a little fruity with regard to language.

Anyway the Senior adviser on fishery strategy for the South East and a member of the regional team arrived to discuss our concerns over the reduced number of sexually mature brown trout (and other species) in the river.

And so a fun two hours passed, both sides giving of their best,

C de Cani HND, Hants FA Groundsman of the year 2011 v the two Dr's of Fish and their environs.

and hey all you brim full of internet enlightenment having wallowed in some such website or forum who like to send anonymous emails calling me out as a fishery management dinosaur or wrecker of the aquatic habitat, how's this for a review?

here's part of the letter from Dr Fishery Strategist for the South East after his visit:

"I was very impressed with the way you manage the river, trees and marginal vegetation with both angler and fish in mind"

We have approval for a small broodstock scheme, the details of which will be finalised in the coming months, and will hopefully help restore numbers of fish in the river to the levels experienced five years ago.

Thank you Dr Perri and Dr Kerry for coming out to have a look, listen to our case and for offering advice. A refreshing change in tone from the supercilious one that prevailed five to ten years ago, feel free to pop back any time.

Fracking now, and here we are with an economy to stimulate and an increased requirement for energy. Every effort will be made to push applications through.

We have two sites in this river's catchment owned by a fracking company and an official designation as a low risk area ???????????

If in a few years time my county council choose to oppose a proposal to frack in this valley and it is subsequently overruled by parliament (how does that sit with the push for devolved power to the regions?), I shall draw inspiration from 1605 and while it may be difficult to roll barrels full of gunpowder across parliament square and down a conveniently open cellar door, I shall certainly fire some rockets in their direction or at the very least throw a few stones at the windows.

Nationalist politicians having a punch up in parliament, the newspaper headline "BUSINESSES REQUIRED TO LIST FOREIGN EMPLOYEES" and a school sending out letters asking for confirmation of each child's birthplace and nationality.

It's the stuff of Il Duce,

Only it isn't because these were all events that took place last week.

and at this point I'll assume the guise of Marvin Gaye,

What's going on?

Come on Tim Peake, we paid for you to go to space to point a few things out to us down here on the mother ship, speak up please.

Oh yes, almost forgot, how's this for a stat?

The crew on Nelson's flagship - Victory, at the battle of Trafalgar was drawn from over twenty nations.

The vanguard of this winter's grayling anglers arrived earlier this week and two up from Devon enjoyed surprisingly good sport with fish to a pound and a half off the top in the afternoon. It isn't easy as the river remains down to its bare bones and I have deferred putting the thing to bed for the winter in order to provide as much cover and protection for what sexually mature brown trout remain from a burgeoning population of avian predators. Heron and Little Egret mostly, both of which can cause carnage to a fish population seeking to spawn in clear shallow water. We've had a reasonable amount of rain this week but not enough to lift the river. The ditch to the earth stew ponds remains dry and would not function as a salmonid rearing unit should we still be in that game. It's the same on many other rivers in the south, a couple of grayling anglers reported that the Frome was in a similar state, but I am constantly surprised by the number of people who express surprise that the river is low, particularly some who are paid considerable sums of money to be across such matters.

Hedges play a big part of Autumn life in this parish and at this point could I make the case for brick walls, fences or white lines as the future of boundary demarcation. Yes the birds, yes the hogs and yes the fashion for being dragged through the thing backwards, but even in my current athletic prime I'm struggling to conquer some of the arboreal leviathans that hem this place in. Come on Science, surely in this age we can come up with some digital alternative to what is, a medieval solution to keeping the cattle in.

Can we all agree that this kind of thing has had its day and sign up to a campaign for more virtual hedges (sorry Packham and Oddie et al) donations can be made at www.justgiving/hedgesareoldhatfencesarethefuture.

For those who have visited here, the hedge that borders the gravel yard is over twenty feet wide at the top and you'll be aware of how long my arms are and how far my chest has slipped, so forgive my ire, as for eleven and a half months of the year hedges are good things.

With the onset of Autumn everything also seems to be reluctant to lose their green hues, stingers are still stinging in the wood and we still see the odd swallow and martin

Apparently Ed Balls is a real person, and not a training ground routine favoured by some of the neanderthals who populate a game that is now only occasionally beautiful.

Call me a conspiracy theorist but the BBC seem very keen to promote Ed's cause and hey Comrade Jez expect another challenge to your leadership soon, that or the genesis of an alternative political party occupying the centre left with Ed very much to the fore.
I don't think this is what I pay my licence fee for, but Rupert uses my sky subscription to further his many cases with politicos so we are where we are,

which I seem to find myself saying with increasing regularity these days, and if presented with an opportunity to pick up this river along with family and friends and retreat to an island and pull up a drawbridge, I'd take it like a shot, as the pattern of voting on the BBC's flagship hoofathon and the tone of the jungle drums worldwide point to poisonous times ahead.

Anyway, Ed Balls: hubristic hopeless hoofer who many in the media and particularly at the BBC, seem keen to promote.

I shall attend to Chairman May in the weeks to come, but in the interim if anyone wants to start a political party on the basis of let's be sensible, all get along, look up not down and have a bit of fun, then I'm in.

Sandi Toksvig's got some good ideas, why can't she have a go?

Regular visitors to this parish will be aware of my propensity to ramble, so when Madam suggested that we undertake such an activity at the weekend I retorted that I was a seasoned campaigner in the business.

I was presented with a cagoule and knapsack and a withering look and detailed to source a compass, gators and buff up on my valderi, valdera as we were about to go hardcore with regard to all things left foot, right foot.

Now I'll confess that in my youth, I was quite the walker.

Mostly through scouts and the Cheshire Hike, a two day county competition for teams of two carrying 25kg each over thirty odd miles that my mate and I somehow managed to win at the age of fourteen.
A group of us, madam included, once pushed a supermarket trolley from the north west to marble arch to raise money for Save the Children and if I rocked up at a student party and didn't approve of proceedings I'd think nothing of walking up to ten miles home in the early hours. Yes I was quite the walker, and feel justified in stating that I've ticked that box. Not that I'd want to give up walking altogether, just unnecessary walking,

but what Madam was suggesting was recreational.

Golf without the sticks, fishing without the rods, football without a ball,

madness had surely taken hold.

Anyway the case was made that accompanying Madam on her meanderings coupled with the sustained consumption of red wine, dark chocolate and bifidus digistibum meant that those misspelt invitations to our hundredth wedding anniversary party (should have been tenth) may come in handy one day if we walked far enough. Exercise is important at our time of life apparently.

Chilbolton and its' common with requisite commoners last week, a gentle stroll on even ground, knapsack free in full sun and home in time for a late Sunday lunch. Which was nice and a few more years in the bank. .

Further afield this week. We're building up to hills, so opted for a canal side trek that guaranteed level ground. The Kennet and Avon canal to be precise. Leaving our car at a railway station on the GWR line we set off towards our destination of Hungerford and train ride back to what all agree is the best mode of getting from A to B, the motor car.

Roped together our party consisted of myself, madam and Otis. Otis expecting his usual half hour walk was a spent force thirty five minutes in and tried to stymie our progress by walking slowly in front of us on a narrow tow path. After an hour and a bit he fell/threw himself into the canal and had to be pulled out. After two and a bit hours Hungerford appeared like an oasis in the desert and our spirits were restored by provender that included cheese and sauvignon blanc.

We caught the train back, which was free.

We tried to buy a ticket but there was no obvious machine and no guard on the train. We spoke to the driver and he implored us to "just get on" which seemed a little free and easy. We have subsequently made the retrospective purchase of two tickets as neither of us could sleep that night which we attributed to guilt rather than aching limbs and sore feet.

Today we have purchased proper walking shoes, and next weekend we march on Nepal,

Or possibly another section of level canal

I'm quite happy to emerge from hiking retirement but on condition that we exchange the dried food, survival bags and compass work. for regular stops, light conversation and fine fare (not you George Cowley) at the close.

Lawks, I'm a rambler

However did it come to this?

Oops, forgive my forgetfulness, The Fleet Hotel in Temple Bar is the place to stay if you ever happen to find yourself in Dublin, we look forward to our stay next month and also in February.

That's The Fleet Hotel Folks www.fleethoteltemplebar.com

If any other establishments out there would like to exchange a complimentary room for a series of peppy reviews and the odd mention on here, don't be a stranger.

Half term was once again upon us so it's on with the wig and kaftan for me and the platform shoes and big glasses for madam and a brief rendition of our favourite half term song, and following a request from a Juan and Jaunita Hernandez, with accompanying subtitles in Spanish.

Except it wasn't a jet plane but one with two whisks on the wings ( propellers I believe they call them in the aeroplane industry ) that carried us sedately from the world's best airport at Southampton. (Park your car, walk into a terminal devoid of queues get on plane, fly away - simples) all the way to Lyon.

Lugdunum to those versed in all things Asterix, gastronomic capital of all Gaul situated at the confluence of the rivers Rhone and Soane and brim full of fish but more of that later.

After a thirty minute train ride and some bumbling about on the metro we dragged our cases across the cobbles to our billet in Vieux Lyon, the old part of town situated on the banks of the Saone. We were staying in a third floor apartment in a sixteenth century building once occupied by some silk weavers synonymous with the arrondissement.

To prevent their cloth getting wet, they covered over some of the narrow alleys and it was up one of these "traboules"

that we found our apartment which was reached via a stone stair case that was the stuff of Rapunzel.

The apartment was perfect, smartly appointed and despite the antiquity of the situation in which we found ourselves, we enjoyed superfast high speed broadband throughout our stay.

Out on the street it became quickly apparent that it is all about the food in Lyon. Settling down for our first lunch in a small square not far from our door every table was soon taken and we tucked into our first odd sausage of the week. There aren't many bits of a pig that they won't put in a sausage in these parts and by day two I'm sure we had sampled most parts. Quenelles were ok although I avoided the pike, and we had some surprisingly good steak. Madam was fond of some fluffy potato thing with ham and cheese whose name escapes me but I think began with the letter "T"

There was one exception to the "full tables at lunch time rule" This may have been something to do with Brexit or possibly the Lyonnaise are that food savvy that they realise that this kind of thing should only ever be sampled in the North of England where they are particularly adept at the dish and the requisite gravy.

Paul Bocuse is a big noise when it comes to French food, he was a pioneer of Nouvelle cuisine and he has his own hall dedicated to his methods in the newer part of town near the central station. There is much on offer, and it is possible to sample most things. We tried a few dainties, plus some madeleines and some super quiche. Most of the stalls have an area where you can sit down and feed on their fayre for lunch, but it isn't cheap, although most places were full by one o'clock.

Food done, we turn our attention to all else that this tremendous town has to offer. The rods were in and there were people fishing the river but that had to wait as we had a mountain to climb. On the hill overlooking the town is an enormous Basillica and a tower that is an exact replica of the top third of the Eifel tower.

There are many routes up the hill to Fourviere with many steps but we opted for a Funicular driven by a close relative of Miriam Margolyes.

The Basilica is mightily impressive. It isn't that old and was chucked up in the 19th century. The mosaics on the walls and floor are particularly impressive and the crypt is enormous, big enough to have a game of football in. The replica of the top third of the Eifel tower was erected around the same time as a symbol of progress, which left the two of us leaving the hill scratching our heads a little.

Around the back of the Basilica there are some well preserved remains of Lugdunum. A brace of roman theatres, one big, one small, both of which still stage live performances, and an old aqueduct.

Back down to the river and the inevitable cruisers. The Saone has a series of low bridges and we paused to watch a Swiss vessel negotiate the centre of town.

All of the rooftop tables and chairs were folded away and the handrails removed as the craft squeezed under two bridges by a matter of inches.

It has been suggested I make mention of the shops.

There are shops, many shops, Lyon is very good for shopping, our suitcase was four kilos over its limit on our return.

Toward s the end of our stay we caught a very smart vaporetto down the Saone to the regenerated area at the confluence of the two rivers. it is very well done .

There is the inevitable shopping centre, innumerable and individual smart flats

and a museum containing at least one dinosaur that highlights the history, ecology and importance of the two rivers in a building that is unique in design.
And while Madam went shopping, I went fishing.

I'd done the internet research beforehand, and even purchased my licence, as for a few euros the Carte de Peche de Vacances is easily purchased online. I'd hoped to repeat the fly fishing for catfish tactics that I employed with Oliver on the Arno in Florence last year. The Tarpon rod with 12wt line was in along with the requisite beefed up leaders and flies and the landing glove. There are many catfish in both rivers and Youtube will confirm that they are often caught from the bank. But the Wels catfish is a complex creature that switches from scavenging during low water to predation during high water and water was low and I'd have had more chance legering some unusual sausage than with my efforts with the fly. Although the fly fishing in the centre of town method is quite the conversation opener and I spent quite a lot of the time chatting. I spent the final afternoon working my way through town with my travel spinning rod chasing Zander and Pike. I regret not putting a carp rod in (note to self, buy a travel carp rod) as there were several good fish evident, and I may have enjoyed better results fishing at night, and if I was ten years younger I may well have done that, but the lure of the food and the wine prove too much in the evening.

After recent events elsewhere en France, there is understandably a high security presence and we came across groups of machine gun clad soldiers on patrol regularly throughout the stay, the Police are just as jumpy and several times a squadron of vehicles containing men with guns cocked roared through the streets with blue lights a flashing and sirens a wailing.

These are the times we live in, but it didn't detract from a superb stay.

The return flights from Southampton to Lyon with one case in the hold cost £100 each.

Five days in an apartment sleeping 2/4 in the centre of Lyon booked through AirBnb cost £350.

If you like food, shopping and fishing in a town brim full of history and culture give Lyon a go.

Oh yes the TV

Even with the English subtitles we remain baffled.

Answers on a postcard please

I'll begin this latest puff of guff with a little reminder as to the FA's response to an invitation to visit the Somme on the centenary of the battle during their preparations for the England football team's hapless campaign in the European championships.

No thanks, the forty minutes in a coach to visit Thiepval or the memorial at Deauville Wood to the many professional footballers who died on the Somme would disrupt our training programme

Only now, when it is convenient do they remember, and make great play of kicking up a fuss with FIFA over poppies on armbands.

Oh yes, how did that competition go after all that careful preparation?

Note to self, treat ninety nine point nine percent of supposed noble behaviour in top flight football, on and off the pitch with contempt. Morally it's rarely a beautiful game.

P: Remember this?

we'll be right back after a brief word from our sponsor.

The Fleet St Hotel in Dublin is the ideal location to visit all that the capital of the emerald isle has to offer. Situated in the lively Temple Bar district the Boutique hotel is an oasis of quiet calm. Trinity College and the Book of Kells are two minutes walk away and the shops of Grafton St and O'Connell St a mere five minutes, fall out of the door and you are in amongst the numerous bars and restaurants of Temple Bar.

That's the Fleet St Hotel Folks. www.fleethoteltemplebar.com

Anyway, spawning is a little slow to get going and our fears of fewer sexually mature brown trout in the river seem to be borne out. The river remains low and we have just received word that command centre central are worried about aquifer levels. You can take it as read that we need more rain.

A couple of sharp frosts have provided the requisite full stop for vegetative growth and leaves have been sent a tumblin, although somebody needs to tell the nettles in the wood as they retain some of their spite.

I've not picked many mushrooms this year, which is a shame. Not sure why but fungi in general seem a little thin on the ground. The first skein of geese have arrived to take up residence on the water meadow upstream, around thirty in number their arrival usually means that it is cold somewhere else.

Work for the winter is upon us and once the last of the topping is complete it 'll be into the wood with the chainsaw while what few fish remain go through the process of spawning. There are many willows to be attended to along with some malformed poplars and a cricket bat willow that mysteriously cashed in its chips in the middle of summer. I've a new chainsaw to take into the wood and I'll not raise the P at this point as Stihl declined my offer of a mention if they reduced the price a tad,

Doh!

By way of balance, the previous Husqvarna gave sterling service and has been retired to two stroke Valhalla where it sits to at the right hand of the two stroke Thor that was my Honda long handled hedge cutter.

Research shows that more purchases are made on ebay late in the evening when wine has been taken.

So why no bar/complimentary drinks during Flog It or Homes under the Hammer?

Assuming the guise of community champion ( I can't find my photo of Esther Rantzen so here's one of a chicken to which I have become attached) I'd like to issue an alert about the scam that is The Virgin Wines Club.
I received through the ether a voucher for a case of cut price wine delivered straight to my door. The Wine was reasonable and swiftly consumed and I thought no more of it. This week I received a paypal notification that Virgin Wines was taking a monthly payment of £25 for my membership of their wine club. A quick call to Mike Oldfield confirmed that Branson is notorious for this kind of thing so a call was put in and the accusation of "sharp practice" made. Yes the wine had been reasonable value and of reasonable quality but at no point was I made aware that I was joining a wine club and regular monthly payments would be taken via the medium of paypal.

With some relief I am now blackballed from the club but will not be welcome on the isle of Necker at any point.

We seem to be jumping around a little here, but goodness there are a lot of little egret about. It's common to see half a dozen in a day at the moment. The few grayling fishers who have been attendance have enjoyed reasonable sport. Two today caught twenty odd fish with the biggest an 18inch torpedo a smidge under a pound and three quarters. Roach are not quite as abundant as they were a few years ago, but their numbers seem to be on the up and the two grayling anglers today even had a go at bothering a few perch. Big Pike are conspicuously absent.

Oh yes Ed Balls, hopeless hubristic hoofer whose place in Strictly is being maintained by a left of centre campaign to produce a populist contender to challenge Jez. Expect a denunciation of anything to do with dancing by comrade Jez sometime soon.

Freedom for Tooting!/Islington.

P:

This last weekend we caught a plane to Dublin from what is widely acknowledged as the world's best airport,

Ladies and Gentleman I give you,

Southampton airport.

Our tickets with the world's leading budget airline that eschews all things green or orange cost the equivalent of a return train ticket from our local railway station to the capital of Britain and well done the trains of the south of England for that. Our bedside alarm sounded at home at 5.00am, at 8.50am I was plonking our case down on the bed at The Fleet St Hotel in the Temple bar district of Dublin.

Book of Kells first.

Fast track tickets had been purchased and we were first through the door and ran past the book and up to the library, which is stunning and within twenty minutes was rammed.
Back down to the book where I was admonished for preparing to take a photo, twenty years ago I'd have been stripped of my film, so the camera was put away and we spent an hour perusing the exhibits.

Out into town and the shops of Grafton St for an hour or so before seeking sustenance (beer) at The International bar also known as O'Donohue's. The bar features in the festival of bonkers that is James Joyce's Ulysses or possibly Dubliners. He frequented the establishment once upon a time, along with Michael Collins, Ronnie Drew and Dara O'Briain who had all popped in for pints at some point.
We shared the bar with a trio of locals and the current member of the O'Donohue clan to occupy the front of house shoes.
There were several posters on the wall commemorating the centenary of the 1916 Rising and as is always the case in a Dublin bar we were swiftly enrolled into general conversation which, despite our best efforts at "easy and light", rapidly turned to politics, both national and international.
I'd commented to madam earlier in the day that there is something lyrical about the Irish brogue, every letter is pronounced, no words are omitted I have come across few that you could accuse of lazy speech. Despite this we emptied our glasses and left, we have both had our fill of politics for this year, but thanks all the same for an entertaining half hour and a far richer experience than ice cream at the the deli across the road.

There were no rods packed for this flying visit and this stretch of the Liffy never looks that productive, but I may be wrong.

Back to the hotel and a bathroom big enough to park your car in (should you eschew the aforementioned cheap flight provider) before hitting the town for an excellent meal and a night at the premier comedy venue that is the Vicar St Theatre. We'd seen Dara o'Brien here two years ago and were drawn to another Irish comedian with the same initials.

David O'Doherty is his name, and you may have seen him on shows such as Would I Lie to You, and Eight of Ten Cats. He was accompanied by Aisling Bea who also appears on such shows. Both were on top form and it was another memorable night at this intimate venue.

A twenty minute walk back to the Fleet St Hotel and an undisturbed night in one of the best beds we have slept in.
Breakfast was a triumph and replete with sausage, bacon egg and a suitable volume of yoghurt we hopped on the airport bus outside the hotel and were back in Bransbury for Sunday lunch.
We're going back in February to take in Jack Whitehall. It's an effortless trip to a terrific city and if you do give it a go, stay at this hotel (but please mention this house/parish/my name) The "Elegance" rooms are particularly swish.

Back in Bransbury, having done the hedges I'm just finishing some topping. Alan Partridge's new audio book - Nomad has been my companion throughout my thrashing with the swipe,

It is a brilliant addition to the canon of the bard of Norwich.

Walking will never be the same again

Other reading has seen me retreat to Blandings, where Emsworth and Psmith et al provide sanctuary from a world that, as 2016 progresses, continues to lose some of its lustre,

Although well done David Attenborough for restoring some sheen to planet earth with his tales of baby lizards being chased down the beach by gangs of snakes.

I had to pop up to the smokery this afternoon to pick up the final tranche of smoked fish for 2016. Unfortunately I had omitted to pay when dropping the fish off for smoking and my bag of smoked fish had been placed on the shelf of shame and their position in the walk in fridge displayed on the wipe board outside.
I received top billing with my name displayed in the largest lettering (Stephen Toast teaches us that this kind of thing matters) above a leviathan of UK comedy and someone of whom I have been a lifelong fan,

An honour to share the shelf of shame with you sir,

That's not him

nor that one, that's Dave Angel that is

That's him,

Brilliaaaant!

Made my day, and a lesson to all you prompt payers out there.

Live from the settee, I can report that sport has seen me pile on a few pounds these past few weeks. Successive Saturdays (think Frankie Bridge et al doing the conga) have begun with Test Cricket until late morning a brief pause to undertake tasks assigned or pop out for messages, a flying lunch before back to back rugby matches, an early evening of dancing and then off to the jungle. This kind of thing would never have happened in the day of the Test Card, It's the stuff of students and I'm on the cusp of signing up for a course......

Possibly of tablets, as it's been an emotional roller coaster.

Not the sport, I've a lifelong habit of that kind of thing and am relatively inured to all but the highest of highs and lowest of lows in the sporting arena. No, two glasses into the dancing and I'm unable to control my Tourettes and a succession of "F$£K you Ed Balls" comes flying out whether we are in company or alone.

Thankfully he has failed to make the final and will now return to politics where others can take up the cause of my heckling.

I am normally comfortable with The Jungle and we all delight in the tremendous talent that is the Ant and the Dec, but this year Prodnose has entered the fray and my nerves were in shreds with each passing episode. Since Old Tel shuffled off Prodnose is my favourite broadcaster (and is only on once a week, come on BBC) I'll own up to a dozen or more contributions to his show via the medium of email ( as I did to Tel in his final years) but have always declined the invitation to ring in and make a personal contribution as I'm afraid I'd be incoherent and lose the power of speech as its quite a skill taking your ease on the radio, which is partly what makes Prodnose such a genius of the airwaves.

I didn't go much on him on the TV and I'm not sure a life in the Jungle requires the same qualities as king of the airwaves and each evening I watched peeping through my fingers hoping that he didn't give off too many sparks, because when he goes he goes, albeit eloquently.

If the term "pin headed weasels" is uttered you can be sure that things have taken a turn for the worse.

To my relief, he's out now and set up on the beach. The sooner he's back on the radio on Saturday mornings the better.

While we're on the Jungle, Madam and myself would like to pitch an idea to Nick Park of Wallace and Gromit fame. I know he visits this parish from time to time and it occurred to us the other evening while in wine on the sofa that an animated "Creature Comforts" type of film centred around the animals in the bush tucker challenge could have legs. The toads and frogs would bemoan the star status of the spiders, the eels would be in the Hello/OK magazine demographic and would be star struck at every celebrity who entered their tank. There would be a lonely crocodile, a camp snake, rats with a fear of he who should not be named (Gino DeCampo who famously caught and cooked one on the show)
The story centres around a Witchetty Grub who lives in fear of the SS ( Stacey Solomon) who eventually catches up with Brer Witchetty during a bush tucker challenge, at which point I'll issue a spoiler alert.

It's just a thought, and remember you heard it here first.

Don't be a stranger Nick.

Back at work, it rained the wind blew, the river didn't flood and no trees fell over. Normal stuff for November along with the requisite media over reaction to a weather event that is not a hot day in summer. We continue to nurture a burgeoning urban based generation whose understanding of the seasons extends no further than the decision as to whether to sit on the pavement or in the shop to take Mocha Cocha Latte and pastry on board.

The river has risen an inch and there is now enough water on the spawning gravels to accommodate sexually mature brown trout. Although they are particularly thin on the ground . What hens we have are fattening up nicely and redds are beginning to be dug, but cock fish are few and far between. Ten years ago the weeks preceding spawning would see cock fish charging about in shallow water aggressively competing with fellow cocks over any fat hen who kicked up a redd.

Walks through the wood betray a number of Woodcock which suggests low temperatures in the east, I put three up this afternoon while bumbling about with a bucket full of corn.

I'm slowly putting the river to bed. Years ago this task would have begun as soon as the trout season ended with the fringe knocked off, edged in and weed cut in order to carry out and complete electro fishing before all present were summoned to the hatchery for egg picking duties. Today I still knock the fringe off and edge in, although not as hard as I once did. It helps maintain the maximum marginal growth and remains a viable habitat for beasts of the bank throughout the winter. I also engage the forces of Willow with my big orange store (If you want a mention on here Stihl you'll have to offer some incentives)

Doh!

It makes sense to prepare the river for winter only when there is sufficient flow. Leaving as much cover as possible to decrease the impact of avian predation on fish in shallow water until the river starts to rise. Once the river is on the rise and carrying a little colour then the fringe can be attended to. With spawning done and the trout off the shallows the willows can then be engaged. Sympathetic management with an eye to both habitat and flood defence by a full time keeper. Could a contractor or part timer be allowed such flexibility. The decline in the number of full time keepering jobs on the chalk streams is both a concern and short sighted,

fingers crossed it's a fad.

Chainsaw work has begun and the solemn procession of one (Still waist deep in Wodehouse and one of the trees we must address is a beech) that is the ermine clad Lord Ludgershall has presented for work in the wood via the medium of sedan chair. We are currently employed in the business of Vista creation. There's three months of chainsaw work and myself and all the woodland creatures are honoured by his presence. Poplars at the moment, young trees that didn't look very well. Dissection by chainsaw confirmed the diagnosis with rot set in at the base, which was a shame as we only planted them twelve years ago

Is it me or are the papers obsessed with the ageing process at the moment. My weekend papers that I perused on the sofa between cricket, rugby, dancing and jungle where full of "Life after fifty " features and with the event a mere sixteen months away for Madam and myself, we are told that we will embrace lycra, ride more bikes, discover yoga, go to University and achieve a level of life wisdom that Confucious would covet. There was no mention of more time on the sofa in front of sporting events, a bad back, creaky knees, embracing the postprandial ziz and completely forgetting why you have gone upstairs.

Cheltenham last week, the perennial trip on countryside Friday with fifteen to twenty thousand other souls to take in some tremendous racing at what is now a tremendous sporting venue. The new work is complete and my ire at being charged five pound for a pint and five pound for bacon roll was tempered a week later when on the 18th November we entered the legions of shiplap sheds that serve as the Winchester Christmas market where sausage from the Teutons and a thimble fill of Grimm gluhwein was on offer for a comparable price.
I bumped into Child B and one of his associates by the Cheltenham parade ring. Over the course of the following four races our fortunes took different paths. Child B picked three second place horses on each way bets and was 55p up when I left him, his mate backed one winner while I dipped out after two races to conserve funds as Madam had one of her card club days on the morrow and I had been made aware of the need for ready funds for the event.

River reports are written and dispatched (sent to the intended recipient as opposed to being put out of their misery, although....) and final deadlines for magazines before all involved down tools for the Christmas break are impending. I'm supposed to be chucking some other guff together but things don't seem to be progressing as intended.

Easily distracted?

Undoubtedly,

and the internet doesn't help here with minds that are prone to drift. But a bit of a break from deadlines and questions and the shame of failing to produce feature pieces promised may serve as tinder to chuck up further guff.

With the season now upon us (take note shops and radio 2 breakfast show who herald the onset of festivities earlier with each passing year) I feel a carol coming on (not you Vorderman!)

But soft, an adjust of approach and apologies, but the long run is marked.

Recently I was made party to a series of emails regarding river business, a proposal had been made (an excellent and enlightened one ) and opinions were being sought from a range of interested parties. It was a "reply to all" fandango and a private one at that so I won't pick over the bones too much in this piece,

But twice during the ethereal exchange it was suggested that a particular generation of keepers had had a negative impact on the river and the sooner they shuffled off the better.

With the spectre of raising a bat to fifty fast approaching I declared an interest and opted out of further discussion regarding the matter, opting instead to sit seething, occasionally popping outside to furiously dig holes in the garden,
it's a practice I picked up from Alan Partridge and his Forward Solutions and it never fails to quell an ire.
Each generation considers itself more enlightened than the last, failing to consider that circumstances at the time were probably very different when compared to the present day.

It's a cheap shot, and the chap who made the assertion should know better.

When I bounced into this valley in the mid 80's priorities were different. Throughout my three years at Sparsholt studying fish farming and fishery management we were instructed that following some highly publicised famine in Africa we were going to feed the world via fish farming. I still have the T shirt from the fish feed company with the slogan " I can feed millions" across the chest. The fishery management tuition was also vastly different from what we undertake today.

I can only speak for myself but cast out onto the river bank alone with only my contemporaries and prospective bride for countenance I would seek succour from agencies and trusts who purported to have a handle on how things should roll along in a chalk valley.

We were advised to fence banks in one year and remove fencing a few years hence. A nearby estate won a senior conservation award for restoring hatches for flooding meadows, a few years later there was a push to remove all hatches from the river system. A six figure report by a company of international repute to formulate a plan for the implementation of habitat directive was cocked up and recommendations made for some beats (including one I am charged with looking after) were clearly nonsense, and derided by any as such.

Faced with such a chaotic lead, is it any wonder that a generation of keepers came to the conclusion that those in higher places clearly had no idea as to how to proceed and opted to trust in their own judgement.

Currently there are some good things being done on the chalk streams.

Today I manage the fishery in a very different way as to how I did thirty years ago,

You never stop learning,

But then it is a very different river from thirty years ago.

Biodiversity has undoubtedly increased, while flow, water quality and fly life has decreased. The river goes up and down a lot quicker than it used to and angler's expectations of a day on a chalk stream have changed. The number of oversize fish tipped in has reduced. Many keepers have bent with the wind and adapted to a changing chalk stream habitat. It's no a surprise that a supercilious tone emanates from some quarters, twas ever thus with a certain bunch of coves brimful of internet enlightenment who once filled my inbox with messages mentioning dinosaurs.
And hey,

I'll chuck it in again,

Following a visit from the senior fishery management strategy maker for the south east we received a glowing report for the way we went about our business.

Not bad for a bunch of small minded dinosaurs.

What will the current movers and shakers regarding chalk stream policy be remembered for ?

Well they've a fixation with genetic purity which is all a bit odd, and to my small mind, born out of some remarkably muddled thinking.

and they'd like to be regarded as the ones who gave woody debris to the world, they didn't, some keepers were using it before they could even raise wood

They have undoubtedly changed expectations as to what one can expect while fishing a chalk stream, so well done for that, but there is a complete failure to address over abstraction and water quality - the two principle threats to these rivers.

Come on all you trusts and agencies, to use contemporary parlance you're regularly" mugged off" on these issues. It all seems to get a bit cosy over the fine coffee and posh biscuits at some of these meetings with big business and corporations.

If the river dries up or becomes a fetid phosphate filled ditch, what will we have to fall out about.

With the current state of bate swiftly attaining the status of "fine" I shall now attend to the FA.

For several years I served on the committee of our local youth football league. The FA representatives who occasionally attended our meetings were everything I expected.

Ted Croker clones: blue blazer, gold buttons, grey staypress action slacks, side parting who enjoyed the status of sitting on committee

Following the revelations regarding the behaviour of some youth football coaches there has been a call to have a look at how the FA operates.

Hear hear to that!

At one meeting we spent more time sorting out who sat next to who at the end of season dinner than an issue I raised over the particularly poor quality of the pitches assigned for that years' junior cup finals; rock hard and elaborately bouncy they subsequently reduced each game to a lottery.

Fines from the adult Sunday leagues in the area have filled the county FA's coffers to the tune of six figures, and well done local town society for that, but there it sits. Grass roots facilities, addressing the issue of players dropping out of football between U16 and U18 (and yes, the way local town society conducts itself on a Sunday morning has much to do with that) training of officials, incentives for ex players to become officials.

During my time serving my local club we were required to fund raise and seek sponsorship for all kit and equipment. We paid to attend FA coaching courses but did receive a ffree poster to put up in dressing rooms championing the "Respect" campaign which was a joke because if the likes of Ferguson and Mourinho give it little credence it has little chance in the lower levels.

The FA has much to address and has been letting the "beautiful game" down for far too long.

The signs were there when your correspondent was declared Hants FA Groundsman of the year for 2011. A quick deco at google earth would have revealed the pitch was not quite the shape it should have been and the awarding of such a trophy to the incumbent of the groundsman's shoes was a farce.

Enough of the long run so we break for drinks and bring the spinners on.

What a shame about Anthony Gill.

Always entertaining, inevitably irascible it seems surreal that I won't be reading his reviews on the weekend. I never met him, although I know keepers who did, as he liked his fishing and all said what a top bloke on the bank he was. His final piece for the paper regarding the onset of his cancer was particularly poignant, made even more so with good friends going through a similar experience.

The coal face of the NHS is manned by some remarkable people from many nations who are perpetually frustrated by meddling bureaucracy.

Recently I had cause to accompany a neighbour to our local A&E.

It was Sunday night post Songs of Praise and a fall had occurred, it was nothing to do with Songs of Praise but a head was bumped and a large gash resulted.

Madam was magnificent and administered first aid (she's trained in the art) until the blue lights arrived. A blue light delivery of the patient and myself (with the opening salvo of the evening's wine already on board) to our local A&E and the patient joined a four hour queue of trolleys in a corridor before her head wound was attended to. Thirteen stitches later she returned home an hour before dawn.

Yesterday I paused for conversation with a newly retired local farmer. He'd recently had a stroke and ran me through the chain of events. Sunday evening (again!) he'd felt a little peculiar while watching the TV (again, nothing to do with Songs of Praise) he shrugged it off (he's a farmer) and braved it out through Countryfile (who doesn't) before confessing to his wife that he couldn't lift his left arm. Off to the same A&E where it was confirmed he had suffered a stroke. Apparently time is everything with a stroke, and if a particular drug can be administered within a certain time frame the patient will be up and about and dancing the funky chicken within a week.
He missed the cut off point for the administration of the drug while waiting in the corridor.

But thankfully made a complete recovery all the same(he's a farmer)

I've had great faith in the NHS up until now,

My own recent bumps bangs and hernias have always been well attended to by staff from many nations, some of whom didn't appear old enough to be let loose with the knives.

But crikes it all seems a little stretched at the moment.

Oh yes, it's Christmas, best lighten the mood.

The river remains close to its end of summer level and we need much rain,

No that's not lightening the mood.

Oh yes, Otis returned to the field of shooting last week picking up a dozen or more birds on a local shoot. A fun crowd, I learned of a game farmer who was charging £160 for a Turkey and had lengthy discourse with a pig farmer who sends his sows for slaughter in Germany bringing the carcasses back to a butchers block in the UK because it comes in twenty five percent cheaper than the slaughter house a few miles up the road.

This isn't lightening the mood either

Vista creation continues with Lord Lugg, which isn't exactly soothing and my back has been playing up, but the view from the loo in my employer's pile of bricks improves with each week.

Yes the mood's definitely turned a corner there.

A keeper from downstream whom I have known for thirty years dropped in this morning. After twenty five years employment the estate on which he works grants an employee six months leave. He'd just returned from two month antipodean odyssey and had popped in to drop off a Christmas card, completely forgetting that he'd sent an identical card two weeks ago in the post.

Mood on the rise, good old Neil.

Child A and Child B are both in residence and the flag on the roof flies at the appropriate height. We have a house full of people for seasonal festivities and both fridge and larder assume the status of "well stocked"

All will serve as balm to a year that has overflowed with poison and spite and seen too many good people exit stage left.

Mood kind of restored,

Oh yes the perfect restorative for the season

thanks for reading the rubbish that I write.

Merry Christmas and here's to next year.

Well here we all are in another year, Christmas was fun and thank you to family and friends for making it so but with the business done I'll make the perennial appeal for rain. Currently the river is lower than the end of season level, over on the Itchen the large pool below the bridge has developed a new feature, a gravel bar standing proud of the centre of the river big enough for a garden table and chairs. There was a piece in the paper this week by a chap who decried Joe Public's failing appreciation of the seasons and its weather.

Hear hear to that Sir,

We have been banging on about the same subject in this parish for a few years, and can I now propose a period of mourning for each dry week experienced in the south from November to March and a bank holiday for every hundred millimetres of rain to fall in the same period.

It's just a thought, but we really need some rain to fall in this valley.

Chainsaw work continues and the vista is a few days away from being complete, the rides have also been attended to in the wood that still plays host to a good number of woodcock and high numbers of increasingly bold Muntjac.

With the river retaining the clarity of late summer grayling fishing continues and it is not easy. One chap turned up to chase roach and was taken aback at the size of the fish that he failed to catch but could clearly see as they patrolled beneath his feet. A barn owl is about most days and even flopped through our narrow garden one afternoon this week. Seven Cormorants flew over one day this week which is a lot for this valley although nothing to the groups of graculus that congregate on the main river.

We have a few geese on the meadow upstream along with half a dozen swans, which I'll take following a few of our rambles about the county in the name of lengthening life.

Two days after Christmas saw Madam and myself in Titchfield for a walk along the Titchfield canal that borders the Titchfield Haven, a tremendous place pitched between Pompey and Southampton that has echoes of Bransbury Common, so well done Hampshire County Council for that.

We picnicked on the beach looking across to Calshot and the Isle of Wight with Brent geese to the left of us, to the right of us, in front of us on the water behind us in the field and above us in the sky. There were hundreds of the things.

A few days later saw us rope together for a seven mile shuffle in the Upper Itchen valley, a SAC and one of the most protected pieces of chalk stream in the world. Some stretches are stunning examples of how a chalk stream should be, so I was dismayed to find hordes of swans stripping ranunculus from what was once one of the most pristine pieces of chalk stream known to man. There is an awful lot of good river restoration work going on in the chalk valleys that is being stymied by the arrival of large groups of Geilgud. There's a conversation needs to be had (the opening exchanges may already be underway if the jungle drums in the west are to be believed) as they are directly impacting on chalk stream habitat. The odd pair is ok but thirty or forty on a beat can render the place void of life bar the big white birds.

P
I think you know what's coming, but yes we're back off to Dublin, on a £65 return flight from the world's best airport - Southampton.

We will once again be ensconced in one of the excellent Elegance rooms at the Fleet St Hotel, Temple Bar,

That's the Fleet St Hotel, Temple Bar

We will be there to take in Jack Whitehall after spending the day perusing the excellent shops the city has to offer and dinner at San Lorenzo's

That's San Lorenzo's one of Dublin's finest Italian restaurants.

We anticipate enjoying the experience so much that we have booked to return later in the year to take in the Dara at Vicar St as he makes preparations for his 2018 tour.

Back in the room.

Looking up not down, as we don't do ground game, shooting in this environs returned after a five year sabbatical following half the wood falling over and petulance and pomposity from one who withdrew favours regarding shooting on his land.

It wasn't the biggest bag, although we saw a dozen woodcock and fifty odd duck, but it wasn't about the bag. A tremendous morning with good friends bashing sticks in the wood, my employer's children and grandchildren manning the guns and all coming together for a long lunch and discourse on links between Alison, Gilbert and Sullivan and Basingstoke. A great day, a terrific advert for the sport and, for those who were unable to attend, one that will definitely be repeated,

Yes, we're back in the shooting game, and it feels goooood.

I'm loathe to mention the thing, but herefollows a bit about Brexit (if you've had enough of Brexit, scroll down to the vitriol regarding the continuation of Richard Madeley's career in various forms of media)

Please can we all agree to pull together and make the best of the situation we find ourselves in and end the chronic sniping and division

Last summer I was sent a link to an article by a baby boomer (we'll call him Rod) that questioned the appeal of sport and weren't we all making a little too much of this Olympic business in Rio?

Rod didn't get sport.

I get sport,

Most U11s get sport,

Once the game is done, the result stands. Winners and losers, we are where we are, now on to the next game.

Arguments over the result of a match long gone achieves precisely five eighths of F*&% A88

We are where we are (that phrase again) and there is niw a requirement to pull together and make it work.
A win for one doesn't mean that the other must automatically fall into line with the other's way of thinking. After a General election, opposition isn't eliminated, it has a part to play in proceedings and in the case of leaving the EU will aid in quelling the voice of the jackboot and nasty nationalist brigade who seem to be under the illusion that they have required more relevance.

Putting my purple of hat of positivity on (currently in post so I'll don the green cap of fingerscrossedity) 2017 is a year to come together for the common cause in a patriotic (not nationalistic or far right) kind of way and make the best of where we are.

Continuing to pick over the bones of a referendum result and vilifying the forty odd percent who voted the other way (I'm looking at you Alison Pearson et al) achieves nothing.

Stop looking back, move on, make this thing work and trust in the next generation, because in my experience they're a pretty clued up bunch

Happy New Year and sorry for banging on, but Richard Madeley is currently on the television in the next room working his way through planet earth's resources of the word "I" and "me" so I had to find something to do as he always makes me cross.

Poor Judy.

Just finished my midday repast of jacket potato cottage cheese and sauerkraut, (the sustained consumption of which along with red wine, dark chocolate and regular gentle walking guarantees I will be dancing the funky chicken at the next millennium), and it has started to rain.

A weather event heralded throughout the week by a media who now seem to be using comics as a source for meteorological metaphors.

At the time of writing we are promised Thunder Snow, Power Rain and Menacing Fog as KAPOW! Storm Steve arrives in the West to deliver his deadly cargo of precipitation that will fall with a SPLAT! and a BDOING!

Seems the Meteorologists have now too taken the stance of "If we're not scared they're not doing their job" (and I'm pointing the finger at you for starting this Jeremy Vine) It's the first real rain we've had in the region for weeks so in the spirit of counter culture I have rented a village hall where all like minded people can meet for the launch of a new weather cult.

Think "Pagan lite" with all action kept above the waist line

The arrival of rain will be met with rejoicing, panpipe music, no little mead with every wet day declared a bank holiday.

There are many rivers in the South that are desperate for rain, but that story doesn't meet the demands of today's hyperbolic media. Springwatch Disneyfied the countryside, it now appears the media are Disneyfying the weather

and for that I blame Idina Menzel and her theme from Frozen,

Yes it's clearly Idina's fault.

Chainsaw work continues and to date we have managed to burn four of the big balsam poplar stumps that fell over four winters back. It's a steady business with each stump requiring a substantial amount of other wood as fuel for a fire hot enough to make any impact.

With one left to burn, we have several substantial willows to attend to on the river bank that will be felled and dragged to the remaining recalcitrant stump by the tractor and the vista will be complete.

Many moles have massed on the river bank and more hills appear with each passing day but we remain mercifully rat free, which is unusual for this time of year.

It may be that I move with more stealth as the years progress as I seem to be able to get a lot closer to a Muntjac than I used to. We have one who watches me split logs from behind a stick fifteen yards away and we regularly get within twenty yards of others when walking the dog. They used to be incredibly windy but seem to have become increasingly bold.

I recently received an invitation from the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust to a workshop on watercress in the headwaters of the Test and Itchen, I declined the invitation but well done the H&IOWWT (did I really just say that)

For a few years now we have allowed the cress to grow in during the second half of the season when often there isn't enough water to run a full river channel. It can help to pinch little rivers and maintain a speed of flow that limits the sinister siltation. It must be managed as it can choke a river and also smother good weed such as ranunculus and in the unlikely event of high water it can be cut back or pulled out, but it can serve a purpose for a few months of the year, although the first few frosts soon see it off.

We have yet to have anyone fish for grayling in 2017. The last chap who had a go was a big noise in the Environment Agency who enjoyed a productive day but commented on how high the banks were to which I replied it's not the banks that are high it's the river that's low,

much too low.

I would like to have taken him over to the Itchen where the gravel bar that stands clear of the water grows bigger with each passing week, and ask him if he believed the figures he was shown regarding river levels and discharge, but I didn't because it was Christmas and he was quite a nice chap. But instead informed him that there was less water flowing down this river than when I first started work here nearly twenty five years ago. The book will show that then fish were caught from the Millstream which remained fishable for much of the season, this is no longer the case. The hatch on the house was opened wider during winters twenty odd years ago to let water go, this is no longer the case. There are jobs that I now have to do differently to compensate for lower flow, I could go on, (and often do, interminably) but will leave it there, but can we all agree that this river's flow is diminishing as the years progress.

With some trepidation Madam and myself have resumed contact with HMRC and submitted forms relevant. You may recall that we spent the first half of last year giving battle with the revenue collectors after they insisted Madam had not filed a return. She had, and we were forced to invoke ministers and parliamentarians in order for them to relent and accept that there had been a problem at their end regarding their clever website. The wounds are still quite raw and this year paper copies, screen shots and photographs have been taken at every turn should the unfortunate experience be repeated.

Earlier this week I was summoned to Madam's chambers (which also doubles as the living room when I am tied to the kitchen table chucking up guff) to take in Rick Stein's series at 7pm on BBC2. To use contemporary parlance, Rick's lucked out and got the gig of taking short breaks in most of the European cities that we have visited in recent times.

Bologna (still one of our favourites) first.

My employer and one fat lady frequented Rick's place in Padstow many times and can confirm (my employer, as all fat ladies have left the room) that fish is Rick's thing.

It's all about the pasta in Bologna and Rick's fish free programme (bar a can of tuna) had us reaching for the tablets as we will be in Italy later this year and wondered if we could tag on a couple of days in La Rossa before returning home. Flight checks were made and instead of the usual "there are twelve other people looking at this flight" it flashed up there are four thousand and three people currently looking at this flight" It may have been an error or Rick's programme has done more for the food capital of Italy than the town tourist board,

Bologna could be quite busy this year.

Rick was in Lisbon the next day and we were again reminded of a tremendous time in a top city albeit with fish very much to the fore, some top trams, a bonkers outdoor lift and some wine glasses from a department store called Pollux that we somehow managed to get back to blighty in one piece,

one of which I am about to drain of delicious Douro before signing off.

And finally, news just in from Chick 'O' Land,

We have received the gift of egg and on the morrow the full family shall gather at the table in the manner of Tom and Barbara to share in the harvest,

Well done the chickens!

Oh yes, Happy New Year!

We've already done that one - ed

Every evening this year at 6pm the BBC have forced the same small band of brothers to don swimming trunks and like a regiment of Reggie Perrins turn as one and march out into the freezing briny.

From a licence payer and one who wouldn't jump into water at this time of year clad in anything less than a minimum covering of 5mm of neoprene, Stop it BBC.

I know that waterboarding currently gets all the heat with regard to methods of aquatic torture, but this pushes it close. At the very least introduce a rotation policy so that the same bunch aren't subject this nightly barbarity which serves as an amuse bouche to the evening news. Yes a dancing bear and of course the bearded ladies and those swimming hippos were a lot of fun but this daily ritual of driving these same souls off the beach by way of a bit of a filler before the nightly news is at best medieval at worst downright cruel!

Anyway.

Chainsaw work continues, balsam poplar stumps have been burned, vistas have been created and my new saw continues to perform well. For five consecutive days night time temperatures dropped to between minus five and minus seven and a big fire on a clear frosty morning has been a welcome addition to the working environment. We are currently attending to the forces of crack willow that have taken up position on the top shallows, I last went at them about five years ago which is a little too long, three years is about the max as they can really impact on weed and marginal growth if allowed to run riot. It's the time of year for funny birds, and there is something up where we are working that I have yet to identify, it makes a funny noise that I'll not try to replicate vie the medium of the written word but as soon as I have identified it rest assured it will be writ large on here. There are many redwing and a flight of canaries that on closer inspection in good light proved to be yellowhammers. Child A also reported a bird making a funny call on her return late one night from work, too early for the Nightjar so with the amount of lurgy about the place at the moment my guess is an owl with a cold.

There now follows an appeal on behalf of the RSPDP (Royal Society for the Protection of Depleted Aquifers)

Crikes we need rain

I'll say that again for the sake of emphasis.

CRIKES WE NEED RAIN!

My new friend who is a big noise in the EA informs me that meetings are being held and there are concerns at a regional level on the amount of water currently held in the ground in this part of the world

Yet the media and public disconnect from what constitutes good meteorological conditions for a particular time of year increases daily: our local news programme has just declared the current week a wash out, with scattered showers forecast and spells of prolonged drizzle.

Vacancy

A position has arisen for a suitable candidate to fulfil the position of promoter for a wet week in winter in the South of England. The candidate shall possess excellent communication skills and be able to get a simple message across in words of no more than two syllables to a large audience with limited appreciation of the subject.

Last week, with a view to prolonging life, we walked six miles up and down the river Hamble. It is a place we have driven by countless times, watched cricket matches within a mile of its banks and yet it remained relatively unknown territory to us. Parking among the cravats and Breton sweaters much favoured by the Howard's Way set in Bursledon we headed north on the left bank, through a few marinas under the M27 then out into the marshes round a creek and into the Manor Farm Country Park where we encountered four hundred or so cross country runners charging at us down a narrow path. There were runners from across the county and while the leader was obvious it was difficult to determine when the last runner was due through in order for us to complete our trek.

We stood by the side of the path and noted the change in body shape and BMI as the field progressed until a chap on a bike sporting the requisite high viz whistling the theme tune from "Chariots of Fire" arrived chivvying along the endomorphic back marker.
It's a great place for a walk and surprisingly peaceful, placed as it is between Pompey and Southampton and its proximity to a very busy motorway, it just gets a bit crowded when Zatopek and Mary Peters et al turn up.

The chickens continue to present us with the gift of eggs with every other one a double yolker, production is increasing and I move their pen every other day as I have delayed their release into the paddock until the threat of flu has passed.

A friend enquired recently if I had caught the Andrew Marr show on Sunday, to which I replied I had cancelled my subscription to the show. After six days a week of despair at edicts being issued and rhetoric uttered in all corners of the globe, Sunday once again serves as a break from the outside world, so apologies to the Andrew sisters (Marr and Neil)

I really value a one day a week break from the grim madness that currently grips planet earth (and feel free to make a contribution here Tim Peake rather than putting all your efforts into blagging another free trip into space)and now a Sunday is spent immersed in the three W's.

Not Worrel, Weekes and Walcott

but walks, wine and Wodehouse,

A brief word from Wooster:

"... in the course of a beano of some description at the Sherry-Sutherland, I made the acquaintance of Pauline Stoker.
She got right in among me. her beauty maddened me like wine.

"Jeeves, " I recollect saying, on returning to the apartment "who was the fellow who on looking at something felt like somebody looking at something? I learned the passage at school, but it has escaped me."

"I fancy the individual you have in mind , sir, is the poet Keats, who compared his emotions on reading Chapman's Homer to those of stout Cortez when with eagle eyes he stared at the Pacific"

"The Pacific, eh?"

"Yes, sir. And all his men looked at each other with a wild surmise, silent upon a peak in Darien"

Thank you Jeeves.

Hey Donald, i know it would be another white male in later life appointment, but you could really use a Jeeves

In other news, I'm a few weeks away from the 25th anniversary of my current employment. Protocols dictate that carriage clocks are de rigueur at this juncture but the well preserved form of the lady who sleeps on my left and my own withered husk, each born three days apart confirms the thesis that time moves at differing paces for different people and all aspects of horology are hooey,

or was it Astrology?

No matter, if we can all agree that one of the "ologys" is hooey we'll move on

To mark the 25 year event "the firm" have stumped up for, not a clock, but a fantastic trip to Italy where Madam and myself will both break new ground and revisit a few old favourites - report to follow.

Very exciting and thank you very much, the last twenty five years on a special stretch of river have been a blast and a terrific place to raise a family, thank you for having us for the last twenty five years.

Still going about my business, chainsaw in hand much willow has been conquered along with some stubby little thorn that fought back hard in a recent campaign claiming one pair of neoprene waders and a slow puncture to the front wheel of the tractor.

Even in gloves my hands bear the scars and each evening I attend to various punctures and splinters with little sympathy and only vin rouge for succour.

There's a few more weeks to go of this kind of work with the bottom bends requiring attention and a large tree falling on to the Pheasant pen that we hope to make use of this year. Bashing about on the top shallows has betrayed a brace of Water rail but the small bird with the unusual whistle remains elusive. The Kelly Kettle provided some drama one morning. Fired up for the first time I wandered away to attend to a fire when I hear a loud pop. Turning to the direction of the noise I saw the kettle was a few feet from where I had left it. Closer inspection revealed that I had forgotten to take the cork out of the kettle part, the kettle had boiled and because I had jammed the cork in hard to prevent any spillage during transit pressure had built up to such an extent that the cork had now joined the list of space junk orbiting the earth and the kettle had shot across the ground in recoil. A new bright orange silicon cork has now been purchased and a lesson learned. I'm also making steady progress with the perennial problem of shifting silt, a task that is made all the more tedious due to the low water conditions, more on that later - apologies in advance.

A few people have been bothering the grayling with mixed results. One chap had a handful of fish all pushing two pound and another managed to put a venerable roach of a pound thirteen on the bank. We had some funny foam in one of the streams that flows through the mill house garden although nothing on the main river so something must have entered the mill stream. We had a surprise road closure recently (which caused chaos and don't we normally get informed about such incidents) to attend to potholes and bumps and unusually it rained in this valley a few days later so it may be something to do with runoff from the road.

I'll just break off there to attend to Stonehenge.

Since I first set foot in this valley in 1986 there has been talk of burrowing underneath the thing to hide the nearby Highway to the Sun and restore a little tranquillity to the heap of blue stones. Back then you could rock up after a night at the pub, park on the side of the road and take your ease on the heel stone for some post pub contemplation.
To my mind, it was built for this very purpose

The tunnel proposal is once again under consideration and if it does ever happen the jingoists will declare a great feat of engineering to rival any wonder of the world at which point our Swiss friends may emit an

"Ahem....

We've put more holes through some of our Alps than we have through some of our cheeses."

We once drove up the Rhone Valley from Montreux to Brig to stay on a camp site on an alp with a swimming pool filled with glacial melt water where sleep was an impossible dream due to a field full of cows wandering about in the dark with bells around their necks.

Anyway,

Half the journey up the upper reaches of the Rhone was subterranean with some of the highway burrows many many miles long.

And hey Montreux how about some embers by the lake putting smoke on the water and fire in the sky or failing that a few Funky Claudes promenading on the shore or possibly running in and out?

For a particular generation your town could be the new Graceland.

Oh yes, Stonehenge.

A five minute piece on local TV this week revealed it was once within a few yards of a brace of aerodromes. One black and white photo displayed Getafix and friends undertaking rituals with Tommy Sopwith doing bunny ears in the background, the runway was very close by and rumours abound that a few stones were clipped on landing in high winds which caused a few crustys with trowels to look askance but let's not forget that several generations took the whole thing down and put it back up again in their own eye and several stones retain Victorian foundations.

It may now not be what our Neolithic forebears perceived and the whole reason it gets all the heat with regard to all things prehistoric is that it is visible from a very busy main road. There are some equally impressive remains from prehistory at the other end of the British Isles that receive far fewer visitors and at this point I'd like to offer the premise that the builders of Stonehenge chose the location in the knowledge that one day a busy highway would drop from two lanes to one thus slowing traffic down in order to gaze upon their skills with stone.

It's a trick not lost on Anthony Gormley who has made a mint out of erecting his most prominent pieces by busy roads, The Angel of the North a prime example.

Anyway,

rather than a tunnel, as the Swiss, Austrians and Italians have this one taped, I propose we extend the dual carriageway up to the stones and make them the centre piece of a large roundabout. The current alignment of the stones lend themselves to this and it is one thing we do increasingly well in this country where we are blessed with many and while the Swiss may counter the miracle of our short tunnel with a Romansch "Ahem" they will have no comeback to a roundabout to end all roundabouts, because they don't do good roundabout. Those who wish to view the stones can drive around the roundabout as many times as they please and those who just need to move on to a holiday, cricket match or relatives can pass straight on by.

Simples

Recent rambles have seen us conquer the Basingstoke canal from Odium to Dogmersfield, cutting back across Dogmersfield Park to take in some nice lakes and several enormous piles of bricks. Full of fish we took lunch on bench behind a platoon of carp fishermen who'd struck camp for the weekend.

A wet and windy day and an impending televised six nations game saw us stay a little closer to home and trek from Whitchurch towards Tufton then on up the Test Valley to Laverstoke Park and then back again.

Aside from the beautiful scenery and some voluble cattle,

Here's a Belted Galloway owned by South African former F1 star Jody Schechter,

and by way of balance,

here's some chooks, sans belts, owned by Hants FA Groundsman of the year 2011 (opened a lot of doors for us did that)

It was clear that high up the valley the aquifers are depleted and in desperate need of replenishment.

And at this point I will fall off the wagon and attend to groundwater levels.

Here's a photo of a ditch that should have water in it,

Further dry ditches

And here's a field that should have a half acre splash of spring water that feeds through previous ditches to the river that I fall in and out of.

The Test and Itchen River Report for 2016 was rolled out this week. Featuring reports from most beats on both rivers plus other guff regarding the two rivers (including poor prose from your correspondent) A piece from Command centre central described the impending renewal of the abstraction licence to send supplementary water down the Candover Stream during periods when the Itchen's discharge dropped below a specific level. The Upper Itchen is deemed an uber environmental area which must be preserved at all cost. However it has come to light that the cone of influence caused by this groundwater abstraction (cone of influence from groundwater abstraction- think digging a hole in super dry sand, the deeper you go the wider the rim of the hole at the top) is impacting upon other river catchments, principally the Upper Dever Valley. Quite rightly the EA have recommended that the amount of water permitted to be drawn out of the ground to sustain the Itchen's flow be reduced on the new licence, quite wrongly the local water company has asked for it to remain the same and a portion of it be siphoned off to supplement local domestic supply. Many times on here (and elsewhere ) I have pondered why the river seems to fall away at a faster rate than it did twenty years ago, seems I wasn't half the crank I was made out to be by some. Well done the EA for fighting the cause, but I fear it will be like popguns against Polaris missiles in the tussle with the water company in the current political climate.

In the sustained pursuit of additional years Madam and myself have just returned from another weekly six miler, coincidentally among the depleted aquifers of the upper Dever Valley, on a tour of tracks that I knew from the years that legal coursing events were held on the same ground. Two or three would tale place each winter with three eight dog stakes and a rich mix of people would assemble from all corners of the UK to run their dog. From the ermine clad with trainers (dog trainers not reeboks) through life boatmen, farmers, architects to Mr F*7%ing Younis ( so called because each sentence was littered with F&$%s) with his beard full of henna in a Shalwar Kameez. My employer ran the show and before each meeting the place would be reconnoitred to limit the inevitable chaos that ensues when allowing dogs to run after things in open fields. The two farms were alive with hares and on each recce you'd expect to see up to a dozen bumbling about with many more hunkered down hidden away in their scrape.

On this mild morning when you would reasonably expect to see the opening gambit of the Hare's mad spring shenanigans,

we didn't see a single hare,

so well done Mr Blair for that, that hunting bill really worked our for the hare didn't it?

Cardiff yesterday and a flying visit to touch base with Child B who is in his final year at Uni and about to push off to China for three weeks, seven days of which are a course field trip to Hong Kong.

Cardiff grows on us with every visit and I think he'll miss it if he ever leaves. The Victorian arcades host a plethora of interesting independent shops and places to eat. Madam Fromage is a tremendous place to take sustenance

Otis was much taken by the pooch boutique opposite peddling bespoke leather dog beds with marble dog bowl holders,

We didn't go in but his dream remains

Oh Norman

Poldark with a slipped chest and Pokemon

To Infinity and Beyond!

Butterflies, Olympics and Green Gyms

A Previously Unknown Henry Moore in the Medium of Cucumber

Trogir, Ciovo and Slatine

Tremours Down The Thigh Bone, Shakin All Over

A whistle stop tour of the Ypres Salient

The Inbetweeners do Wainwright and further Hackneyed Phrasing

Marvin Gaye and the Stuff of the Duce

Down with Hedges and Walk a Mile in My Shoes

A Slow Plane to Lugdunum

Football and Ed Balls and Molly Malone - brought to you this week by the Fleet St Hotel, Dublin

Top Billing on The Shelf of Shame

News Just In From The Sofa

Over and Out for 2016 - Phew!

The Roar of The Guns Returns

Something In the Air by Thunderclap Snow and the Met Office

Stop Driving People Into The Sea BBC!

Monsters of Rock, In Rock and a Belted Galloway