Wednesday 20 December 2017

Digger Donovan and some Super Sexy Wiggles

Well, we'll begin this latest chunk of guff with a good news story and some high praise for a big corporation. Having sourced the few items that one is allowed to send in the post to Australia, a box was purchased and a hefty chunk of moolah handed over to the post office wallah on the penultimate day for posting to Australia in time for Yuletide. Five days later we received word via something called Whatsapp that it had arrived at Child B's flat in Melbourne. So well done the Post Office or whoever it is that deals with that kind of delivery, and at this point I'll pause to consider how such a transaction occurs, Yes the post office cove picks up the money but how does Digger Donovan at the other need get his cut for taking the box from the plane to the door.

And not just Digger Donovan, how do all the overseas posties get their slice of the money furnished for stamps at a UK post office to send items overseas?

I have given it quite a bit of thought and it's beyond me. I don't know how overseas post works and all this thinking about international matters is starting to hurt so I'll return to the business in hand of managing a short stretch of chalk stream and its valley.

Here's a link to an interesting article that was referenced in The Times earlier this week

https://www.buglife.org.uk/news-&-events/news/heavy-neonicotinoid-insecticide-contamination-damaging-british-rivers

We've turned the chainsaw's attention to the Mill Stream, which has been mothballed due to lack of water for almost three years. To recap, the millstream is the half mile long man made channel used to carry water to drive the wheel at the Mill.

Uniform in length and initially canal like, over the last twenty years we have been attempting to make it a more natural environment. Reed and sedge have been planted and used to pinch and flick the flow and create a few sexy wiggles and lines. Cut back completely the Mill stream is a featureless channel with a silty bottom but pinching and flicking the flow keeps the gravel bed a little cleaner and allows weed to grow where it previously didn't.

As I have previously mentioned we haven't had the water to run the Mill stream for the past three summers as the main river must take precedence and if we were still in the business of grinding flour there may also have been limited supply of bread these past three summers. Of course there is willow to attend to interspersed with some particularly vicious bramble and thorn, and currently I sit chucking up this guff in a haze of TCP that has been dabbed on the many scratches and pricks on all parts of the body, the blackthorn in particular laughs in the face of the toughest chainsaw trouser. It's a steady business as most of the tree work is in the water and wood must be dropped in the river and then pulled out on the other side for introduction to the fire.

We had a second wander about with guns last week. I was a little disappointed at the number of pheasant that were in the parish on our first day. I was aware that despite the best efforts of Otis and myself each day a significant percentage of our birds wandered up to a neighbours block of maize.

Here's one of our neighbour taking pot shots at them as they fly home. Which is fair enough, as he doesn't get much shooting and warming the barrels as twenty or thirty of your neighbour's birds steadily exit stage left out of the side of the drive provided him with some much needed sport.


?


For whatever reason, we saw many more birds on our maraud through the woods this week. The cold weather earlier in the week had brought quite a few teal into the valley along with fifty odd geese and the occasional woodcock. It's not about the numbers and it's always a fun and relaxing day with a long lunch to finish. Thanks very much to everyone who turned out to worry the wildlife.

If we can all hum the Nina Simone somg "I wish I knew how it would feel to be free" for the next few lines the ambience will be significantly improved.

I have been invited to review a film. Not the current smash about Neil and Christine titled Hamilton, or the new Star Trek feature. It's called "Chalk" and its centred around either the end of a snooker cue, a day in the life of a blackboard or a chalk river, we don't know. But as soon as I have got around to watching the thing and chuck some words together about what I think it is all about I will let you know on here.

And there we have it, almost made it through another year. I don't know how it happened but twenty five years have just passed and Madam and myself will be on our own on Christmas morning for the first time in all that time,

which will be a bit odd,

although the bacon in the sandwiches at breakfast may be a little thicker than the previous twenty five years with a top brand name brown sauce on the table rather than the usual supermarket's own version sauce.

Yes we miss the kids, they are now very grown-ups and goodness how fast does time fly but we must look up and not down and acknowledge the fact that we now eat considerably better cuts of meat than we used to and don't have to share/fight over roast potatoes.

Oh yes, almost forgot,

This,

because no Christmas is complete without them






Happy Christmas everyone and thank you for reading the rubbish that I write.



8 comments:

Ludgershall said...

Well if you ask me your neighbough is a mean spirited blighter!

Ludgershall.

Test Valley River Keeper said...

Couldn't possibly say, he put a lot of lead in the air for very little reward so the practice may have done him some good

Thanks for getting in touch and for reading the rubbish that I write.

ian said...

Merry Xmas . Keep up the guff

Test Valley River Keeper said...

Merry Christmas to you too Ian and thank you for reading the rubbish that I write,

Further guff to follow

James Denison Angling said...

Merry Christmas Chris and to the family, I hope it's a good one and may see you in January at some point.

Anonymous said...

Happy Christmas to you and yours Chris and please keep the very enlightening guff coming in the new year.
And all best wishes of the season to Himself, who is greatly missed this week.

Test Valley River Keeper said...

Cheers James, best wishes for Christmas and see you and look forward to seeing yourself and Brian in 2018

Test Valley River Keeper said...

Thanks Anonymous for the kind words, with regards to the dog, his agent is currently engaged in some tricky negotiations over image rights (he's holding out for two bonios at bedtime) which will hopefully reach some from of resolution in the new year,

As ever, thanks for reading the rubbish that I write