The Mystery of Reggie Perrin and Stone Cold Steve Austin's Roses

And then it was done, 

The most challenging trout season on the chalk streams I have ever experienced. 

Child A 2.0 continues to thrive and I grimly predict that if matters progress as they have done during the past two summers, this river will be unfishable and run dry periodically during his lifetime. 

Possibly mine if I maintain the sustained and determined consumption of red wine, tomatoes and dark chocolate that guarantee to extend life. 

It has started raining, 

We have had a lot in the past few days and Storm Stone Cold Steve Austin (didn't he grow roses?) promises much, but we need months of weather like this to restore normal order to these parts. Some of the spawning gravels remain dry, but trout will adapt in the coming months and find some spot to kick up a redd. Waves of avian predators will undoubtedly make merry in the low water and I anticipate an increase in damaged fish during and after spawning. 

In arboreal news, has anyone seen any acorns? 

Conkers, yes, Beech nuts, yes, hazelnuts, yes, but a complete dearth of acorns. 

I only noticed when Madam issued a decree for acorns and their little pipey cups for some craft project she had planned at the local primary school. I have looked every where and we haven’t an acorn on the place, nor on the senior oaks at the cricket club or along the track down to the common. Not sure why, but guess it had something to do with the very late frost in early May. 

During my quest for acorns I did disturb what I had down as a Goshawk, I have not seen one for years and my eyes were younger then, but it was a similar shape and half as big again as a Sparrowhawk and a little less agile in flight. There is also a Hen Harrier ligging about on the common that has put in an appearance about the place, languid in flight they always look on the cusp of falling out of the sky. 

We’ve had the first few frosts, nothing too hard but enough to check grass growth that had resumed its’ verdant hue after a summer in beige. Many types of funghi are putting in an appearance although the edible field mushroom picking period was early and quite short. The wild hop that absorbs our garden hedge is covered in hops and the grape vine has a heavy crop that I have been feeding to the chickens as they make us shiver. 

The dodgy grapes make us shiver, not the chickens. 

I don’t think chickens can shiver, but they do seem to like dodgy grapes. They are a fruity bunch and also lap up melon, cucumber, kidney beans and peas. My courgettes and squash on the allotment were inedible, wizened in the sun I could only cut them with an axe; split down the middle the chooks peck out the seeds and turn them into some of the best eggs we have had for a long time. 

I’ve been pulling cress for two days. When summer levels are low I allow it to grow out into the river and pinch the river, maintaining a quicker rate of flow. It helps to keep the water temperature a degree or so lower and prevents blanket weed conquering all. However it can smother ranunculus, depriving it of light, so in anticipation of an increasing amount of water in the river I have pulled it out. This year a lot of silt has accumulated under the cress, deposited by a falling summer river that lacked the energy to carry it’s load of fine suspended solids. 

Two rods have had a go for grayling. There have been a few big lumps about throughout the summer, a two pound grayling is big for this stretch of the Dever and there are at least three or four approaching that size. Grayling were seen spawning this spring (it’s on here somewhere) and there are pods of small grayling fingerlings skittering about which is great to see following a few years in decline. Brer Grayling is the poor relation in the much vaunted but deeply flawed National Trout and Grayling Strategy introduced in 2015, and while we are all encouraged not to cause too much of a kerfuffle during the trout spawning season, press on regardless boys and girls with your diggers and dumpers during the grayling spawning season. 

On another note, why are “Iron Chancellor” John Healey and Reggie Perrin never seen in the same room together? 

Because Leonard Rossiter died thirty odd years ago - ed 

Oh, ok, we’ll park that one then, 

Unless! Reggie did fake his death for a second time and walked out into the sea, (he did have previous with this kind of caper), only to emerge as the Chancellor of the Exchequer and start a third life in politics. 

Definitely died in 1984 – ed 

We’ll never know, same eyes and grin definitely, all I’m saying is that the clues are there and Reggie may be hiding in plain sight.

 

Late news just in: The opening skirmishes of Storm Stone Cold Steve Austin are upon us and already I have a tree in the river. Nothing too substantial but the first of a heavy load of tree work that must be carried out this winter. It’s out with the chainsaw in the morning.

The Addled Thought Processes of a Prospective Grapefruit Framer

We’ve had rain, 

Which was nice, 

not a lot and it hasn’t done much other than promote grass growth and instigate the resurrection of my runner beans. 

Ok, the river has a fresher feel, is a sensible temperature and water quality has partially improved, but levels won’t be affected until the middle of next month. Dig down six inches and the earth is like dust. No significant recharge of the aquifers will begin for a few weeks and then it needs to rain until February/ March. 

It sounds a bit doom laden, but this has been the case and whispered “sotto voce” in keepering circles since the water disappeared between April and early July.

 

Looking up, we find that house martins and many other things that tweet and flutter have brought off many broods, and in Mediterranean fruit news lemons continue to thrive. 

And at this point I’ll let you in on a secret that Monty Don will not share. To be clear It is not trouser related. 

There has been much speculation regarding Monty’s attire over the years principally centred around whose garments are they? 

Not the particular fashion house, but whose wardrobe has his washing been mixed up with? because none of it seems to fit.

Anyway back to the secret regarding lemons that Monty refuses to divulge. 

The middle of Lidl. 

Lemons grow in the Mediterranean region very well, I have seen it and sampled it. 

Lidl have many of their emporia in the same climes, once again, I have seen it and sampled it. 

On a hot day I like to visit our local Lidl. 

It serves as a reminder of previous holidays in Croatia, Greece, Italy….. 

An illusion that is soon shattered by the cream of local town society and what they consider suitable attire to wear to a supermarket on a hot day. 

To the Lemons! 

I have watered my lemon tree with Lidl bottled water throughout the summer and it seems to like it. 

Our water that comes out of the tap is super hard and gifts us the bones of Titan. 

An epiphany now follows:

Lemons don’t have bones, they have pips and like soft soft water to make all that citric acid. 

Monty forgot to share this "life hack" before he signed off to retreat to a tailors to finally have his inside leg measurement taken for new retirement strides. 

We have many lemons, Lemons like Lidl. 

In other citrus fruit news I have the genesis of two grapefruit plants and an orange, taken from seeds purchased from fruit in Lidl. They are also subjected to the same water process and I confidently predict that having cracked lemons, given a similar summer next year I will be filling boxes on forms marked “Occupation” as Grapefruit farmer.

Watch this space. 

Back on the river we have a few weeks left of the trout fishing season. As previously stated, it has been a particularly challenging season, for fish, for anglers and for riverkeepers. All climate related and in conditions that do not allow chalk rivers to sparkle and flourish. 

El Nino, is a worry, if memory serves he didn’t cover himself with glory as the miscreant in the Disney film Pocahontas, but we must endeavour to look up and not down. 

Significant log gathering, splitting and storing has provided some succour. The long grass has been cut on the meadows and the signs are there of a brief, premature but spectacular show of colour in the following month bar the chestnuts that look a tad tatty. There is very little weed to cut, water cress pushing out from the banks has helped to maintain a rate of flow, but heron and egret are playing fast and loose in the low water conditions, and if a swan farts the whole river colours up in a matter of minutes. 

To preserve all things chalk stream it has been necessary to let the marginal vegetation to “grow in a bit” with trees hanging low and bankside vegetation extending out into the river. It is very different to the way a chalk stream was managed when I first started forty years ago, but there was a bit more water about then. 

See the hatches and channels that were constructed a few hundred years ago to manage an even greater volume of water moving about the valley, and the conclusion is drawn that there is an awful lot of lost knowledge as to how to manage water in theses valleys. But we are where we are, some guy in a fine fleece with cutting edge walking shoes will always drop by for an hour to inform us, the unwashed plebiscite, how to progress if matters are to improve, then disappear following the presentation of a bill a list of expenses incurred and disclaimer if his recommendations don't go quite to plan.

And then we became grandparents. 

7lb 2oz born to Child A and son in law A

A baby boy with more hair on his head than my own, currently carrying the moniker Child A 2.0. 

Which we believe is current.

The world turned and Madam and I are ensconced in a daily deep reverie over the “third act” that just begun, and couldn’t be more “Over the moon” 

Which reminds me that I need to gen up on my Nursery rhymes, 

Are they still a thing? 

or did Tik Tak do for that as well?

WTF (contemporary parlance) Happened?

Hell’s horses! What happened? 

Apologies for going “deep cover” for a few weeks, but once again,

WTF (contemporary parlance)just happened? 

In late April I was dealing with ranunculus that was on the cusp of flowering and pushing water over the banks,

 

where did all the water go? 

Once again WTF (further contemporary parlance) 

I have been falling in and our of this stretch of the Dever for over thirty four years and this was my fortieth season having a go at working on the Test and it’s tributaries. I have never experienced such a rapid drop in water level and have spent most of the season blistering in the sun, stumbling about with my tongue dragging along the floor wondering how it has come to this. 

It goes without saying that we have gravels that are dry and most fish have concentrated on getting through the day, tucking away in shady deep spots in a river that for several weeks began the day at seventeen degrees celsius and ended at nineteen degrees celsius.

Some stretches on the middle and lower river experienced water temperatures in the low twenties, and several clubs closed down for a period. Trees have been under stress and I have had to deal with several that just gave up in the heat. Donning chainsaw gear in such conditions was an experience that resulted in me fitting into evening trousers that have not been comfortable for a decade or more, I know fashion moves on but this was one plus that arose from the brutal conditions this summer, and I briefly considered putting my earing back in and jigging about in a field somewhere with other people, new torch in hand showing off my new svelte form.

 

It was very hot and considered thought was hard to come by. 

Lizards! Waaaaah! 

We have lizards in the garden, little brown ones that are more attributable to the Med. 

I don’t think we brought them back in our case but we have more and more ligging about the place, along with the resident Grass snakes and an Adder that Madam and myself disturbed one hot afternoon.

We have a record crop of inedible grapes (except to the blackirds, who love them),

many lemons on our tree,

and melons thriving in the polytunnel. 

Peppers and aubergines are in rude health, tomatoes are a ball of sunshine, half the size but with an incredibly intense flavour. Potaties are rubbish, beans are quick to go to string and leeks are pencil thin. 

Once again, if anyone chimes up and questions climate change and it's influence on this corner of old Albion, feel free to flick (or possibly punch) them on the nose, clap them round the ears and call them out for the Contrarian that they are, with possible additional further financial interest in it’s continued denial. 

It may not be apparent from guff chucked up by this house, but I have spent forty years in a workplace that is very much influenced by the climate. I’ve yet to see a flamingo about the place, but there has been a Mill on this site for over a thousand years. There have been long periods during the past ten years when there has not enough water to turn the wheel. 

Warming climate, on which we have had an influence, is a thing in these parts,  It’s not some cycle. 

There is a diminishing and to many, invisible, groundwater resource in this corner of South East of England that supplies seventy percent of it’s population. It’s on here somewhere, (ad nauseum – ed) but we need to get more “water wise” with our knowledge of the “old eau” extending beyond it falling out of the tap and exiting down the plug hole. We’ve almost managed it with rubbish and recycling so there’s hope, but maybe a few water shortages and empty pipes this summer could focus minds and the lady with the Croydon facelift from local town society will not rant to the local news camera that it’s her right to wash her car and fill her hot tub, there’s loads or water because it didn’t stop effing raining after Christmas.

 

There now follows a succession of deep breaths by way of balm to an ageing constitution. 

Deep breath one 

Deep breath two 

Deep breath three 

In other news we went away to cool down in Kefalonia. 

A beautiful island, infested with goats, that we have visited previously. We were billeted a hop and a skip from the beach in the small village of Assos. 

Four tavernas, two mini markets a bakery and not much else. It is reached by the most precipitous road that I have ever driven along, which inevitably brought me out in hives. Madam and myself love to snorkel. We both have prescription masks for our ailing eyesight and rise early before anyone else is about, entering the water with a handful of stale bread by way of groundbait. 

It was some of the best snorkelling we have ever done. Crystal clear water with many massive mullet, bass, wrasse, flatfish, octopus the occasional ray, shoals of anchovy, further whitebait plus many that I failed to identify. 

Back home, all appointments have been cancelled as we await the arrival of our first grandchild.  Child A has struggled in the heat but is almost there, further news to follow.

When the Moon is in the Seventh House and Jupiter aligns with Mars

Well what a weed cut that was. 

The June weed cut is historically the heaviest, but this was the heaviest I have experienced for a few years. 

In April we had weed, but because the weather and water were cold, I took the decision just to tickle a few bits up. You will remember that in May we had a late frost, the river was still quite cold and the weed was in soporific order. You may also remember, and this is on here somewhere, that after experiencing a late frost in May the following weekend saw the Celsius in the thirties and my behaviour changing from covering twelve rows of allotment potatoes up, to watering them quite heavily. This period spurred weed growth and in the warm weather prior to the June weed cut, if you sat still long enough staring, an activity that I am increasingly prone to do, you could visibly see the weed growing. 

For eight days my scythe was a blur, several days when the weather topped thirty Celsius I opted for my leaky light weight waders that I normally reserve for salmon fishing and it felt goooooood. 

With the weed cut complete, the weather really warmed up, hitting record temperatures apparently. The temperature under the parasol in our garden nudged forty degrees, and the river water temperature topped out at nineteen degrees. We have many springs that feed into this section of the Dever. Spring water pops out of the ground at a constant ten degrees which helps to keep temperatures lower than the middle and lower river, where applications have been put in to start stocking with Tilapia. 

The river temperature currently hovers between sixteen and seventeen degrees according to my state of the art meat thermometer, at which point I’ll break off because a thought has just entered my head, a practice that I am increasingly prone to do because in less than a minute it will have gone, 

Now where was I? 

Meat thermometer? 

Ah yes, meat thermometer, why are so many kitchen implements involved in the rearing of trout and the management of their habitat? No self respecting salmonid hatchery would be complete without a phalanx of turkey basters for picking eggs and every fish I ever stripped of eggs was done into a cake mixing bowl. 

But that may be it. 

Fishing has been hard. Above a water temperature of eighteen celsiuses salmonids start to concentrating on just getting through the day and like last year we are leaving as much willow to shade as possible. One encouraging development has been the increase in the number of blue winged olives about the place, nothing like the numbers of forty or fifty years ago, but definitely more than the last few summers. Other critters on the up are the ducks, mostly mallard with the occasional gadwall, we have many broods skittering about the place. 

Returning to water news, we’ve had a dearth of the old eau popping out of our taps. 

The water supply to our abode, the main Mill house and a neighbouring property are all supplied directly from a borehole in the Mill house garden. It is sited close to a beautifully constructed brick dome shaped well that is now covered up. Boreholes in the bottom of this valley don’t have to be very deep, we sit on the valley floor, many have been installed on the quiet to water cricket pitches, allotments and horse paddocks, it isn’t a difficult thing to do. 

Our borehole is a sealed affair, the water is untreated and it has made me and my family what we are today. The formidable but kind lady who used to live next door who lived to the age of ninety nine, regularly fell over in her dotage and an alarm would summon me to her side to raise her from her grounding. She always insisted that the reason she never broke a bone was the water she had drunk for a long period of time. 

It is very nice water, Hildon on tap if you will. 

Anyway, three weeks ago something went awry. The pump wouldn’t switch off and the borehole would run dry after an hour, at which point I could go on about “cones of influence” but will refrain, as once again I seem to have wandered away from what I was originally intended to write about. 

We had water for an hour a day and then the pump packed up. All signs pointed to a leak in the system, but this system that I have “some” knowledge of was installed when Archimedes was a lad. Wallahs were summoned and many qualified heads were scratched along with my own, but the conclusion drawn was that until the pump was replaced, no suspected leak could be found. 

These things take time to to fix and while we could get by with bottled water and showers at chez Child A, future grandchild A progressing well by the way, my polytunnel covering thirty tomato plants, a bunch of cucumbers and some experiments with melons, needed water. 

Two weeks of going to the river with two ten litre watering cans, carrying them across the road through our garden and up the top of the steps to where my polytunnel is sited, have left me two inches shorter in height and a 5th Dimension ear worm that wakes me up in the night.

Thank you 5th Dimension, weren't they great everyone?

News Just In:

Hosepipe ban to come into force in our area next week. 

Great, it’s only just turned July, and there are still a bunch of “flat earthers” who insist this can’t be the case after the rain last winter and they will fill their hot tubs regardless. 

When will we all become more "Water wise"?

Marvin Gaye and the Plug Pixies meet AI

To quote Marvin Gaye, 

What's going on (What's going on)


Yeah, what's going on (What's going on)


Tell me what's going on (What's going on)


I'll tell you, what's going on (What's going on) 

Right on, baby, right on. 

Half way through May and we get three frosts that hammered my allotment. On the third Saturday of the month we had ice on the windscreen of the car, on the fourth Saturday of the month the Celsius hit thirty degrees. To say my tomatoes are confused would be an understatement, and as for the potatoes and beans? 

Among all this nonsense, our lemon tree has flowered and plays host to a baby lemon who we have christened “Keith” 

As Marvin said “Lets get it on” 

Apologies “What’s going on” 

I could go on (Not a Marvin Gaye song) but can we all agree that if some flatearther insists the climate is not changing, and I’m looking at you principle in chief DJT, we take appropriate action flick them on the nose, clap them around the ears and call them out for the dinosaur focused on personal interest that they are. 

In the river, weed growth could be described as very verdant. Last year I didn’t cut much during the June weed cut, this June my scythe will be a blur. The thick growth holding water up and disguising the fact that the overall discharge has fallen rapidly over the past two months. Water clarity is remarkably good. For many years we suffered at this time of the year when the sun comes out, with a brown algae that lifts off the bottom of the river and breaks up through bubbly water adding a tint/tinge to the river. No such problem this year. How much this has to do with the citizen led water monitoring and data gathering that is now undertaken in this valley is open to debate. But maybe, just maybe, the Weasels at the Water treatment works half a mile upstream from here have felt under increasing pressure to abide by the rules that bizarrely they used to compile, monitor and implement, 

marking your own homework for several decades doesn’t even come close. 

During the two weeks when we switched from Arctic climate to that of Sardinia, Radio 4 aired an excellent series in the 15 minute slot between Sarah Montague at One and The Archers.  Titled “Rinsed” it is an excellent account of the machinations of Thames Water and their propensity to trash the River Windrush for a lengthy period. It is still available on the equally excellent BBC Sounds, a service that currently provides a soundtrack to my day. 

The Archers by the way, 

I was raised on activities in and around Ambridge and the movements of Walter Gabriel, Jack Wooley, Peggy Archer et al. Religiously listening to the omnibus edition on a Sunday morning, I withdrew my support in the late 1980s after a hard week helping out with the harvest on Leckford Estate (all departments helped out with the grain harvest). In that Sunday’s edition Tony Archer downed tools on his own harvest to spend the afternoon washing his Landrover. Maybe the agricultural story editor was away that week, but the penny dropped that this everyday tale of country folk had maybe taken a turn for the worse. 

I have since spoken to several people on the subject who also stopped listening to the show through the 1990s and 2000’s many citing the moment when David Archer stepped out of the shower and his abduction by aliens during the previous six months had all been a dream. Not sure where they got that idea from. 

Mayfly fishing is all that it should be, if a little later than previous years. There have been some very well attended dances and so far three heavy falls of spent mayfly. No sign of fish becoming sated yet, but it won’t be long. I also witnessed a major minnow ambitiously rise to a mayfly, which triggered an ear worm of “High Hopes” for the following hour. 

Our Chooks have been joined by a junior Muntjac. 

Chooks seem to be in charge and ooze confidence when emboldened by numbers, although the Muntjac seems perfectly happy in its role as honorary junior chicken. 

Tonight we receive  news from our friends at South Today that water companies in the South are concerned about water levels in several of their reservoirs. 

I did say. 

Unfortunately aquifer levels are not obvious to most eyes, nothing beats the sight of a long forgotten village peeping out of a depleted reservoir to get the message across. At which point I’d like to turn the focus on another member of the officer elite, General Perception. Often working in cahoots with General Consensus (It’s on here somewhere) The South and South East of England is slowly drying out. The way that we currently use a precious water source is unsustainable. Unsustainable for the precious and rare environment that is a chalkstream habitat, but unsustainable for the many millions of people living in the region. Reports of loss of supply and water bottle distribution stations are increasingly reported on the local news. A finger is quickly pointed at Weasely water companies and yes, they must be called into account but a leaky pipe in a region supplied by groundwater, is not water lost. It returns to the aquifer from which it was abstracted. 

The failure to invest in new reservoirs is also cited as a reason for the failure in supply, but the amount of water supply from any new reservoir would be a drop in the ocean to the amount of water “consumed” in the region. 

At which point I’ll point the finger at the tin pot leader that is Generalissimo Perception. It rained from November to March therefore to General Consensus's eyes there is plenty of water, case closed, fill up the hot tub, give the car a wash (and I’m looking at you here Tony Archer) and green grass for all. We can always point the finger at the Water Company to detract from the fact that Joe Public is compounding the problem by the way it uses a precious and diminishing water supply. 

It has been a mantra of this house for some years that we all need to become more water wise. Generalissimo Perception needs to pull his finger out and get this message across to General Consensus. 

We worked out crossing the road, for which we give thanks to Tufty.  The recycling thing and a plethora of bins have been nearly mastered, the energy crisis when Mad Vlad went rogue and this house gave up ironing, and all those adjustments we had to make in the poxy pandemic. 

If it’s beyond the wit of man to promote more efficient water use, then in an attempt to appear “current” I would suggest that this could be a job for AI, 

but AI use those increasing number of data centres, that rely heavily on water for cooling, 

Doh! 

Maybe just promote the idea to think a bit more about water use beyond the brief period that it sits in the sink after falling magically from the tap and disappearing down to the plug pixies who will perform further magic and make it all come back again. 

And AI?

I'll stick with my Furby, it doesn't use water.