No Worries? Yeah Right!

Goodness it's warm. We have topped thirty degrees for the last nine afternoons, today it only reached twenty seven instigating a mad rush for coats cardigans and other clobber in order to stave off the chill.

It goes without saying that the river flow is reduced but prolific weed growth maintains a reasonable level. Soporific fish are increasingly feeding sub surface and nymph fishing has now begun, although a few rise to sedge in the last hour of the day as is often the way in a hot high summer.

More soon after this message from our sponsor:

Apologies we don't do sponsors, although Fishtec have been on after a plug and I feel duty bound to oblige as they do say kind words about this house on their website www.fishtec.com.

In the absence of a sponsor (and with more travel planned and income from written stuff reduced we may have to rethink that one) Here's a couple of brief passages from the Test & Itchen Association newsletter (well done for that by the way)

"Diligent readers of Association newsletters will know that we have been working hard with like-minded organisations to support the efforts of the Environment Agency to restrict future abstraction of water from the Hampshire chalkstreams for public water consumption to more sustainable levels. We can report success! At a Public Inquiry in March, Southern Water agreed to all the changes to their abstraction licences proposed by the Environment Agency. This is a complicated issue and hard to summarise succinctly, but, in essence, the Inquiry outcome means that Southern Water will not be able to abstract more water from the rivers than they have in the past – and less than they have hitherto been licensed to. With the number of water customers growing, this means they are now required to develop the alternative water sources required to meet demand. In turn, this means that they are committed over the next ten years to investing in these alternative sources, the main ones being a new reservoir, a desalination plant and increased use of grey water by their industrial customers. They will also be working on demand reduction initiatives and doing more to fix leaks in the system."

Well done everyone, but can we all remember what a bunch of weasels private water companies are whose word is not their bond and are well versed in lip service and obfuscation.

And also this:

"Whilst the Association trumpet is out, I can also give it a small toot to mark the success we have had in prompting a change of heart from the Environment Agency on the swingeing increases they were planning in what they charge river owners to permit river restoration and maintenance projects. We made a strong case that by charging hundreds if not thousands of pounds for a licence to undertake projects to improve the environmental condition of the river and riverbank, they were penalising the very people they should be encouraging to undertake this essential work, with no obvious added benefit. The Environment Agency published the response to the consultation exercise in April. They accepted that the increased charges risked being counter-productive and introduced a new category of permit under which the price of a licence for work of environmental value remained unchanged from the past."

A complete climb down, well done to whoever it was who poked the bean counter at command centre central in the eye.

These kind of successes have a habit of occurring in threes so let's examine how that "Dream of Brexit is going"

No not that one.

How about the football?

I didn't think we'd play this well and I haven't enjoyed watching an England side play football as much as this since Euro 96 and it is modern day football, not the turgid default of the four. Our youngest squad for years going about their business on and off the field with a skip and a bounce previously unassociated with our national side, and well done the supporters, it may be a generational thing but no trouble and lots of fun sans the nationalistic songs and thuggery.

Returning to "The Dream of Brexit"

Why not let Gareth Southgate and his team lead negotiations on our exit from the European Union?

failing that let him run the country?

While we're on football, two weeks underground in a flooded cave is not the best preparation for a match, but if the Thai FA is anything like the English FA. There will have been a chap in a blue blazer replete with large pocket badge, beige stay press action slacks and faux leather shoes to greet the coach with an "ahem, I'm afraid we've had to deduct points for the two fixtures you failed to complete, there are fines to be paid and by the way you now have a rearranged cup game tomorrow morning."

Bert Millichip and Ted Croker live on

In other sports news. With the top ten seeds in the ladies side of the draw at Wimbledon failing to make the last eight shouldn't the seeding panel be held to account? Ok it's not an exact science but come on, failing to identify one of the last eight is poor punditry at best, balls out of hat at worst.

News just in from our travel correspondent.

Did I mention that we'd been to Australia?

Well, turns out that it was the trip that keeps on giving as a brace of speeding fines turned up last week. Which was quite a surprise as the bleached pantechnicon we were detailed to drive was by the far the most sluggish thing I have driven in recent times, and I include the tremendous orange tractor in that.

But hey. laws is laws and I broke em (four and a half miles an hour over the limit in the middle lane of a quiet motorway on the way out and on the way back) The sum demanded from government and the hire car people (dream on Hertz)
currently equates to a short break away for Madam and myself later this year. There is no speed awareness course offered and I have been awarded 2 demerit points.

A decision must be made.



Have we done with Down Under?

Should we risk the ire of Interpol?

Or shall we go to Italy again?

It's currently keeping me awake at night,

or that might be the heat,

but,

"No worries ?"

Yeah right. Go well!

I don't mean to invoke the passage of time and all things Kylie but I'm sure Gareth Southgate was older than me when he missed that penalty at Euro 96,

Beginning of the end Gareth, beginning of the end.

Moss is growing up fast and has been introduced to the river and now he has completed his vaccinations, the world.

I was kindly invited for another evening fishing on the Upper Avon at East Chisenbury where the river was lush and low and mayfly continued to hatch as they do on the Avon throughout the summer.

Returning to aquifer levels and the fast diminishing Dever

here's a photo of the Mill House taken sometime in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. Look to the left of the house right on the edge of the photo and you will see The Mill stream in full flow,

with fifty times as much water as today. I have seen another photograph from a similar period showing construction of a garden wall, it also shows the garden stream which is around six feet wide and very fast flowing. It has been a foot and a bit wide for the past thirty or so years and for the past fifteen has run dry by July.

The aquifers in the Dever valley are dropping at a remarkable rate. Here's the spring hole that we did so much work on last winter. It has been a great success and this pool of water contains half a dozen springs, which are slowly grinding to a halt.

Here's the main one in the middle, the white specks in the middle mark the spring and they should be bubbling up to the top and then falling back down again as the spring water rises up as they were in April. Today they lie dormant.

I shan't post the picture of the field called Spring Bottom that hasn't had a spring in it for five years, as it shouldn't have a spring in it in the middle of summer, but this spring has never stopped running in my time here.

Maisie and Callum have a small spring fed stream at the bottom of their garden, it retains a similar level and flow to that in April but then its valley is not subject to the level of groundwater abstraction that the Dever valley is.

It could not be clearer that chronic groundwater abstraction is impacting upon this chalk stream and we need to urgently alter the way we use the groundwater resource as our current method of use is increasingly unsustainable.