Oktober, and a Dearth of Sub Editirs

Hello, again, hello

and welcome to Oktober.




The letter K, on as sub for the letter C in the previous sentence may be enough to mobilise the keyboard warriors regarding the Teutons.

Autumn seems to be rushing in at a remarkable rate, both in the natural world and my own physical being. Moss has developed a taste for hazelnuts and elderberries and perhaps we should have called him Topic.

He currently lays some remarkably vivid dog eggs with the consistency of a high end cereal bar.

Topic,

google it kids, a pioneer in the cereal bar canon.



The final week of the trout fishing season has seen the odd big fish put on the bank, but it remains a difficult business. There are also a noticeable number of thin fish in the river. Hatches of fly have not been all that they should be during the second half of the season but the river is heaving with gammarus so there is a sub surface feast on offer if required. It may be a sign that brer Brown Trout was having a tougher time of it than we thought in the warm water of August with a water temperature sufficiently high to suppress appetite, a theory that may well be borne out by a flurry of feeding towards the end of the month by way of preparation for spawning at the end of the year. Which won't please those targeting grayling on light tackle in the coming weeks. We've a few roach about. Not the monsters who lurked five or six years ago but pound plus fish all the same. Perch are also present to a similar size with the odd pike to six or seven pounds.

I'll just break off there to deal with a troublesome mouse. Not the work of Tom and Jerry but my wireless mouse that Moss has taken a shine to and is now not quite the shape it was on the day of first purchase. (Both the wireless mouse and the wireless Moss do not retain the same shape they had on day of purchase so I believe this sentence remains valid) Don't know why Moss has become a mouser but this Logitech number I currently hold in my hand is on the cusp of cashing in its chips.

It's the second one the fecker's taken down in the last three weeks.

Anyway the autumn. Any homecoming in either direction along the highway to the sun is always marked by the first sighting of the substantial Lombardi poplar that stands sentinel on the Mill Stream. It has been a regular touchstone when returning home from either direction on the Highway to the Sun and is visible from several miles away. It's also my first point of gaze when opening the curtains after a windy night as when the thing falls over, it will be a bugger's muddle to deal with.

Last weekend on exiting the Highway to the Sun, I inevitably visually checked in with the long Lombardi before banging on the brakes to take in what my duff old eyes initially suggested was a hot air balloon crash. Turns out it wasn't the Montgolfier brothers up to their old tricks, but a supersized Lime tree that has sprung up unnoticed in what was the Keeper's cottage. It must be a pot bound specimen recently introduced, as I have been taking in this scene for ninety nine percent of my days in the last twenty seven years and I'm sure it wasn't there before, although it may be my ailing eyes.

Keeper's Cottage by the way. I'm tempted to chalk in the missing apostrophe on the slate house name sign.

I have also taken to adding in the Please and Thank You on the plethora of "Private, Keep Out!" signs that have cropped up in this parish and the next since the referendum. An insignificant attempt to soften the blow of our exit from the EU but manners cost nothing although the cost of adding the apostrophe to the Keeper's Cottage sign perhaps was punitive.

Push the soft focus button for grammar in this guff, there's no sub editirs here.

Today we are informed in a report by MPs that Water Meters reduce water usage.

Who knew?

What was the cost of producing this report?

Southern Water were the first water company to implement a universal metering programme so well done the water wallahs for that, but the invisible groundwater resource wass classified as being at the maximum or over the maximum level of abstraction some years ago. Unmetered users in the South West used 198 litres per person per day. Metered users used 108 litres per person per day.

No more reports please, the knowledge that water meters help save water has been out there for some years. Get out of your report writing rooms and implement more metering schemes and make a sustained and determined effort to use our precious water supply in the south of England in a more sustainable manner.

This penny really is taking a long time to drop.

While we are on preserving planet earth (I'll refrain from mentioning cows farting and the burning of wood as we've some very nice steak in the freezer and a shed full of logs) but why can't North African countries looking to turn a bit of coin sell electricity to Europe that has been produced via solar fields in deserts?

I'm told it's a sunny spot, they are indeed "sun ray rich" and yes it would need a long extension lead and there's the two pin socket to three pin socket thing to surmount. I am quietly confident that cleverer people than I are already across such schemes, so well done everyone, well done, there is a light and it never goes out.

We've a heavy dew each morning at the moment, no sign of a cold snap to seal the deal for the end of the 2008 growing season, so grass must still be cut and hedges attended to that I hoped would not need attending to again this year.

Apparently it's not 2008, are you sure?

Here's an image of the future where we are invited to Maisie and Callum's house for Sunday lunch.

What, that was the other weekend? When did she do her O Levels?



Crikes, it could well be 2018.

Yes the years are flying by and that's the end of my twenty seventh summer season on this river. A curate's egg of a season. Easy street with biscuit wheels for the first few months with a difficult denouement that began in the dog days of August.
Looking up and not down, all we need is a wet winter in these parts and all will once again be as it should be.

Here's to a wet winter in 2008/09

We've done that one - ed.

Doh!