The Wirral, Lidl and Old Stew

Ho!

I’ll just break off there to congratulate The One Show on the BBC.

One evening last week they tackled the subject of low groundwater levels, low levels of chalk streams and the reluctance of the relevant authorities to implement water saving measures at the start of the summer just passed.

The poor sap forced to front up for Command Centre Central was visibly squirming at the presenter’s line of questioning.

Well done The One Show, spot on.

Fingers crossed it’s a subject they return to in the future.

Trout fishing season has finished in these parts.

The season began with a bang, with many fish put on the bank but fizzled out from mid August onwards in ultra low water conditions. There are plenty of trout left in the river with some big 3n lumps that have arrived from who knows where. Sterile fish, they will continue to feed throughout the winter as their appetite will be unaffected by carnal thoughts. They could prove to be a problem for the few grayling fishermen who occasionally visit during the winter and tend to fish with lighter tackle.

The rain we have had in recent weeks has given the river a tremendous fillip. The level a little higher, the river is rattling along at twice the rate it was in August, and streams through the garden are once again running.

There is even a little water running down the Mill Stream which has assumed pond status for much of the last three years.

Springs are slowly reviving and the ground is soft, but the valley will easily cope with a month or more of rain.

The watercress that has been allowed to grow out and pinch the flow in the low water conditions of summer has now had to be cut back. An early frost will sometimes finish it off, but we remain frost free so far and as a result I’ve been in the river with the scythe and grabs.

Watercress growth can be quite prolific, but there is a flip side to allowing it to pinch the flow in low water conditions. It can smother good weed such as ranunculus, depriving it off light and causing it to die off.

There are a few patches where this has happened this summer and weed will have to be replanted in the spring.

Further apologies but I’ll just break off there again.

I’m banging this guff out on a new laptop.

The keyboard is a slightly different layout to the one that I am used to so there may be a higher count of misplaced commas, poor spelling and random ampersands.

&

The old laptop was seven years old and cashed in its' chips mid type.

It demonstrates sparks of life but not much information is relayed to the screen.

Under guidance from a Chinese teenager on the internet, I had the back off the thing and wiggled the bits about that she suggested, but to no avail.

Whither poor laptop. It had put in considerable service and was frequently soused with liquor, mostly of a scarlet hue, so it did well to make seven years, but I am much taken with the new number.

Made from girders in Scotland the new number goes by the name of McBook Air.

It is half the weight of my deceased HP and is very keen to promote the use of the &, the " and the number 2.

In other news we have a new Lidl opened up on the edge of town.

Aside from its excellent cold cuts, Wigig offers and Italian wine it also serves as a “holiday in a day”

We like to visit our local town store when the sun is shining and pretend we are back in Croatia.

It’s the supermarket of first choice in the Balkans, and when the weather was fine this summer we even popped a bag packed with snorkels, goggles and lilo in the car to make the local town store shopping experience even more Balkanic.

I'll just break off there to make an appeal on behalf of offended people in the North West of England.

Important talks were held last week between UK and Irish Nabobs regarding borders. The location chosen was deemed to be half way between the two capital cities.

The talks took place on the Wirral,

That’s "On The Wirral"

Not “In Wirral” “At Wirral” or “North West Cheshire”

The talks were held on The Wirral.

Oh yes, and if time was deemed the factor to determine a half way house for further Indaba between designated Binky Nabobs, then you could make a case for the Test Valley.

A flight from Dublin to Southampton airport (a destination that all sane people agree is the world's best airport) and a train or road trip from Londinium take about the same length of time and attract a similar bill.

I’ve been a tad tardy in mentioning them in recent posts, but this house’s association with The Fleet St Hotel in Temple Bar Dublin remains in place, whatever the final border agreement.

Negotiations between parties were reasonably swift. Portion control on Black Pudding was a brief sticking point, but agreement was reached and promises made to mention the old place a bit more on here.

That’s The Fleet St Hotel in Dublin folks.

The Fleet St Hotel.

An Addendum: The International bar.

Give it a google. It is quite the place.

With a rich history, you're never short of somebody to talk to.

We’ve popped in for pints several times, occasionally with an accompanying bowl of stew drawn from a vat at the end of the bar that has been bubbling away for aeons, and may well have had a walk on part in James Joyce's Ulysses. It's a tremendous place to waste away an hour or so