Friends, Romans, Countrymen

Lend me your ears.

The left one if possible

and I promise to give it back when my own left ear is back in mid season form and brim full of vim, vigour and not snot.

Half blind without my glasses, half deaf with only one ear working and a failed sense of smell that doesn't pick up when a lazy feline has taken its ease on the dog bed (apologise to visitors who had to take coffee in our kitchen one day this week, particularly the one with the highly refined professional nose, the house doesn't always smell like that) the wheels do seem to be coming off thick and fast as we progress through life. I now make a point of checking other faculties most mornings before I rise from the bed just to make sure something else hasn’t gone in the night.

I’ve just read that last paragraph again and it sounds wrong. What I am trying to convey is that each morning on waking, I wiggle my fingers and toes, turn my head to the left and then the right before undertaking a few gentle stretches.

Anyway, I’ve not hurt myself with my chainsaw yet, but then with all the rain we've had I haven’t picked it up much this week. It really is having a tremendous effect on this valley and the groundwater level continues to rise. The Dever remains within its banks but the sight of substantial puddles on the meadows serves as a fabulous filip after previous dry winters, as do creases in the main river flow (see top picture). It’s conditions such as these that cause the chalk streams to have an extra sparkle when spring kicks in. Some parts remain a bit too mushy for vehicular access and wellies that work are a must for heading on up the river, but this is all that conditions should be and the more water that soaks down into the ground between now and March the better this chalk stream’s condition will be throughout next summer.

Last night I went to Manderley again,

No I didn't, and this may be another sign of failing faculties.

Last night, in heavy rain I went over the road and opened the hatch on the house one notch to get rid of water.

It had remained firmly shut since July 2014.


It's an old piece of equipment formed from iron at a works in Andover in the 1840's (The hatch on the house, not my good self)

but it still works (The hatch on the house not my good self).

It has 34 teeth (The hatch on the house.....Ok, Ok I'll end it there)

The hatch on the house has 34 teeth pinned to its spine of oak. It was installed to control the speed of the spinning mill wheel and divert any excess water that would make the the mill spin above the speed required.

Today it is open to the one tooth mark. If we start the season with the rack and pinion mechanism fixed at ten teeth or more we should be able to run the mill stream up to mid summer, and if we were still in the business of grinding corn, there would be bread for all.

The place may be a muddy morass, but keep the rain coming.

Popped over to the Itchen at Easton a couple of days ago where conditions are the same. The main river is is carrying more colour than the Dever and the grayling fisherman I spoke with on the far bank had experienced a blank day with little fly. He bemoaned the fact that grayling numbers seemed to be down on most rivers in the region. Numbers in the Dever are certainly much diminished from what they were five or six years ago, although several of our regular grayling anglers who have fished here for many years insist that numbers are up this winter on last winter and the winter before. One angler last week passed double figures for the day, all caught in the afternoon, when a few olives put in an appearance. Triploid trout have attained a nuisance value of “possible pain in the arse”.

Sterile fish they don’t suffer the hardship of going off the feed at spawning time and will happily snatch a carefully presented pink nymph on ultra fine tackle intended for a one pound grayling. Some of the sterile lumps that have rocked up this year are pushing five pounds and look a little out of place in a river the size of the Dever.

All the wood for a new bridge is now cut and treated and is slowly being moved into place.

I’m holding off felling any more Christmas trees for stacking and seasoning as there is a chance several mature specimens could wobble over in wet water meadows early next year.

I'll just break off there to deal with some parish messages.

It has been pointed out on at least two occasions that in my pitch for shifting some cheese boards with a tale, I only featured cheeses from France and this was not in the spirit of "Getting Brexit Done!!"

By way of balance here's one of a new board with a tale

(Beech tree known locally as Ophelia - fell into the river on a windless night in high summer)

with some 36 month old Davidstow Cheddar and a knife forged in Nirosta, which I believe is a region of Sheffield.

It's just cheese folks, lighten up.

The benefits of delaying rainfall making an entrance to a river system is oft promoted in recent times.

There are several examples of ditches being partially blocked to hold water back and prevent incidents of high levels of direct flow following heavy rain causing flash flooding. Pickering Beck in North Yorkshire is often cited as an example of a such a scheme introduced. The small town of Pickering now suffers fewer incidents of flooding following heavy rain on the moors north of the town as a result.

At which point Beaver enthusiasts will be experiencing ants in their pants,

but I’d back myself and those employed in the same field, against a bunch of beavers to make a better job of such a project and its subsequent management.

True chalk rivers don’t flash flood, so making a case for delaying the impact of direct flow following heavy rain to prevent flooding is not quite applicable. You could make a case for delaying rainfall making an entrance to a chalk river system to allow as much water as possible. Networks of hatches and sluices were once used to push water around the valley floor and hold water back in late winter to warm grassland and provide a flush of early grazing.

In the winter of 2013/2014 when we last experienced rain during winter time, the M3 and A34 were closed and the army deployed to spend a weekend lowering one ton bags of gravel from a road bridge into the main river Itchen above Winchester.

It was the weir that Wickes built (It’s on here somewhere) and the plan was to prevent water levels in Winchester rising by holding water back on a meadow system between the M3 and the Easton road. I popped over to take some photos and bumped into a keeper friend of mine who was also taking in the scene. He remarked that he was sure there was once a set of hatches on the main river and also on the carrier at that point to perform that very task.

I replied that there probably was until those guys over there in the fine fleece jackets and cutting edge walking shoes advised that they should be removed as they didn’t sit well with the current purge on perched streams.

There is a wealth of lost knowledge when it comes to moving water around these chalk valleys, which is never more apparent than when it rains a lot in winter.

Not all sets of hatches will have a positive impact on the today's chalk streams. It is important to examine the impact of each hatch or sluice, weigh up the the pros and cons of each “in stream” installation, question why the thing was installed all those years ago, and decide whether it can be used in a positive or negative effect with regard to today's chalk stream management.

Reading some of this guff back it is clear that a plethora of grammatical errors infect the written piece.

Which is an occupational hazard of the online offload (there's no clever sub editors here), as much of the mid summer guff was chucked up in a state of high bate in high heat and to a back ground of indifference by authorities charged with protecting this unique aquatic environment

Apologies again for getting cross.

Thanks as ever for reading the rubbish that I write and for all those who get in touch, happy to hear from anyone, agreeable or disagreeable, on the this blog or by direct message

Happy Christmas and look forward to touching base in decade number three of the twenty first century

In your face millennium bug.

Oh yes, at this time of year we are duty bound to close the show with this


Happy Christmas