Kersplosh, Pike and the Sun King

Kersplosh!

A welcome sound at this time of the year and my haven’t we had a lovely lot of rain.





We’ve a river high on vodka redbull at the moment - bursting with energy and unhappy with the confines of its usual environs.

It has broken the bank in a few places, but nothing like the water we had at the turn of the century and in 2013/14, both of which were described as “once in a hundred years floods”

In 2014 the sleepers on this bridge bobbed up and floated downstream.

On release from their bearings, oak sleepers sit very low in the water.


This photo suggests the river was at least six inches higher in the 2014 floods.

We’ve water in the wood, but only puddles.

A hundred years ago this part of the wood was pasture and part of a managed water meadow. When in flood part of the Dever flows through this section of the wood.

Like I said, it's just puddles at the moment.

Here’s the spring that dried up in April of this year. Brim full of vim, it bubbles away furiously which is a very pleasing thing. It may even have recovered a degree of vigour that will see Pike once again use the ditch to spawn in the spring. Lack of water has seen it remain free of passionate pike for the past six years.

As I write it is raining hard and I have tweaked open the hatch on the house to notch number five. A happy event that I am now marking with a glass of Aldi Cotes du Rhone Villages, which is really rather good.

We’ve experienced some strong wind. Not from our push to eat more life lengthening pulses this decade, but genuine hoolies sweeping in from the west.

A few trees have cashed in their chips.

A couple of ill ash trees threw themselves to the ground and an aged hawthorn leaned over a little too far.

The main trunk of the thorn has been retained for seasoning and processing via the medium of chainsaw mill, the smaller limbs have been introduced to the log pile.

Thorn’s a beautiful wood to burn, and must be saved for special occasions. An incredibly hard wood as orange as tango, if seasoned sufficiently it will burn like coal in the wood burner.

It came to light during our skirmishes with ash and thorn that Lord Ludgershall had been burning some of this high end wood mid week.

On the same night, he and Lady Ludgershall had also feasted on Lamb shank cooked in red wine for many hours.

Lamb Shank and thorn on the fire on a Thursday is the stuff that sparked revolution on the other side of La Manche



and at this point I’d like to propose that Lord Ludg is elevated to Sun King

and Ludgershall Towers is renamed Versailles.

Lamb Shank on a Thursday indeed, it truly is a golden age to be a pensioner.



To quell any seeds of revolution and with a nod to Charles II we shall return to the trees.

This beech provided us with a challenge.

Regular readers of this guff will remember that it laid down its head on a windless morning in the middle of summer (it’s on here somewhere)



The main trunks of the tree, for it had three, were left to lie in the dry Mill Stream.

I’d intended to pull the things out bit by bit with the tractor into the paddock filled with fruit trees, but with the high water and soft ground we (yes Louis XIV, we) would have created a right old mess,

and at this point I am reminded of the utterings of a venerable keeper (newly retired) further down the river who insisted that you knew the winter had been wet enough for the impending summer season if you struggled to get about the meadows in a 4x4.

For the past six Springs I could have tottered about the meadows in Madam’s highest heels should I have so wished without any fear of getting stuck.

Anyway, the Beech tree had to be approached from a different direction.

The road to be precise.

Me in the water in waders, The Sun King on the tractor racing up the road with each severed limb.

We didn’t have a “Two feckers winging it with tractors and saws sign” so the Flooding sign had to suffice.

It seemed to slow people down. We didn’t have any high viz jackets or much of a plan if I’m honest, but it went quite well. The English breezed by at one point with a small dog and seemed fairly confident that this time we knew what we were doing.

It goes without saying that the Beech trunks have entered Tree Valhalla where they will be enjoy several years of seasoning before reforming as wooden goods various.

The smaller limbs have gone the way of Dante and after a similar period of seasoning will be introduced to the inferno, because Beech burns beautifully. A fact that Maisie and Callum will confirm as they have a garden full of beech logs from a large specimen that cashed in its chips at the bottom of their garden.

We’ve also tackled a cherry that was getting a little too wild and imposing on the vista from my employer’s bedroom and en suite window.

Brimful of brambles, it was quite a task as the brambles were reluctant to release their fruity bounty. My employers throne room is now the most plush high seat in Hampshire with a clear line of fire of a couple of hundred yards. There are also over thirty five species of tree visible from the loo (it was a wet morning so we counted them) which is quite a claim.

This weekend we travel to London to visit William and Rosie. I don’t know how this happened, but William is now twenty five years old (Maisie will be twenty seven this year apparently)

Once again, I don’t know how this happened.

Apparently I am now older than I thought I was.

I have checked back on here and all the years are there since I first started chucking up this guff. I think that some time in my twenties or thirties I missed out a few years, or possibly added a few years on to my true age to attain some sort of gravitas.

Anyway, we are where are.