A Beached Digger, Floods and Lanes

Okay, okay, we could do with a break from this rain.

Storm Dennis dumped several inches of the stuff on us last weekend and later in the week the river rose several inches, a lag in time typical of rapidly rising aquifers.

Water now lies in the four fields higher up the shallow valley from the field known as “Spring Bottom.

I have only seen this happen on three previous occasions, the last in 2014.

The ditch through the village that caused so much trouble in 2014 has been studiously cleared each Autumn and currently it reasonable well behaved although we’ve a long way to go this winter with groundwater levels likely to rise for many weeks yet.

At Bransbury some water is taking short cuts across some of the meanders and bridges are in danger of becoming submerged.

The river is quite quick to clear following rain. Another indicator that groundwater is making a significant contribution to the total discharge.



There should be some super fit fish about for the first few months of the season.

The water meadow upstream from here is holding water, which is what it should be doing at this time of the year, and plays host to many duck and geese.

Trees remain vulnerable in saturated ground and a few days back a substantial Aspen wobbled over on the far banks of the bottom bends. It seems quite bizarre that almost a year ago to the day the ground was so dry that a large part of fen caught fire and an old fishing hut went up in flames (it’s on here somewhere) I don’t expect to be burning any reed beds in what remains of this winter.

We’ve a digger on hire for a few weeks. There are a few well worn stretches of bank that need patching up and the stream that flows from the ford in the Mill Stream to the main river opposite the flight pond needs a bit of a clear out, particularly as it is currently carrying quite a lot of water.

There are other spring ditches in the parish that are also having an “out of bank experience” and spring water runs along several of the roads in this area as it makes its way to the main river.

My allotment that will feed this house in the coming year has assumed pond status and, with a nod to our friends in the east,

plans are afoot to branch out into polyculture and stock it with carp and rear chickens on rafts.

It’s far too wet for carrots, because yes we are experiencing flooding.

Not in the manner of the Wye, Severn and Ouse.

They are different types of river that respond in a different way to heavy rain than the Test and Itchen. The sage of Longparish the one time cricket correspondent for The Thunderer always insists that the Test is too much of a lady to flood. Which has some truth in it, but when she does flood she tends to sulk for quite a period and is reluctant to return to what the sage would have as “mid season form”

The Wye, Severn and Ouse rise very quickly and can fall at an equally rapid rate. I have fished the Wye, Dee (a similar river) and Severn in rising conditions and have had to move my fishing basket back up the bank throughout the day. A true chalk river creeps up and any flooding comes from rising groundwater which takes quite a while to go away.

A venerable and newly retired keeper on the middle river (he put me forward for my current position when he was in his prime) always insisted that you knew you’d had enough winter rain for the impending summer if you had to think twice about taking your 4x4 into the meadows for fear of getting stuck.

Here’s one of the digger beached in the woods.

I’d tried to stick to route that kept me as close to tree trunks and their associated tangle of roots by way of finding firmer ground. In conditions such as this, once you go through the top crust and there is no root system to provide support you just keep going down into the sodden peat. I’ve taken to putting sheets of tin down to drive and dig on, which seems to work.

Today we received word that the proposal for an enormous incinerator on a site two fields away from this stretch of the Dever has been withdrawn. The announcement came quite out of the blue and was taken in order for the once American based now Antipodean based company to concentrate on other projects, which all sounds a bit woolly but well done all the same and I doubt we’ll ever find out the real reasons why they suddenly pulled out and went away. Thanks to everyone who made representation during the consultation process.

Half term this week. No foreign trip but a couple of days in Brighton. We haven’t visited for around twenty years and we travelled by train. It was slightly disturbing to see the construction of a large tranche of houses somewhere around the M25 halted by flooding, clearly not the right site for houses.

We arrived in time for lunch, a fine repast of chips, curry sauce and beer on the beach before heading out into the lanes,

or possibly laines,

not sure which, there were signs to both.

It’s tremendously trendy and hip, not how I remembered it,

When the heavens opened we headed for the Pavilion which I had not visited before. Madam had frequented the place several times as a child. Mostly on school trips to draw palm trees. It’s completely crackers with all manner of stylistic influences.

More walking the following day and some spectacular Italian food somewhere in the Lanes/Laines before catching the choo choo home.