Bobbing about with Hagrid and Crustacea Various

It goes boom boody boom boody boom boody boom boody boom boody boom boody boom boom boom.  

Well goodness gracious me. 

When I first started chucking up guff for small coin back in the day, I was given the following advice by a magazine editor. 

 “If you have a deadline and your head is in a fug and nothing seems to be coming, just chuck anything down in order to get you going, more often than not you will take it out in the final polishing, but it will serve as a kick start to get you going” 

 It’s a little known fact but the opening few lines of this chunk of guff were written by celebrated lyricist Tim Rice as an opener for Jesus Christ Superstar to serve the same purpose. 

 And it’s worked again here so thanks Tim. 

Thanks also to everyone who has got in touch so far in 2021 and for not asking too many difficult questions.

It’s all go with the vaccine around here, my employer received hers at the weekend. 

Lord Ludgershall had his ten days ago, enoblement allows you to be bumped up the list apparently while we the unwashed must wait our turn, that or he’s been lying about his age these past few years. The local town theatre has been turned into a jabbing suite while the Novichok two’s favourite cathedral delivers the tincture to the sound of furious organ playing, which adds further protection against the virus apparently.

Flooding has once again been in the news, and while some rivers will always flood, it’s what they do, some of the damage has been quite severe. I don’t remember the Mersey ever flooding like it did last week but the Dee flooded regularly during my time growing up in the area. It’s tidal below the weir in Chester and big spring and autumn tides would smother the weir and the water would rise up around the bandstand to the road. We used to camp with the scouts most summers near the 18th century Llanerch bridge over the Clwyd at Tremeichion. The bridge was washed away last week and I don’t recall that ever happening before. The scout camp by the way, was all a bit “ Lord of the Flies” and pre health and safety. We would travel to the site in the back of a scout leader's cattle truck. Stopping at traffic lights was always good fun as forty boys put their eyes to the slots in the side peeping out at the surrounding cars shouting “help, they’re taking us to market” We also used to go to away football matches in the back of a removal van, kicking a ball about in the back as went. Seems people trafficking was ok back then.

At home the river is full but not in flood. Gravel is clean, weed is growing and a few olives put in an appearance each afternoon. There are many fish and the solitary grayling fisherman from just up the road (sorry Martin, not odd) had to fish through the chunky triploid brown trout that now turn up each winter. We had snow on Sunday, an inch at most and Madam and myself headed out early with the hounds in order to be the first foot prints in the snow. Only we were a little late, half the village had risen at dawn to trudge up and down road and path in the name of exercise. 

 On Saturday I was engaged with the forces of crack willow over on the Itchen and half of Winchester seemed to have driven out of town to park on the road and make their way along the footpath on the opposite bank. 

There’s an awful lot of gadding about going on following the advice to “stay at home” but then the mantra is continually pushed that schools are closed and they aren’t, which has started to make a vein throb on the side of my head because for five years or so it has been ok to make statements that are not based on fact, truth or are made with the belief that just because I have said this it will surely happen,

 But we are where we are, it is our own creation, 

 intentional or otherwise. 

 Breathe, breathe,

Oh yes, my new favourite programme that provides succour and soothing in these anxious times, 

give "Giant Lobster Fishermen" on ITV4 a go. 

Despite the bold claim, the fishermen aren't all that big. 

Neither are the lobsters really, and are they a true lobster? but the travails of the fisher folk of southern Australia in their quest for lobster is quite the distraction. Set at the start of the pandemic, the market has crashed, lobster are a bit thin on the ground. corners are cut, danger is everywhere and risk to both body and bank balance is high. Boats break down and crew fall out while wives worry at the wharf. 

Giant Lobster Fishermen everyone, you heard it here first, 

just don"t expect hoards of Hagrids bobbing about in undersized boats with crustacea.

The snow has all but gone now although it remains very cold. More rain is forecast for later this week which is a tremendous thing in these parts. This winter has seen a lot of the right rain, steady, not too heavy with minimal run off. I’ve some bank to dig back this week. There’s a few areas of the river where the marginal growth has grown out into the river and needs to be checked.

If I was pushed for time I’d hire a mini digger and do the job in a day, but I’m taking the old school route and digging out the hay knife for a few days of “laying back”. 

Sedge and reed that has grown out into the river is cut into cubes with the hay knife then pulled out with a pair of grabs and laid on the remaining marginal growth. It’s a steady old job, very muddy and quite physical, but it makes a good bank with a thinner strip of marginal growth. It’s surprising what you find in bits of  bank, I once worked with a keeper who came across some live ordnance that fell off a plane exiting Chilbolton airfield during WW2 and another who found what remained of an old musket. I’ve never come across anything other than old bits of oak, faggots and broken pots. On several occasions I’ve come across a concentration of brook lampreys, numbers of the things about six inches long in a two to three foot section of bank, not enough for a surfeit, but plenty enough of them. 

I'll try and take a few pictures as reading this back I don't feel I have explained the business of laying bank back very well.