It doesn't feel quite right to be chucking up inconsequential guff in these troubled times,
But I’ll have a go
Forgive me if it turns out to be principally picture based or takes a bitter twist at some point.
Where to start?
Storm Eunice/Eunis was a significant event.
The name of the storm brought to mind an anecdote about John Arlott who, when called to describe the Australian bowler Bob Cunis’ bowling performance at the end of play for the day said “it was a little like his name, neither one thing or the other”
Anyway Storm Eunice spelt her name a little differently and definitely had a bigger impact on the day than the efforts of Cunis on the third day at Adelaide.
All Hampshire schools were closed for the arrival of Eunice so Madam and myself hunkered down for the day waiting for Eunice to depart.
The bulk of the blow occurred from midday to mid afternoon and when we emerged around tea time to take Moss for a walk we were met with a scene of arboreal devastation.
Four fair sized specimens had fallen in the river and twenty or more substantial ash trees had crashed to the ground in the wood. You can take it as read that half a dozen shallow rooted Christmas trees had wobbled over, as always happens in even the merest of zephyrs.
All trees in the river where hauled out by the gutsy orange tractor over the weekend and processed the following week.
The trunk of an ornamental cherry that had been ailing for over a decade (variety unknown, but possibly Kubota) was saved for planking and the rounds and limbs put aside for the wood fired oven, as I am told, that like apple, it is a good wood to cook over.
In other food news, I've been planting mushrooms. Shiitake plugs drilled into the trunk of an oak that fell over in 2013 that was too big for my chainsaw at the time, and Portabella spawn in among my asparagus beds. I don't know if it'll work but we're having a go. If anything happens I'll let you know.
The carnage in the wood will not be attended to this winter, despite Lord Ludgershall and The English expressing an eagerness to get “balls deep” in an orgy of ash, the river must be attended to as the impending Trout season is only six weeks away.
We’ll clear the path through the wood then attend to the ash in the wood in October when the nettles have died down.
I had cause to pop up to the local “Big Fish Water” this week and over coffee enquired whether anyone had fished on the Friday when Eunice was in town.
Incredibly six anglers had turned up to flick a fly at brer rainbow trout, one even optimistically buying two tickets. I don’t think the tank of a tarpon fly rod that I purchased to fish for catfish in Firenze would have been capable of punching a fly into the face of Eunice.
River levels are low and we need rain.
Fortunately it is forecast for the next few days but it is getting a little late in the winter now.
The spring ditch that runs around the football pitch that I used to tend (Hants FA Groundsman of the year 2011) is dry. Three times during my ten-year tenure of marking the pitch and putting out the flags an alternative venue had to be found in March to complete the season as said ditch had made one corner decidedly soggy.
To return to a familiar theme for the house, there is no spring in the field known across the ages as “Spring Bottom”
It’s a worry but rain between now and the middle of April will help.
Well in the overall scheme of all things current, it is small beer.
As long as the rain that falls is not of the “purple” variety and the sunlit uplands promised by some are not illuminated by a man made source rather than that of old Sol.
And at this point Jakey, and your brief to implement all things referendum, I'd ask you to remind your Ruski friends whose ill gotten rubles may/may not have been cleaned through your now EU based Investment company, of your father misquoting Pope on the front page of The Thunderer back in the day
“Who breaks the wings of a butterfly on a wheel"
Oily Fecker is Jakey,
Apologies for a bitter end, but as all present will attest, it’s difficult to look up at the moment, and anyway, I've taken against the supercilious Cun...........is (Phew- Ed)
Two years of Pando and now this,
F*&% You Mad Vlad!
F*&% YOU!
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