Here we go again.
I think you mean “Here you come again” – ed
No matter, I’m confident Dolly would have uttered the missive at some point in her long life.
Anyway, coming or going again, the point I was trying to make is that the amount of water currently flowing down this valley is the same as this time last year.
The general consensus among the proletariat, is that we have had a more than wet winter, a record breaker for some, there is plenty of the old eau for all and we’ll hold no truck with talk of water running short this summer.
At this point I’d like to propose the court martial of General Consensus for his/her numerous mistakes in several quarters over the past decade or so.
Yes the mushy banks in January and of course all of those puddles, but as we have established, for whatever reason this little river drops at a remarkable rate (it’s on here somewhere) following a few weeks without rain. We have verdant weed growth which is maintaining a good level of water, last year we had poor weed growth (It’s on here somewhere - It isn’t, you were on a sabbatical from guff – ed) and in low water the river assumed a sickly hue early in the season.
Fingers are firmly crossed, and we are where we are, but now that General Consensus has been debagged please could we all agree to remember the experience of how last summer went with regard to water. The cream of local town society with the Croydon facelift will once again demand on local TV her right to wash her car and fill her hot tub once a week, but if we all agree to think about our water use earlier in the piece, the drought orders and hosepipe bans may be kicked down the road a tad.
One last point on General Consensus.
If you are ever in the company of anyone who begins a sentence with “The general consensus seems to be ….”
Flick them on the nose, waggle them about the ears and question the number of people they have vox popped or polled to form this opinion. And next time they invoke the “General Consensus” line maybe consult a lemming and get their take on his work.
Looking up, and there is much to look up about, despite the doom laden opening stanza, which principally served as an attempted coup on General Consensus. We have swifts, swallows, a lunacy of cuckoos and a murder of crows who flicked out a row of my second wave of broad beans. Hawthorn fly is over, although the Hawthorn bushes are in full bloom
I have trawled the internet for a clip of somebody singing the “The Hawthorn is Over” a celebratory ditty marking the end of Steeleye Span and their career closing recording of the folk dirge The Hawthorn Song.
By the way, Steeleye Span and their hats tipped with willow?
Dreadful business,
I’d have taken a chainsaw to all of their headgear and faux attempts at folksy rural earnestness.
Oh yes, the river.
Fishing hasn’t been easy but then we are still early in the season. The odd mayfly has put in an appearance and the odd fish has shown interest. Each day sees a blizzard of willow blossom that catches up on both cast and fly and a trickle of olives. A couple of times when opening the fishing hut early in the morning I have come across a few little black sedges from the night before ligging about the place. Small and brown, klinkhammers and parachute patterns are catching most fish although it may be worth persevering with the black patterns. A few duck are on eggs on the flight pond and one afternoon I came across a tangle of slowworms when moving some sheets of tin. It goes without saying that at this time of the year this place really sparkles. New leaves have a lustre that is lost by the end of the month, cuckoo flowers dot the long grass and comfrey/knitbone is beginning to flower providing a stimulus to all things that buzz about for a living. The chainsaw must come out again as several of the bankside willows now laden with leaves have dropped a foot or so and must be trimmed.
I was kindly invited to fish an immaculately kept stretch of the Upper Test at Longparish this week.
Wading water, it was quite a challenge, but I did catch two small brown trout during my brief visit. Brief because I’d had a chaotic morning prior to my late arrival, and then discovered that I’d left all my casts and nylon at home.
Many of the fish demonstrated similar behaviour to our own on the Dever, hugging the bottom reluctant to look up until a decent hatch of fly begins and the water warms up a bit.
An enjoyable trip, thanks very much to my hosts for the invite.
