The Addled Thought Processes of a Prospective Grapefruit Framer

We’ve had rain, 

Which was nice, 

not a lot and it hasn’t done much other than promote grass growth and instigate the resurrection of my runner beans. 

Ok, the river has a fresher feel, is a sensible temperature and water quality has partially improved, but levels won’t be affected until the middle of next month. Dig down six inches and the earth is like dust. No significant recharge of the aquifers will begin for a few weeks and then it needs to rain until February/ March. 

It sounds a bit doom laden, but this has been the case and whispered “sotto voce” in keepering circles since the water disappeared between April and early July.

 

Looking up, we find that house martins and many other things that tweet and flutter have brought off many broods, and in Mediterranean fruit news lemons continue to thrive. 

And at this point I’ll let you in on a secret that Monty Don will not share. To be clear It is not trouser related. 

There has been much speculation regarding Monty’s attire over the years principally centred around whose garments are they? 

Not the particular fashion house, but whose wardrobe has his washing been mixed up with? because none of it seems to fit.

Anyway back to the secret regarding lemons that Monty refuses to divulge. 

The middle of Lidl. 

Lemons grow in the Mediterranean region very well, I have seen it and sampled it. 

Lidl have many of their emporia in the same climes, once again, I have seen it and sampled it. 

On a hot day I like to visit our local Lidl. 

It serves as a reminder of previous holidays in Croatia, Greece, Italy….. 

An illusion that is soon shattered by the cream of local town society and what they consider suitable attire to wear to a supermarket on a hot day. 

To the Lemons! 

I have watered my lemon tree with Lidl bottled water throughout the summer and it seems to like it. 

Our water that comes out of the tap is super hard and gifts us the bones of Titan. 

An epiphany now follows:

Lemons don’t have bones, they have pips and like soft soft water to make all that citric acid. 

Monty forgot to share this "life hack" before he signed off to retreat to a tailors to finally have his inside leg measurement taken for new retirement strides. 

We have many lemons, Lemons like Lidl. 

In other citrus fruit news I have the genesis of two grapefruit plants and an orange, taken from seeds purchased from fruit in Lidl. They are also subjected to the same water process and I confidently predict that having cracked lemons, given a similar summer next year I will be filling boxes on forms marked “Occupation” as Grapefruit farmer.

Watch this space. 

Back on the river we have a few weeks left of the trout fishing season. As previously stated, it has been a particularly challenging season, for fish, for anglers and for riverkeepers. All climate related and in conditions that do not allow chalk rivers to sparkle and flourish. 

El Nino, is a worry, if memory serves he didn’t cover himself with glory as the miscreant in the Disney film Pocahontas, but we must endeavour to look up and not down. 

Significant log gathering, splitting and storing has provided some succour. The long grass has been cut on the meadows and the signs are there of a brief, premature but spectacular show of colour in the following month bar the chestnuts that look a tad tatty. There is very little weed to cut, water cress pushing out from the banks has helped to maintain a rate of flow, but heron and egret are playing fast and loose in the low water conditions, and if a swan farts the whole river colours up in a matter of minutes. 

To preserve all things chalk stream it has been necessary to let the marginal vegetation to “grow in a bit” with trees hanging low and bankside vegetation extending out into the river. It is very different to the way a chalk stream was managed when I first started forty years ago, but there was a bit more water about then. 

See the hatches and channels that were constructed a few hundred years ago to manage an even greater volume of water moving about the valley, and the conclusion is drawn that there is an awful lot of lost knowledge as to how to manage water in theses valleys. But we are where we are, some guy in a fine fleece with cutting edge walking shoes will always drop by for an hour to inform us, the unwashed plebiscite, how to progress if matters are to improve, then disappear following the presentation of a bill a list of expenses incurred and disclaimer if his recommendations don't go quite to plan.

And then we became grandparents. 

7lb 2oz born to Child A and son in law A

A baby boy with more hair on his head than my own, currently carrying the moniker Child A 2.0. 

Which we believe is current.

The world turned and Madam and I are ensconced in a daily deep reverie over the “third act” that just begun, and couldn’t be more “Over the moon” 

Which reminds me that I need to gen up on my Nursery rhymes, 

Are they still a thing? 

or did Tik Tak do for that as well?

WTF (contemporary parlance) Happened?

Hell’s horses! What happened? 

Apologies for going “deep cover” for a few weeks, but once again,

WTF (contemporary parlance)just happened? 

In late April I was dealing with ranunculus that was on the cusp of flowering and pushing water over the banks,

 

where did all the water go? 

Once again WTF (further contemporary parlance) 

I have been falling in and our of this stretch of the Dever for over thirty four years and this was my fortieth season having a go at working on the Test and it’s tributaries. I have never experienced such a rapid drop in water level and have spent most of the season blistering in the sun, stumbling about with my tongue dragging along the floor wondering how it has come to this. 

It goes without saying that we have gravels that are dry and most fish have concentrated on getting through the day, tucking away in shady deep spots in a river that for several weeks began the day at seventeen degrees celsius and ended at nineteen degrees celsius.

Some stretches on the middle and lower river experienced water temperatures in the low twenties, and several clubs closed down for a period. Trees have been under stress and I have had to deal with several that just gave up in the heat. Donning chainsaw gear in such conditions was an experience that resulted in me fitting into evening trousers that have not been comfortable for a decade or more, I know fashion moves on but this was one plus that arose from the brutal conditions this summer, and I briefly considered putting my earing back in and jigging about in a field somewhere with other people, new torch in hand showing off my new svelte form.

 

It was very hot and considered thought was hard to come by. 

Lizards! Waaaaah! 

We have lizards in the garden, little brown ones that are more attributable to the Med. 

I don’t think we brought them back in our case but we have more and more ligging about the place, along with the resident Grass snakes and an Adder that Madam and myself disturbed one hot afternoon.

We have a record crop of inedible grapes (except to the blackirds, who love them),

many lemons on our tree,

and melons thriving in the polytunnel. 

Peppers and aubergines are in rude health, tomatoes are a ball of sunshine, half the size but with an incredibly intense flavour. Potaties are rubbish, beans are quick to go to string and leeks are pencil thin. 

Once again, if anyone chimes up and questions climate change and it's influence on this corner of old Albion, feel free to flick (or possibly punch) them on the nose, clap them round the ears and call them out for the Contrarian that they are, with possible additional further financial interest in it’s continued denial. 

It may not be apparent from guff chucked up by this house, but I have spent forty years in a workplace that is very much influenced by the climate. I’ve yet to see a flamingo about the place, but there has been a Mill on this site for over a thousand years. There have been long periods during the past ten years when there has not enough water to turn the wheel. 

Warming climate, on which we have had an influence, is a thing in these parts,  It’s not some cycle. 

There is a diminishing and to many, invisible, groundwater resource in this corner of South East of England that supplies seventy percent of it’s population. It’s on here somewhere, (ad nauseum – ed) but we need to get more “water wise” with our knowledge of the “old eau” extending beyond it falling out of the tap and exiting down the plug hole. We’ve almost managed it with rubbish and recycling so there’s hope, but maybe a few water shortages and empty pipes this summer could focus minds and the lady with the Croydon facelift from local town society will not rant to the local news camera that it’s her right to wash her car and fill her hot tub, there’s loads or water because it didn’t stop effing raining after Christmas.

 

There now follows a succession of deep breaths by way of balm to an ageing constitution. 

Deep breath one 

Deep breath two 

Deep breath three 

In other news we went away to cool down in Kefalonia. 

A beautiful island, infested with goats, that we have visited previously. We were billeted a hop and a skip from the beach in the small village of Assos. 

Four tavernas, two mini markets a bakery and not much else. It is reached by the most precipitous road that I have ever driven along, which inevitably brought me out in hives. Madam and myself love to snorkel. We both have prescription masks for our ailing eyesight and rise early before anyone else is about, entering the water with a handful of stale bread by way of groundbait. 

It was some of the best snorkelling we have ever done. Crystal clear water with many massive mullet, bass, wrasse, flatfish, octopus the occasional ray, shoals of anchovy, further whitebait plus many that I failed to identify. 

Back home, all appointments have been cancelled as we await the arrival of our first grandchild.  Child A has struggled in the heat but is almost there, further news to follow.