Beefeaters Twitch across the Sky pursued by a Fair Failed Fuckwit.

The lower Dever valley is a very special part of the south of England that I am fortunate enough to enjoy access to. In an increasingly crowded corner of the county parts of the valley resemble the land that time forgot. It is renowned for its colony of short eared owls, but plays host to many other species including all the other owls, hen harriers and much more besides. At this time of the year it is not unusual to receive rare winter visitors and it was with that in mind that I bumbled down the lower Dever earlier this month. There was a hen harrier about, inevitable owls, snipe of course, but then a glint of glass betrayed a phalanx of birders nosing at a great grey shrike, It was a first for me in this valley but there it sat perched atop a lone blackthorn, the avian equivalent of Vlad the Impaler. It sought mice and frogs to impale on the tree's thorns. Magpie and crow are held rapt by its cousin's grisly tree decorations, a fact not lost on French falconers who dubbed the bird "mat'agasse" the magpie killer, although the amount of meat hanging from this lonely blackthorn reinforced the bird's usual moniker of the butcher bird.

Opportunities to dress up are always welcome and the arrival of a pair of ravens in the valley instigated a wine fuelled internet search for a Beefeater costume, the self imposed curfew on internet purchases that kicks in at 9pm was fortunately reached before an appropriate garment could be sourced.

We have had some tremendous showers of rain this week along with some strong gusts of wind, although no trees have been toppled. The river is bank high and quick to colour and grayling fishing has been challenging, a few spring ditches have broken and are making their contribution to the Dever's discharge and ranunculus on the top shallows is doing very well and may well need a cut before the start of the season which is often an indicator of a decent winter's rain.

A substantial pike put in an appearance in shallow water on the flight pond, soporific with a belly full of roach and rudd it is well into double figures. Same old, same old where work is concerned as my big orange saw shows no sign of weariness with regard to its' work in the wood.

I have been joined in this task by Lord Ludgershall who has a similar saw and a vehicle that may be a little camp for some men of the woods, although he does remove his crown and ermine.
The camera has been out and a short film is currently under edit with the working title "Into the woods with Vidal Sassoon".

I'm not one for chain sawing on my own, it's a risky business and very occasionally the saw can kick and catch you out, and I am very aware that it is easy to become over confident particularly when carrying out the task for several days in succession so Lord Ludgershall's attendance is welcome, not least because he laughs in the face of the scam that is Dry January and insists upon a good lunch. Potatoes are cooked in the fire, and ox parts roasted above it and served with candles, crackers and beer, all to a soundtrack of Pavarotti's take on Ave Maria.

We have just received word of improved efficiancies at command centre central that promise to make the business of applying for fish movement orders all the more easier. I have had a few funny responses to applications in years gone by. It's their game, and it pays to play by their rules as things can get difficult if someone so chooses, but I once had an application to put fish in the river at Bransbury refused because it was deemed to be a particularly sensitive stretch of the upper Itchen, and a few years ago we were asked to fork out four hundred pounds to cull thirty pound plus fish for a health check in order to move a batch of their mates to the other side of a stew pond screen. The inner Osman was subsequently released and I reared up to my full height to highlight the pointlessness of such an exercise, as whatever was in the receiving water would be in the pond because it had the receiving water flowing through it.

But hey that's how we used to roll on these rivers.

Increased efficiencies should mean an end to this kind of caper, that seemed to proliferate when the whole business was taken out of regional hands and centralised in the name of increased efficiencies quite some years ago. Fingers crossed it works, because with regard to the spread of notifiable fishes, the licensing of fish movements is an important process that provides certain safeguards to populations of freshwater fish.

A crisis has just occurred,

Unbeknown to me we have been long term subscribers to Sky TV and have had in our possession a Sky remote control for many years

Who knew?

This remote control, has just cashed in its chips half way through "Penelope Keith's Hidden Villages"

The remote control and Sky TV have now broken cover and my assistance has been sought over their repair. Which, with great magnanimity, I have agreed to do on agreement that we first deal with the more pressing matter of what business does Penelope Keith have in hiding villages, and when did she make the leap from bossy lead lady in the Good Life, to deranged despot.

Mrs Dooms- Patterson must be quaking in her boots.

The Sky TV lady on the phone has been most helpful and a new remote control is winging its way to us as I write, meanwhile our TV is stuck on something called QVC which is proving to be strangely addictive but may not be the case after five days of "It Cuts, It Dices, It Slices and all at incredible prices......."

This house is now teenager free after Child B turned twenty at the weekend. We are all grown ups now and the pressures that come with acting like an adult begin to press hard,

Which I still find difficult, but one day I may grow up.

Child B will be OK, he has just completed three weeks work with a planning company that was very grown up and for which he daily donned the sharp suit and pointy shoes of office, while Child A studies sociological issues incomprehensible to our befuddled minds. We popped out for a celebratory lunch at the weekend and it was Madam and myself who took to the booster seats in the back of the car.

BREAKING NEWS: Keeper causes upset at RSPB

News, Really?

Surely that's a given, in recent times.

Sunday afternoon and with wine on board, a belly fully of meat, and a mind to roam Madam, myself, child B and Otis set out for skirmishes on Bransbury Common. Access used to be restricted to people of the parishes that sit on its borders but now it seems that any old Jonny can rock up. As I have already stated, it is a magical place that has recently played host to a Fair Failed Fuckwit,

No, make that a Bar Tailed Godwit,

Or was that the beaky bird we saw in Scotland?

Just a minute, I'd better look this up,

Great Grey Shrike, that's the dicky

Now Birdwatchers and keepers have somehow migrated to opposite poles in recent years, at which point I would like to point out that many of my friends in the field sports fraternity have a spectacular appreciation of all things avian, excluding myself whose own shortcomings have already been exposed earlier in the piece. There are people who work and fish on this river who could identify a willow tit from a marsh tit in two seconds at a distance of fifty metres.

For many weeks cars have been parked just down the road by people driving many miles to take in the Shrike, along with complimentary owls and a hen harrier. On this afternoon there were no cars, so we set out for our post prandial parade confident that we would have the place to ourselves. We traversed the manor house with the intention of walking down the common, wading through the ford and walking back up the track that borders the wood on the opposite side of the river. A trek of a few miles in bracing air that promised to remove the fug of a good lunch. We soon encountered some fallow deer, which was a surprise this side of the A303, but they may have been the beasts that rocked up in the fields behind the house a few years back. As ever there were short eared owls and a surprising number of little egrets, a heron chased off a great egret, which was not on the bill and the hen harrier flopped about, golden plover lifted from the field bordering the common and a merlin flushed from the floor. With Otis giving of his best we negotiated the workings of a billion ants and approached the ford when it became apparent we were not alone. Massed on the opposite bank of the river next to the ford were fifty or so twitchers clad in real tree and armed with long lenses, the main body had formed up by the ford with pickets posted further along the bank in their efforts to take in the Shrike, and for the past ten minutes we had bumbled our way through their field of fire.

We were in a congenial state and retracing our steps would have been an admission of defeat, and meant a further ten minutes of shuffling back across their field of fire. So we pressed on regardless with our original plan of crossing the ford. Halfway across, the fug descended and it became apparent that either the river had risen or our wellies had got shorter, Child B, Madam and Otis looked to me for guidance, so in the spirit of Lou Nolan I urged us on toward the battery of long lenses with the cry of "Gentlemen, there are your guns". Boots soon filled with water and as we sloshed through the massed ranks on the other side, I am proud to say that all involved in the charge, got in amongst the guns, and made light of our water filled boots, before making our way to the wood a hundred yards away where wellingtons were emptied of water out of sight of the real tree crew.

We were perfectly within our rights to walk that way, and I think our "carry on chaps" air made that point perfectly, but with all those cameras it felt like a Norman Wisdom trip on the red carpet that drew little mirth, but distinct disapproval.

Which made us laugh all the more,

The Shrike's still there by the way, but is not tempted by the slice of sausage we leave out for it daily.

Freedom of Speech in a Modern World

Only through freedom of speech can tolerance be attained

"One defeats the fanatic precisely by not being a fanatic oneself"

Eric Arthur Blair

I'm Morethan Freeman, Thank you for listening

Happy New Year,

and so to the eighth year of chucking out this guff that initially served as a reminder as to what I should be doing from one working day to the next but has warped into something slightly different and provided me with a new avenue of life and work. Thank you to all who continue to drop in and to the many unexpected people who have been in touch personally. Our annual report from the statistics wallahs demonstrates that the number of visits will pass the quarter of a million mark early this year and in one month during the flooding last winter ten thousand dropped in at some point to look at wet fields and soggy prose. Fifty four percent of visitors were male and forty five percent female, one percent were not sure or declined to be pigeon holed. One hundred percent of visitors were below the age of one hundred and five with a distinct lack of Pisceans and Librans. Ninety eight percent read this written rubbish in English, and there are regulars in many parts of Europe who subject this farce to google translate, heaven help them all. Ninety percent of visits come from the UK, twenty percent of them from London, five percent from Southampton and lots from Guildford, Reading, Bristol, and Swansea, there is scant interest in the North East of England and we have yet to receive a visitor from the Orkneys, but just as soon as we do, rest assured, you will hear it here first.

But that's enough of the stats until this time next year.

On to the guff!

Having read that bit back let's just revisit that one,

with the coffers bare following festive fun, and HMRC tugging at my coat, this Website is now up for sale,

I am sure those viewing figures compare favourably with Take the High Road (I feel we are on pretty safe ground here with our dearth of visitors from the Highlands and up) and they were sponsored by Brooke Bond Tea. I'm not against product placement, and could easily pimp a tea bag or two,

I'm Morethan Freeman thank you for listening (Seamless)

Oh Yes...

P

I think that's the international symbol of impending product placement

At this point I could go on a bit more about trees I have known and provide stats on quantities of petrol and chain oil used, and number of fires started in the past few weeks, but won't as we're done with stats. We have had a very cold spell and also some rain so, so far so good as far as this winter is concerned, all is as it should be and springs should break sometime in the first few months of the new year. On the stretch of the Itchen that I fall in and out of on a reasonably regular basis, two winters of burning have visibly increased thickness of the phragmites and fen, and reduced the number of nettles,

I could demonstrate with photos and talk at length about reduced eutrophic conditions concluding with some form of "index" to prove the point,

but I won't as it is obvious even to these dodgy eyes.

Further capers with the medium of fire to follow later this winter.

Trotting over the Christmas period was productive. The river is in reasonable condition and carrying little colour. The roach proved a little elusive but the grayling made up for their absence. Nothing enormous, with the biggest probably just over a pound and a half but plenty of fish and a couple of hours with my thirteen foot float rod sending a red and a white maggot down the river at a depth of three feet produced over a dozen fish on three consecutive days. I have a soft spot for float fishing, and maintain that it is possible to achieve a heightened level of mindfulness by concentrating solely on a single red dot sailing away downstream as the outside world recedes.

I may have been hypnotised.

Just before Christmas we received the 2013 annual river report from the River's riparian owners association, which caused some confusion, and questions were asked as to whether we are about to experience last year's flooding this year, has the economy really recovered and can we do the Olympics again?

I am informed that the report for last season, 2014, will be out sometime soon.

P

A brief pause while I deliver grapes and strong cheese to Madam, who lies prone in her latest diaphanous nightwear on the sofa. Think the Cadbury's flake girl in knee length salmon chiffon. She's not contemplating crumbly chocolate but perusing ideas for her hand made cards. She makes some rather good ones, that are much admired, and is always on the lookout for sales. She needs to up her marketing strategy which currently consists of carrying a cardboard box around in the back of her car and waiting for people to ask if they can have a look.

She can be contacted by email at racheldecani@googlemail.com or writing to:

Rachel in her shed, Bransbury Barton Stacey Winchester SO21 3QJ.

All information correct at the time of publication, terms and conditions do not apply, subject to availibility, credit card charges apply, you have not been charged for this call

Sorry, takes a while hand feeding grapes, one by one.

Ditches have been attended to throughout the parish, and the take that some have on the task is wide and varied. Diggers have been out and about, some more sympathetically than others. Some ditches through the village that may stand dry for a year have been scraped back to their original profile, which is great, but once vegetation re-establishes itself they should be cleared out and strimmed annually rather than attended to mechanically each year.

The spring ditch that runs for a mile across the valley floor and remains wet for twelve months of the year, has been attended to with some sympathy and water is getting away while a viable winter habitat remains

although some ditches remain unattended to, which is a bit of a worry.

On the short stretch of Itchen that I fall in and out of, the spring ditch that we dug back with hay knives and grabs last year is working as it should, a firm path exists for access, a mushy margin is present throughout it's length, and there is a clear channel to take winter flow away, sympathetic management with an eye to both habitat and flood defence,

Good Job! High five, whoop whoop!

River keeping they used to call it, although others may now lay claim to the practice by another name.

Pre Christmas deadlines for writing stuff, shone a light on my indiscipline with regard to such matters and a change of course was called for. With two dicky knees and a brace of hernias, the graffiti is on the wall trumpeting the fact that I may not be physically capable of jumping in and out of a river as a form of employment until the age of sixty seven, and a life on the state pension. There's no plump private pension here, all the money is done on short breaks and living for pleasure alone, which may provide sepia tinged memories in old age but may not put the quality of sausage in the pan to which we have become accustomed. I have long held dreams of working in retail, I am confident I could work a customer service desk and microphone so the orange and beige of B&Q may beckon at some point, but as a source of extra income I am encouraged to seek payment for written rubbish which can be carried out sitting down while in wine.

As part of this quest for income through words I have been presented with a concentration hat.

When it is worn I must not be fiddling about on google, checking emails or wandering off to pop grapes into the mouth of the lady reclining, outstretched and robed in the previously mentioned diaphanous night
gown, and it is open season for all in the house to chide and taunt in order to drive me back to my tasks at the table.

When it is removed, the default state will resume, and I am permitted to bumble around at will without fear of being prodded with sticks or shooed from the room.

Can we please desist from making state funded executives redundant, awarding a six figure payout before re-employing many of them months later in a similar department.
The paper today states that two hundred million pounds of public money went this way last year in the NHS alone, but well done HMRC for trying to fund this year's profligacy, I don't mind filling in a form so that I can pay tax on the small amount of moolah I make each year from chucking written rubbish together, but come on old fruit, you've some sauce to ask me to pay not only for the last tax year but also the next six months in advance, without any prior warning.
P

Shirts off Backs: One size available, Chest 42in neck 16.5, a range of styles and a timeline of collars from the mid eighties on. £10 a pop.

All money raised goes to HMRC, to fund cash hand out racket for State funded executives ( NHS, BBC add any letters that you see fit} made redundant before cropping up in another department

When this kind of state funded racket comes to light in another country, we are quick to condemn it as corrupt and question the conscience of those making the rules and dishing out and receiving the unmerited hand outs.

Which, I'm afraid, brings us around to the rails, and the National Rail Network.

On the first Monday of this month I could fly to Dublin or Edinburgh and back from my local airport for less than the cost of catching a train from my local station to London Waterloo and back. Parking is cheaper at the airport and the travel time is the same.

If I can, I avoid the UK rail network,

Can't afford to use it, and don't find it much fun it when I do,

If I do go into London I will drive as far as I can up the motorway before catching the excellent tube service. A procession of car transporters moves cars from midland manufacturers down the M40 and the A34 to Southampton docks and the fare for a trip from my local station to Inverness for my fishing trip to the Carron last May would have taken 10 hours 40 minutes and cost three hundred and eighty eight pounds, I could have flown to and from New York in less time and for less money.

I'll ride the rails in Europe, our recent train journey in Germany was a delight and very good value, as it was when taking the train from Lille to Paris. Child A's travels on the trains around Europe was unbelievably good value with great service, and in her thirty days away she never had a problem finding a seat or a bed.
The rail network in the southeast got itself into a bit of a pickle over the festive period but well done the chief executive for eschewing his six figure bonus and opting to live on his six hundred and something thousand per annum salary alone,

Worth every penny,

It's the gravy train with biscuit wheels and don't expect the Carne clan to be coming to a food bank near you anytime soon

As ever, we are increasingly led by loons!

P

I'm,

a little idealistic,but remain....

Morethan Freeman, thank you for listening.

Fallen Trees I Have Known

Hello, and welcome to the latest edition of "Fallen Trees I have known"

Mercifully abridged.

Aspen and ash this week as it didn't seem very festive to be subjecting Christmas trees to the shock and awe of my big orange saw and a denouement by the medium of fire.

Next week the arboreal holy trinity of oak, beech and willow, don't miss it!

Coming soon - Fallen Trees I have known TV

A thirty minute feature on a tree that has fallen over, with accompanying sound track by Keith Helt who always gets a little down when the days draw in and plays that tune that accompanied the Hamlet ads back in the day, over and over ad nauseam,

You could be forgiven for thinking that I have gone a little chainsaw crazy, no that doesn't sound right and wasn't that phrase used in the promotional blurb for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre?

What I am clumsily trying to say is that I will be looking forward to a break from dealing with chuffin trees that have fallen over.

The aspen and the ash were of a substantial size and much of the wood has been retained. They lined a ride that accommodates three guns on a shoot day and now it is opened up a little, should provide a wider field of fire. The oak and the beech that I must attend to in the New Year are enormous trees, and will provide a couple of winters' wood. The oak is particularly sad loss, an irregularly shaped leviathan it had three huge boughs that I would walk under regularly to feed the pheasants and was the kind of tree that a royalist king would choose to hide out in.

The ground's a bit sticky and charging around with a chainsaw or feeding fires cuts the surface up a tad, and much of the wood is a muddy morass but spring will heal all, gaps will be replanted with ash oak and beech and the pheasant pen will rise from the ashes.

Crack willow has had a high old time of it, brim full of schadenfreude at the plight of its near neighbour's, its time will come, and will duly be attended to by my terrific tangerine wood cutting machine.

Much of the field maple that fell on our home on Valentine's day has been burnt and its ashes scattered on the vegetable garden, we have a few months of burning balsam poplar and aspen before returning to another field maple. We seem to have a become a little log obsessed in recent months and a colleague of the woods has a magic moisture meter which can be a little distracting as it is pushed into various pieces of timber about the place. Results have been tabulated, and graphs produced, that demonstrate that our excellent field maple has a moisture content of 22%, some crack willow pushes 40%, a Christmas tree that lay prone for ten months is mostly water, our kitchen table recorded 10% while my own leg is void of moisture, completely withered, and the next item on the list for lopping off.

Enough about logs,

As predicted, ditches and drains have been attended to in fear of a winter like the last one, some done well, others driven at with diggers. It's an important annual job, a forgotten art, and boy does it show.

Of an evening, when the spirit of Terpsichire has failed to pay us a visit, the lady who sleeps on the left and myself like to take in the odd cookery show. Don't go much on Jamie and half an hour of Delia telling all how to cook an egg was perhaps not the best value for my licence fee. Mary Berry is a given, Gino's series in Italy was inspiring, and the Hairy Bikers are pretty good, if an updated version of Two Fat ladies, which was also very watchable, and one of whom used to haunt this place on a regular basis, but Keith Floyd remains a favourite.

Currently we are held rapt by the final of Masterchef - the professionals, and this week's final saw the contestants flown out to San Sebastian to cook in one of the top rated restaurants in the world. San Sebastian has become a mecca for foodies. We visited around ten years ago while camping and fishing a nine hundred acre lake near Biarritz. It's a beautiful place with back to back beaches and a bunch of locals who fish hard off the bridge over the river when the tide is on the turn. I forget where we took lunch, but I do remember it being very good, and it was not the restaurant visited by the finalists which was half way up the hill and akin to cooking with Dr Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker. It was Sciencey stuff with much ambiguity over what was to be eaten and what was not. One dish featured a fork made from sugar, and at some point I am sure someone had tried to take a bite out of the table as there are appeared to be teeth marks in one corner. A peckish Madam swiftly raised the website and was on the cusp of booking a trip for the twenty course taster affair at Easter, before the price per head set her reaching for the delete key.

School is done for 2014 and as ever Madam returned laden with gifts from generous pupils. Thirty five years ago the bond between pupil and teacher was not so strong and nobody gave gifts, if they had they would have been eyed suspicously and held at arms length. With the climate of fear that pervaded in some classrooms thankfully long gone a friendlier relationship exists, and Madam will have spent much of the weeks preceding Christmas doing spelling tests with words like Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio and Monty Bojangles Cocoa dusted truffles. Analysis of the hoard takes several hours and each gift is logged, and in the manner of marking, initial reactions noted,

Could do better,

Overwhelmed/underwhelmed,

See Me - Sauvignon Blanc is not red!

Child A and Child B have returned, having already conducted the opening skirmishes of Christmas food consumption. Child B's repast for a table of eight consisted of two nine pound turkeys, eight roast potatoes per head, three full size sausages each with a thick slice of back bacon wrapped around each one, a bucket of mulled wine and cider, many yule logs for pud, a selection of eight cheeses accompanied by a litre of port, before repairing to the tables and fleshpots of Cardiff for an evenings entertainment. High living for student, and we hold high hopes for the quality of Christmas gifts if these are the standard he is now setting himself. Child A and her pals did their perrennial £5 Iceland Christmas, we have no photos but imagine it was something like the adverts sans Kerry Katona.

With the two of them home again this year's Christmas message is don't touch the posh pork pie at the back of the fridge until the rest of the family have turned up, and if you read the label it says "extra large" and not "bite size" We have a hectic forty eight hours with family staying and visiting on both days, which is always fun, and then I'm going to chase some roach at the weekend by way of reflection, and contemplation particularly on Christmas's past and the madness that used to ensue in our house when we were growing up, a huge amount of fun with the principle protagonist my aged aunt, daft uncle and dad who would done the beards, hats and elf costumes for an afternoon of Christmas shenanigans that several of my mates would turn up to take in.

I also have a photo of the same aunt and uncle keeping wicket and standing at first slip as Child B set out on his cricket odyssey in the back garden, the combined age of the close in fielders nudged 165, which was quite remarkable considering there was only the one slip. Uncle Stan drew stumps a few years back but Aunty Joyce remains, but sadly no longer keeping wicket, dressing up as Father Christmas or dropping a burning Christmas pudding onto the carpet following a particlarly raucous welcome to the room. She's well into her nineties now, but flat out and full of morphine in a hospital in Yorkshire, which doesn't seem quite right for one of the best Father Christmases there can ever have been.


Thank you for all of the kind emails throughout 2014 and for reading this rubbish that I write,

Merry Christmas

Sleep sound, for tomorrow we march on Elstree!

First real frost and the outdoor fuchsia that remained in flower into the first week of December finally gave up and went off to bed. Forty eight hours of frozen ground has provided a definitive full stop to 2014 for those elements of nature eager to prolongue the party. On a personal note the stingers that up until the cold snap maintained their midsummer heat and brought me out in wealds for much of the week will not be missed. Bumbling about the wood dealing with the arboreal carnage that resulted from last winter's weather, even Otis approached the end of his tether as each evening he scratched away at the coconut mat to sooth stung puddies, the ladybird may make a case for a nettle, but currently they are the devil's own weed.

Initial estimates of the number of felled trees to be attended to have been revised and the stump count of forty feet tall Christmas trees that have been dealt with so far is approaching three figures. It's a hairy business and requires a little thought as to where each cut must be made, root-balls of over a tonne in weight flip back into holes and trunks that are bent over and whose tension is concealed by the upper branches of a neighbour who lies perpendicular and prone across its midriff, spring back spectacularly when an ill considered cut is made.

I've a few bruises and a lump the size of an egg appeared on the back of my hand one afternoon following further skirmishes, but nothing can be done bar blast on and keep going bananas with the chainsaw. Access is solely on foot and softwood such as this won't last beyond another twelve months as it soaks up water like a sponge and quickly rots. We have enough wood stacked for the next two winters already so much of it is being burnt in the wood with a small percentage left for the bugs and fungi. The pheasant pen beneath the fallen trees is a complete right off and will have to be reconstructed from scratch but all the wire intermingled with roots and branches is an additional complication as it soon takes the edge off the saw if it comes into contact with the chain.

NEWSFLASH

Pixie Lott, has just been voted out of Strictly at the quarter final stage.

NNNNOOOOOOOO! how did she ever come to be in the dance off? She is one of the best that has ever been on the programme,

Why Len, why?

Sleep sound, for tomorrow we march on Elstree.

Note to self: It is a TV programme proffered, and not a genuine dance contest,

and that's from a hoofer who has won in Blackpool, albeit it on a stage in a nightclub on a Saturday afternoon, after the wrestling with a new age routine that included a series of forward rolls and headstands, but that's for another day.

More news as we have it.

but now, a formative piece of Nordic Noir



See the genesis of Wallander

Having maintained that cormorants find fishing the Dever a tricky business, Graculus is now making a concerted effort to master the art. Three flushed from a tree on the island in the flight pond. Late evening perambulations confirmed that it is not being used as a roost, but I have seen Noggin the Nog's budgerigar flighting this valley most days in the last two weeks.

Currently the river level is ok, spring ditches have yet to break through but a glimpse down a well in the middle of a water meadow revealed a reasonable level of groundwater and springs would be expected to break early in the new year. Last winter shifted a lot of gravel in the river, over on the Itchen a substantial amount was thrown up and out of the back of the main pool and a large gravel bar that remained weed free throughout the season, here on the Dever the experience was similar but on a smaller scale and brown trout spawning this month have found digging their redd a relatively easy business and in some cases they have shifted twice as much gravel as would be expected.

And so to the perennial task of providing reports to various quarters on what has occurred in this valley during the past twelve months. The river's riparian owners association produce an annual report to which most keepers contribute and also serves as a bellwether to thinking on all things chalk stream. October 2013 saw this stretch of the Dever on its knees with record low flows and much guff being spouted by the complicated cabal laying claim to be saviours of the chalk streams, which led some who tread these banks to a state of despair. The "get out of jail" card was played and a wonderfully wet winter recharged aquifers and restored a sparkle to chalk rivers that had been absent for some years. In among the sogginess of last spring a damascene moment occurred and after a succession of visits from those up to their ears in promoting river restoration strategies a refreshing change of tone was all too evident. The pendulum had swung away from the extreme "rewilding" that some were vociferously promoting, and for man to step back and undertake a watching brief, and there was acknowledgement that management by man can be of benefit to the chalk stream environment. Keepering they used to call it, and provided it is done well, with a sympathetic eye to both flood defence and biodiversity, chalk rivers will continue to flourish. The winter floods may have been bad news for some but they had the added benefit of providing a little clarity to the thought processes of those charged with implementing habitat directive and river restoration strategies in the chalk stream environment.

BREAKING NEWS

Child A and some such thing she's written is now a feature on Google Scholar, which I'm sure was some form of 1980's canned lager. These long words which are beyond the comprehension of Madam or myself, are also to be published in some journal, which we will both read but not understand but clutch with maternal pride.

She's a day younger than George Ezra and all he can come up with is three chords and a rumbling bass baritone on the One Show, although I have heard say he has some ability........... but is he on Google scholar?

Not a bit of it,and he had a 24 hour head start, Well done Maisie!

Here's Chris with some news from the envrionment.

In 2015 for the first time, any brown trout stocked into this river must be triploid as the National Trout and Grayling strategy is implemented. Substantial reaches of the Test and its' tributaries have been stocked with triploid brown trout for some years now, others have a record of stocking with diploid trout for even longer. Surveys are regularly undertaken on this river to provide an assessment of fish populations for EU habitat directive. Included in that survey is an assessment of whether each brown trout in the sample is considered to be wild or stocked and numbers of each duly noted. Why is this counting of "wild" brown trout being undertaken, how accurate is a visual assessment of a brown trout's provenance and do the results of these surveys demonstrate that there is a significant difference in the numbers of brown trout receiving a "wild" classification between that stretch of this river that has been stocked solely with triploids and that stretch that has been stocked with diploid brown trout. If results for this river do support a successful strategy, why isn't it being shouted from the rooftops to nullify the naysayers?

Recently the Wild Trout Trust newsletter was thrust under my nose and I was held by the back of the head, threatened with woody debris, and ordered to read on

A few quotes jumped out,

"Wild broodstock schemes: fraught with issues and, in all probability not the solution to more fish in the river"

Maybe not always, but in my humble experience they can work, but success is site specific, influenced by habitat management plans and should not be discounted

"WTT is not against stocking - we recognise that many clubs would fold if they could not stock. WTT is not a pro triploid lobby"

The WTT may not be anti stocking but several of its members are, I have received the emails after the words "rearing fish" and "stocking" appeared amid this written rubbish a while back. Stocking is required in some rivers to provide income streams from angling in order to implement habitat directive.
The WTT have come across as a pro triploid lobby for a very long time and I have heard them make many noises to that effect.

"Triploids rise(if anything) slightly better than their diploid counterparts"

Apart from the supercilious nature of this statement, there are many who would dispute it and also attest that triploids have a tendency to shoal.

There's a National Strategy been formed on the back of this, which is perceived by some as a bit of a bugger's muddle, but I won't go on, and indeed can't, as upon my release, the newsletter was used to light the fire that evening, but suffice to say the vein on my temple threatened to throb and I almost repaired to my cave to shake my fist angrily at the outside world,

but refrained,

and sat down to read something a little more lucid (Prostate Years, Moley always serves as a restorative on such occasions) and make preparation for emails brim-full of internet enlightenment for this piece of impertinence regarding the WTT.

Tackling Trees with Laced up Loins

It's time to tackle the trees. All those that tumbled over last winter have lay prone in the wood throughout the summer and now that the stingers are in retreat I have started on the tangle of forty, forty feet Christmas trees that have flattened the Pheasant pen. About half a dozen maintained a semi erect stance and these have had to be felled first in order to make the place safe but it will take many weeks of going bananas with a chainsaw before any inroads are made. All the Christmas trees that lie prone have been uprooted as opposed to broken off and calculations must be made as to where weight lies and when a stump and root is likely to flip back into the hole from which it was removed. It's a hairy business as anything or anyone left under a root ball weighing several tonnes will not escape. There are also several substantial aspen around the flight pond and a couple of decent ash. We already have next winter's wood stacked at home , balsam poplar mostly with a smattering of ash and oak, and we will have more stacked through the wood by the end of this winter. It's a familiar tale further up the valley where others have made a start on substantial numbers of Balsam Poplar that cashed in their chips during last winter's blow. Some of the better wood was taken away to where I don't know but the French have a particular penchant for balsam poplar with 30% of the country's hardwood sourced from the species.

In the river, trout have been slow to start spawning although one female who performed for ten minutes on camera and weighed around a pound and half had scooped out a redd eighteen inches deep which suggest that the gravel is lovely and loose as a result of the high water of last winter. Here she is for a minute or so. Musical accompaniment was to be by The Variety Theatre and Vascos Morais and their groundbreaking piece of Free Jazz - Scaffolding made of bones and diamonds, however an ongoing dispute over the length of piece to be used has delayed the release of the soundtrack so here's a short silent film.

Roll VT



Most winters we will have fish spawning throughout November and December but they need to get a move on this year if it is to be a similar story. The mild weather and trickle of olives for a few hours in the early afternoon may prove a distraction, and a few frosts would be of immense benefit in order to let all flora and fauna in the valley know that winter is here and it is time to switch off, each evening this week our bedroom and bathroom have been invaded by blue bottles who have no business being about at this time of the year, and who I am forced to pursue like a low budget batman in my underpants, sans utility belt and mask and armed only with a towel for flicking. While we are on the weather the opening skirmishes of the media's battle with winter way have already taken place after a wet week saw several newspapers sending junior journos to stand in puddles and speak of an impending watery Armageddon. Rivers flooding in winter should not be news, unless the circumstances are exceptional, a wet month at this time of the year is welcome in this valley and many others and should not be paraded as news. If it's still p&^%$£"g down in March then it will have been a wet winter and worthy of mention as a wet winter. We seem to have lost our way a little with our understanding of the seasons and the weather.

A cormorant has taken a liking to the flight pond and on several days this week I have seen up to a dozen flighting up the main river valley. Grayling fishing has been surprisingly difficult particularly in coloured water following rain, sub surface explorations with my clever camera revealed good numbers throughout the river in all year classes, and in clear water on sunny days several fish have risen to olives but the slightest deepening of colour and they have refused to play ball. I have also made my first forays with the fly rod in pursuit of pike, there are a brace of fish in front of the house in the mill stream one of which is a double figure fish. I'm a little new to this game, and would normally reach for a spinning rid and Mepps, but I am curious after several keeper friends spoke with great enthusiasm about pursuing pike on a fly. They occasionally get caught on mayflies, but proper pike flies are about the size and appearance of a sparrow in a high viz jacket. Casting such a bundle of fluff attached to the necessary wire trace takes a bit of getting used to, although shortening the leader and using some of the soft plastic wire which can be knotted and negates the requirement for clunky snap swivels makes the cast a little more fluid. In clear water the pike will move a long way across the river if they are in the mood, as the smaller fish in front of the house that weighed about six pounds.

Well we woke up this morning to the news that a company called "Indeass" is to invest £650 million pound into shale gas exploration in order to feed its chemical fire somewhere in Scotland. In my haste to Google this chemical giant of which I had not heard prior to the news reader's burblings, a slip of the keyboard led me to a disturbing backwater of the internet's rich pageant, before I ascertained that the company wanted to have a shufty about the shale in the vicinity of their principle site for alchemy in Grangemouth, and not the few sites owned by shale gas exploration companies in this valley. Fingers crossed they pay due diligence to the safeguards required to preserve water supply and the environment. Promises have been made to that effect, but all that talk of a race to frack by Flashy a few months back and the attempt to ease EU constraints on shale gas exploration gave me the willies,

still does.

An oft repeated mantra but, I've said it before, if shale gas is sought in a chalk valley and things don't go to plan, it will be the equivalent of pissing in a fast diminishing well, and while we may temporarily have solved an energy deficit, a water deficit could result along with a cocked up chalkstream. 80% of chalkstreams on this blue planet are in the UK, principally in the South East of England, if a third world state trashed a unique habitat in the name of economics, we would quickly condemn it as corrupt.

If we are going to do this thing lets make sure we do it properly eh? with no talk of a "race to frack"


And apologies for further politics but I find the recent fire in Mr Rochester's room a depressing affair. I can't believe I'm saying this, but well done to the beast of Bolsover for jabbing your finger and I concur!! The chap who laced my loins back together a few years ago was possibly spawned on Galafrei although the spelling of his name, Dr Hu suggests otherwise. The lady who sleeps on my left will attest my loins have returned to mid season form and not by some sonic screw driver plucked from the glove box of the tardis, but a skilled surgeon with very soft hands from South Korea. My own moniker hints at a transient existence over time, and well done Den for speaking up.

On a local level I caught sight of a car covered in purple and yellow stickers being attended to in a hand car wash by a bunch munching unusual sausage and talking in tongues..

which seemed a little ironic.

In a two week period we have swung from a successful and amazing pan european project to land a washing machine on a speeding comet, to prehistoric mutterings of repatriation

The colour purple is beginning to frighten me a little, so I'm off to take in the dancing.....Pixie's my tip.

Angry Black Cats at the Gates of Zell

Half term and Madam and myself conquered Le Manche and swept across the Polders intent on reaching the Rhine. Midway up the German part of the Mosel to be exact and a room on the river at a place called Zell. I'd visited before on my first trip abroad on a state secondary school trip that also took in Amsterdam and included fifty twelve year olds being taken to several wine producers for a few hours wine tasting,

school trips were a little different then,

the Amsterdam leg of the journey included being let off the leash after tea and a game of street football in the red light district with an exotically dressed opposition.

Anyway, to misquote fans of Galatasaray , welcome to Zell. A pretty town halfway between Trier and Koblenz that seems to exist for pleasure alone, principally the production of wine, and as we awaited our host to grant entry to our apartment we joined forty other visitors in the town square sipping glasses of wine at two euros a pop produced from grapes grown on the hill behind (Dublin take note) Riesling wouldn't be our grape of first choice and the sun doesn't shine long enough to get any oomph into the soupcon of red produced but the dry Riesling we quaffed wasn't half bad and didn't have the gloopiness of some of the Riesling we have drunk at home, and so the pattern was set.

Burg Eltz is a spectacular castle in the middle of a forest that stands as a testament to hedging your bets or backing both sides in times of conflict, perfectly preserved it is inaccessible by road. A trek of many miles through impenetrable forest may have had its part to play in its preservation as Madam and myself set out in inappropriate footwear to test its fortifications and after an hour emerged blinking from the forest to join the throng who had caught the bus halfway up the other side of the hill. It's guided tours only, and the multilingual chap who showed us around was a bit of star. Lunch was taken in the castle refectory and comprised two bowls of green soup with a frankurter hidden within, a pint of Pils and a large glass of wine all for the price of a pint and a half of Ireland's best froth on the same afternoon a week before. Returning through the forest along the banks of a stream a similar size to the Dever we spotted trout and tell tale signs of anglers at work. Always at spots where trees had fallen over, light had entered the stream and ranunculus flourished, the tunnel shaded by firs bore few signs of life. We missed the Oktoberfest at Cochem by minutes but took in yet another pretty town and popular destination for the elongated Rhine River cruisers that wouldn't last five minutes with the slightest chop on the water.

Trier traffic was a trial, and we bailed out in favour of the park and ride. The half timbered buildings in the medieval square are impressive, as are the two cathedrals and the odd palace but the perfectly preserved Roma gate and cloisters that housed modern loos serve as a reminder that the valley was first planted with vines almost two thousand years ago by a Roman empire establishing a foothold after giving battle with goths and visigoths various.

Koblenz the next day which sits at the point where the Mosel feeds into the Rhine, and Madam and myself paid nine euros each to travel an hour by train down the valley. A scenic ride and popular with both locals and visitors it will no doubt draw the eye of Michael Portillo at some point in the near future. Koblenz played host to further invaders as a cruise ship retracing the steps of the US 82nd Airborne division in WW2 took in the town, Koblenz was bombed heavily during the second world war and while parts of the old town are well preserved, there are obvious gaps, Three years ago, 45,000 people were evacuated following the discovery of a two ton unexploded bomb in a muddy bank of the Rhine.

Lunch was taken in a cafe that provided the perfect nutritional storm of bread, beer and cake (there's no tea here) before we headed to the river and a ride on a cable car that lifted us across the Rhine. A pretty park played host to a draughty museum and a free viewing platform that provided a perfect view of the city and the point at which the Mosel meets the Rhine, which is marked by an imposing statue of on old Kaiser who bore the unassuming nomenclature of "William the Great"

Back behind the gates of Zell, which are guarded not by a many headed hound but by a statue of a large black cat on the third roundabout. Schwarze Katz is the most well known wine from the village and further glasses were taken at a variety of Gasthauses which were proving to be a distraction from the small shops and tiny streets although one display of dusty old Leica and Leitz caught the eye.

Having made it through another night we rose at dawn for a spot of walking and fishing, pausing to take in a few of the boats that chug up and down this stretch of the river that is a vital transport link in the pan European canal network that links several major rivers. A procession of coal moves from southern Germany to industry in North East France, and one ninety metre long craft that passed under the bridge appeared to be skippered by children. Further up the Mosel several seek to locate large carp or the odd silur, but there was little evidence of their work on this stretch although a fish finder may reveal more on such a large river with few features. Trotted sweetcorn, a couple of rod lengths out, accounted for several good chub and roach. Cormorants fishing in your swim kill the mood, and a few hundred tonnes of coal moving through your swim makes your float bob about a bit, and then came a first for me.

Fishing in slightly shallower water a little closer to the bank, my bait tripped along the bottom and I caught several fish I failed to identify, which irked me a little. Identification was sought via google, that revealed the small fish was a bottom dwelling round goby and an alien invader working its way through the river system and impacting on native fish populations. It's passage across Europe was aided by the pan European canal network created by linking up several of Europe's rivers in the last century to further economic development. A public information board at the bottom of the river details two other such invaders and a species of native caddis that has all but bit the dust as a result. It then goes on to explain that such things while regrettable are a necessary sacrifice when weighed against the development of the economy and reads as follows:

"In reality, one finds just a modified structure of the aquatic life communities. Whether such changes are understood as loss of enrichment for the life communities depends on the point of view of the observer, on economic interests, and on the goals that we pursue in nature conservation."


It's a little different from the take on alien Invaders in the UK and heaven help us if such a board were put up on the bank of a chalkstream. The take on EU Habitat Directive and River Restoration also seems to differ from our own. The pretty streams that tumble into the Mosel are not chalk streams, but the rules regarding light, weed and biodiversity still hold, as was confirmed during the opening leg of our expedition to the castle where weed flourished wherever light penetrated the tunnel of trees and were marked by anglers' tramplings. EU habitat directive has afforded the UK's chalkstreams a greater level of protection than our own agencies and laws and if I was a member of a Mosel fly fishing club I would be banging the EU habitat directive drum a little louder.

Are all corners of the EU implementing Habitat Directive as diligently as the UK?

If not, why not?

Filling the boot of the car with Sauerkraut and Bitburger which, if my translation of the promotional label is correct, will, when mixed in the correct proportions, combine to form an elixir that guarantees everlasting life, we drove through Belgium as fast as possible, and returned home with no little trepidation, as exactly twelve months ago we returned from a failed mission to fish the Marne that dissolved in a haze of bubbles. The rain had begun to fall and the first trees had fallen over, principally the mother of all willows that blocked the bottom bends and took a week to remove.