This week I rolled back the years, donned my denim jacket, put in my earing and brushed my hair.
I haven’t brushed my hair for twenty years or more.
I sort of remembered what to do, and goodness there were some tangles,
But hair that required a brush all the same.
I can only see the front bit and Madam informs me that there is some form of shelf shape going on round the back. Product has been googled, quiffs considered and who knows a change of colour may be imminent.
Bar brief skirmishes with the spaniel clippers around the sides it’s been one of the more successful re-wilding projects in these parts of late.
It’s hair folks so thank you lockdown for that,
Truly a new dawn of the age of Aquarius,
now where did I put that sunshine?
Brushing my hair was followed by brushing my eyebrows, platting my nasal hair and pulling a rake across my back and chest.
In other Lockdown news (and I’ll keep it brief) Madam emerged from her educational bubble one day the other week to declare that the school were down to their last few pairs of PPE gloves. They don’t wear PPE all the time, but there are certain tasks that they must wear PPE to undertake. Madam is a first aider and must get kitted up at any sign of an incident. The recommended suppliers of PPE to the educational establishment were asking just shy of twenty pounds for a box of gloves which Madam thought sounded a tad “toppy”
I asked Madam to send me a photo of the box of PPE gloves.
The PPE gloves are the very same PPE gloves that I am paying six pound fifty for in the local country store to glove up our anglers.
I purchased five hundred pairs of gloves and dropped them off at the school.
A few questions popped into my head:
1: Who decides on recommended suppliers to schools of PPE?
2: Who holds shares in companies on the list of recommended suppliers of PPE?
3: What shall I have for lunch?
4: Why have I turned left when I should have gone right?
You’ll be aware of a mental inertia and mind drift that has set in during these crazy times (see previous chunks of guff)
The river?
Well , the general consensus among keepers that I have bumped bones with, albeit at a suitably safe social distance, is that it’s been a funny old season. Most bemoan this year’s Mayfly and a general lack of fly. It is no mid July and as I wandered aimlessly up the river yesterday evening in the name of evacuating canine bowels I saw half a dozen spent mayfly bouncing about on the water.
Once again, it’s mid July.
Fishing isn’t easy, the occasional fish take a sedge as Moss myself and Otis head upstream each morning, but most fish feed subsurface throughout the day, with a few looking up in the evening. Hatches of olive have been a little underwhelming, but kick sampling reveals plenty of larvae ligging about the gravel and weed. Weed growth remains good, so maybe they are making the most of the favourable conditions on the bed of the river and will hatch when they are ready.
Loosestrife forms the vanguard of the mid summer show in the fringe and goodness we seem to be having a big year for butterflies. Orchids are still popping up so the meadow has yet be mown, the long grass rustles with creatures various on our morning perambulate of the local.
Ducks have had a good year, but our aged dominant pair of swans have been usurped by a young couple with three young from upstream. There was quite a stand off on the top shallows for a few days before victory was secured.
Whither Wor Jackie,
Football was a little different when he Jack Charlton defended a corner.
Free from the eye of the slow motion replay, VAR and the all seeing eye of multiple cameras around a stadium, there was an awful lot going on off the ball. A current premiership referee was recently asked to "virtually" re-officate the 1970 FA Cup final won by Leeds Utd. He picked out eleven red card offences (and those were only the one’s the camera caught) the referee on the day issued a single yellow card.
It was different game then, and one in which Jack Charlton thrived.
Whether his style of play would have thrived today is open to debate, but he had a motivational skill that flourished in management with memorable domestic campaigns from the early seventies (featuring an early incarnation of Caesar Souness) and international campaigns for Eire in the late eighties and early nineties. Peaking first with an appearance in a world cup quarter final and then again with a one nil win over favourites Italy, thanks to a goal by Ray Houghton - darling of the scousers on the kop, who had a Scottish accent and wound up playing for Ireland,
Catch the goal scored by Ronnie Whelan for Jack Charlton's Ireland against Russia in Euro 88.
Face facts Rory Delap (Arriviste), possibly the greatest goal ever scored from a long throw.
Jack made some very watchable angling programmes and was a great ambassador for the sport. I once went to talk by Jack with my Dad. It was an evening in a hall somewhere on the Wirral put on by Wirral Angling Association. It was a very cold night with snow lying on the road. I don’t remember a lot more about the night other than Jack was an entertaining speaker and new enough about angling.
Buried among the news this week was a warning from the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee that the UK was at serious risk of running out of water within 20 yrs because of policymakers, regulators and the water sector’s failure to respond to changing climate and increasing population.
Well done for that.
But nothing will happen to affect real change in my life time.
You can guess the weasels at Water UK’s response, “We’re doing our best and investing in infrastructure”
Not enough lads, so stop dishing out the big divvies and invest more in your infrastructure.
The rag that I once wrote for regularly used to begin it’s pitch with a quote from one of the King Edwards,
I don’t remember the number,
could have been the Confessor could have been the Potato King, we don't know,
but his sage words express the requirement to care for the countryside as we are but guardians of it for the next generation.
Well in this valley biodiversity has generally taken an upturn over the past few decades. The blue winged olive thing hasn't gone well and sorry kids for the experiments with bison and beaver.
Apologies kids for our abject failure in this corner of the country to respond to a changing climate and increasing demand on a precious groundwater resource.
Bome of us had a go at rootling the feckers. (See previous years of poorly written guff)
whither poor Moley and the flat hills of his homeland.
On to the nonsense.
Bumped into The Earl English last week while mowing in the wood. With a virus on, he has eschewed mixing with the populace and wanders alone among the pines. His ginger curls are now beyond the aspirations of Heidi and approach Ronald Mcdonald proportions.
And while we are on Ronald Mcdonald, why is our lane the recipient of so much of their packaging in recent weeks. Madam was out walking the dogs the other evening when a car stopped and called for direction. With the necessary information duly imparted the lost tribe made their way up the lane spewing Big Mac, Filet “O” Fish and Mcflurry detritus as they went.
Anyway, where was I.
Oh Yes,
The Earl English, wandering about the wood.
Currently doesn’t like to mix and the wood and his estate share a boundary. A new path has been broken through the wood from the corner of his field that I now maintain on his behalf
Dubbed “The English Way” it should be coming to a Google map near you sometime soon.
Apologies to return to the current crisis, but just heard that the House of Commons Commission has rejected a proposal to reduce the safe social distance in Parliament from two metres to one metre.
You guys.......Tut
Please refer to title of last but one chunk of guff.
Apologies again,
Hang on,
Why do the learned members of the House (a big building) insist on maintaining a two metre social self distance while issuing instruction that it is ok for a fifty two year old pedagogue to engage with her charges (a sociable bunch) in a compact school building from a metre away as of next week?
I’ve had a few coves call about tardiness regarding posts in this corner of the internet.
Well, I’ll own that a certain mental inertia has taken hold and I spend an increasing amount of a day open mouthed staring off into space.
This week Madam joined me in this habit.
She has been back in school for a month, immersed in a bubble teaching the spawn of the loins of a dozen or more key workers. In preparation for the reopening of the school a fifty-page guidance document was distributed on advice on how schooling in a classroom should progress, the written advice on distance was two metres at all times. Madam still has the email.
Last week a member of the cabinet declared that the initial advice on social distance in schools was never so rigid as to insist on a distance of two metres at all times,
(although it is still rigidly enforced in Parliament – see guff above)
Once again,
You guys.....Tut
Once again, please refer to the title of the last but one chunk of guff.
I’ll pause briefly at this point for some breathing exercises in order to quell the vein on my forehead that has begun to throb again.
The river, yes the river.
Since the reopening of non essential shops the Fishing Hut is once again in use, as I do sell flies.
This reopening is in line with government advice and completely unrelated to the temporary gazebo collapsing spectacularly in a rain storm with two anglers taking Chota pegs while sheltering underneath it.
Well it was quite the June weed cut. As predicted I cut weed for seven or eight days and spent three days moving on cut weed.
Which is a good thing, as the June weed cut should be a heavy one.
Water levels remain good and the weed is growing again and should be clear of the water once more in July. No sign yet of any blanket weed or ugly algae and the gravel retains a sparkle that can only be imparted by reasonable winter flow. Hatches of fly have been a little disappointing and while a few fish look up, most have resorted to sub surface feeding. It may well be nymphs from the first of July. It’s been a windy week, which doesn’t help delicate invertebrates hatching from a river or an angler’s cast.
I’m no sailor, and I don’t see the point of wind.
There I said it, I don’t like wind.
Trees fall down, flicking a fly is difficult, gravid flies struggle to make it back to the water to release eggs and my hollyhocks fall over.
No, we would do well without wind.
Meadows and fen are coming into bloom and are alive with all things that buzz and flutter. The fen that we fire each year currently plays host to herds of Marble white butterflies that, like an elderly lady who I once knew are drawn like a magnet to the colour purple ( house, hair, hat and much more besides, all purple) We are bee rich and all manner of moths crash about the place at this time of the year. it’s just the aquatic inverts that are down in numbers, although there are plenty of damsel flies about the place.
Last weekend Madam, myself, Otis and Moss went for a bumble about Salisbury Plain. Moss covered most of the plain within thirty minutes of our six mile trudge up to the the little piece of Magdeburg that is the cold war mock up village at Copehill Down.
A Dystopian air hangs heavy in the air with burned out cars, a helicopter on its side and beat up village buildings. We sat down for our picnic sheltering from the wind behind the wreckage of a shot up Sikorsky.
The grass was long, Bonios were taken (Moss and Otis) and we tucked into home grown salad and eggs from our own hens and contemplated the bleak surroundings,
And then we saw them,
Orchids. Hundreds and hundreds of little orchids; vivid purple with a cone shaped head, we get a few at Bransbury, but not in this number.
We’d even sat upon a few.
And in this beat up shabby dystopian hellscape,
to a background track of twittering skylarks,
a Ready brek glow descended, and the travails of the last hundred days melted away.
An addendum:
And those who are not fans of football may want to dip out here, and apologies if I come over all Uncle Colm (Derry Girls by the way, brilliant comedy, but we do have to have the subtitles on)
It won’t sit well with some, but well done the Klopper
After thirty years Liverpool are League champions once again.
I’ve been a full on supporter of Liverpool FC from the age of 7, although the first football match I attended was Everton v Coventry City at Goodison Park on 27th November 1977 in which Bob Latchford scored a hat trick in a 6 - 0 win for the Toffees.
I first stood on the kop with my Dad on a Wednesday night in March. A derby with Everton that Liverpool won one one nil. While at secondary school I would regularly stand near the same spot on the kop with a few school mates. A couple of quid to get in, we caught the bus from Chester to Stanley Park or cadged a lift with a work colleague of my Dad (who was also a very good coarse fisherman, the work colleague, not my Dad) to park in a street near the ground where a kind local youth would “look after the car” for 50p.
I was present when Liverpool were presented with the league title twice (Liverpool always won the league back in the day) once against Aston Villa from a seat in the Anfield Rd end the Anfield Rd end (single tier then) and second against Norwich or possibly Southampton.
I was there when experiments with early kick offs were underway, 11.30am against Swansea sitting on wooden benches in the Kemlyn Rd stand. The game finished three nil to Liverpool (Ian Rush got one, who I also saw play for Chester). The reason for the early start? An attempt to boost the crowd at the Grand National later that afternoon.
This is one of two occasions When I saw a member of the 1966 World Cup winning side play. Martin Peters was skipper of Norwich and in his testimonial year. The other was when Alan Ball was in his final year at Southampton.
Saw them play three times at the old Wembley.
The West Ham Charity Shield game was a little lively pre match, and I do remember returning from the old Wembley by train from the game against Arsenal with somebody hiding from the police under our table. The men’s loos in the old Wembley were akin to the cascade at Chatsworth, the stench of ammonia hurt your eyes.
I don’t know why, but my Dad attended a testimonial dinner for old Crazy Horse himself at The Runcorn Eurocrest Hotel in November 1978.
Ginger McCain sat on their table and Red Rum was led into the room between courses.
the menu from the meal,
And the brochure for Emlyn’s testimonial.
The menu and brochure are signed by Bob Paisley, Steve Heighway, Alan Hansen, Phil Neal, Emlyn, Cliff Morgan, Terry McDermott, Ray Kennedy, David Fairclough, Jimmy Case, Colin Irwin and Ginger himself.
The day that Alan Kennedy signed for Liverpool for three hundred and thirty thousand pound, a British record for a fullback at the time, he was briefly billeted with another colleague of my Dad.
A ten year old me spoke to Alan on the phone, wished him well and informed him that my favourite Liverpool player would remain Kenny Dalglish. Despite this snub, Alan kindly sent me a signed photo, albeit in black and white, I still have it somewhere.
Alan went on to score the winning goal in two European Cup finals, first against Real Madrid and second in the penalty shoot out against Roma.
Alan or Barney as he became known (after Barney Rubble) was understandably a crowd favourite (but still not on the level of King Kenny), had a peach of a left foot but was sometimes found out with his right foot which always drew the sixteen or so thousand on the Kop (nobody knew how many people were really in there) to chant:
Barney’s got big boots on,
Barney’s got big boots on,
Which he would more often than not acknowledge with a wave.
watching a few reruns of their matches earlier this season served as to a reminder of the quality of football Liverpool were playing before the virus took hold. They are worthy winners of the league title, and for me, another step towards restoring normal order.
Right, despite the best efforts of “Our Great Leader” and his cabal of clowns, (selected for their Cummings compliancy rating, there are more capable coves in the house) I’ll do my best to keep this one light.
No coughing here by the way, and we do take our temperature each day on the morn with graphs subsequently produced.
For the first time in many years hatches of mayfly have been disappointing. We have seen no significant hatch, dance or fall of spent. It is the same story on much of the river, with the Upper Itchen the only exception. Not sure as to the reason why. There will always be a downstream displacement of mayfly nymphs in times of high winter flow, but every Ephemera Danica that was washed downstream would be replaced by one from upstream. A brief shuffle in the gravel with a fine mesh net to sample invertebrates betrays numbers of mayfly nymphs and much more besides. A Mayfly can run on a one year or a two year contract on the bed of the river, although I’m not sure what triggers the critter to sign for the two year option. The odd yellow sally is now putting in an appearance. A portent of the end of the mayfly season for another year.
We’ve a few sedge about and a host of daddies regularly bumble about our kitchen. There are olives, caenis and a burgeoning number of odd moths.
The first marsh orchids are out and there are several broods of mallard about the place. The river retains the sparkle that is only imparted by a good scrub behind the ears from increased winter flow and weed is having a high old time of it.
This week saw the start of the June weed cut. Traditionally the heaviest cut of the year, last year, following a dry winter it was done and dusted in a matter of hours. This year will see me swishing a scythe for seven or eight days, with much clearing down of cut weed as the verdant weed growth extends for several miles upstream. Over on the short stretch of the Itchen that I fall in and out of the ribbon weed has been quick to put in an appearance but the ranunculus is a long way off flowering. The water has fined down considerably and while engaging the forces of ribbon weed via the medium of turk scythe I was entertained by a dozen or so swallows picking off olives hatching from the bridge pool, a few feet away from my head. I’ll own that despite these dodgy eyes I did duck several times which may have caused several walkers crossing the bridge to titter.
It has been a little disturbing to see the reports of “fish rescues” by the EA on The Angling Trust twitter feed. We seem to have got through an awful lot of that water that was around in February. We will not have enough water to run the Mill Stream in a week or so and weed has been cut with an eye to retaining water level. Not something I envisaged when I was cutting weed in April.
In other news, Child A turned twenty seven this week.
I don’t know how this happened.
Someone has fiddled with time.
Twenty seven years ago, on the opening day of the June weed cut I returned home from cutting weed on the top shallows to be informed that sandwiches were off, water had broken and we must make haste for Winchester County Hospital. It was a long process, but Child A eventually put in an appearance around lunch time the next day, perfectly healthy, if a little grey. Child A was given the moniker Maisie because it was still Mayfly time and Madam railed against my suggestion of Danica or Ephemera, a compromise was reached with Maisie. Child B’s launch followed a similar process. Born in January I initially suggested “Snowdrop”, with “Aconite” as a backup/middle name.
Both suggestions were dismissed out of hand by Madam.
Brief consideration was given to the name “Dangerous” as I felt doors would open later in life for someone called “Dangerous de Cani”, but once again I was overruled and he assumed the moniker “William” a week or so later. For the first fortnight of his life William was known only as “baby”. After a fortnight of tired Dirty Dancing references regarding his cot being placed in the corner of the room a suitable name was found.
In allotment news, we consume broad beans with gusto and there are four pound of the things frozen in the freezer. Rhubarb continues to thrive, runner beans display flowers and soon we will be digging potatoes. Onions are average, as are leeks and the crows plucked out half of my sweetcorn. Tomatoes, both plum and cherry, thrive and monster parsnips lurk in the corner, ready for harvest once they’ve had a frost on them. There’s a medium size ash tree on the bank of the spring ditch that carries water from the field known across the ages as spring bottom. It’s dry now, but I shan’t go on.
Anyway, the medium size ash tree is around thirty feet high and on several occasions that I have haunted the place in the name of weed removal the Merlin has perched in it’s upper branches. I’ve yet to get a photograph, and I’m not sure, but the frustrated falcon may have gone spooney over the plastic predator that sits on top of my shed.
Veterans readers of this chunk of guff will note the Duchess of Cambridge remains captive in the shed. With a nod to the lockdown she has eschewed hair cuts and is growing her mane in order to let down her hair and allow the Duke of Cambridge, a little fella to climb her locks to profess his undying love for her. I will then have a brace of Cambridge captive with which to scare the pigeons and crows.
That’s the tale I tell my fellow allotmenteers, who seem to give my plot an increasingly wide berth.
Apologies everyone regarding tardiness in chucking up guff on this platform, but for the past few weeks I’ve been stuck in a trance of incredulity at the shenanigans emanating from the cabal of political clowns who sit at the epicentre of the maelstrom of chaos in which we currently find ourselves.
Two weeks, sitting silently, gently rocking and open mouthed at the brass necked cheek of the piece. From Devious Dom, through disingenuous Johnson to Hat Mancock and his dodgy data.
I touched base with our local MP regarding a certain section of society who having attended several SAGE meetings and were right across what Joe Public were being asked to commit to, but drew the conclusion,
“well clearly, this doesn’t apply to me, powerful people have my back”
Principally Devious Dom.
Are we not mugs?
She’s an excellent constituency MP who was informed of “Our great leader’s decision recently to remove her from cabinet” on social media.
She currently sits as chair of the Women and Equalities Committee.
During “Our Great Leader’s” recent televised appearance in front of the Parliamentary Liaison Committee, she held his feet to the fire repeatedly over the lack of female involvement in the decision making process over the current crisis.
She signed off her prompt reply to my email with the following:
“I have no doubt as to the immense damage the PM has done by refusing to sack Cummings. He is seldom so out of step with public opinion, and I assume is hoping people have short memories. It is awful.”
I considered contacting her again on several occasions since Teflon Dom’s sojourn north on a variety of matters, but as I have already stated, I took the open mouthed trance of incredulity route.
The following statement was a standard of this house for many years, particularly during the implementation of The National Trout & Grayling Strategy in 2015, but it seem apposite to revisit the old mantra:
We are increasingly led by loons
Dons loin cloth, grows beard and retreats to cave angrily waving a fist at the outside world, which is pretty much where I’ve been for the past few weeks so apologies again for the dearth of guff regarding all things chalk stream.
It’s mayfly time again.
Only this year it hasn’t been so easy, and rods have had to earn their fish.
Mayfly are few in number and the dance of an evening has, with a nod to the current requirement for social distancing, been low in attendance. We have yet to experience a significant fall of spinners. Which comes a something of a surprise as kick sampling through the winter chucked up many mayfly nymphs lurking in the weed and gravel.
The mayfly hatch was late to start, and the timed arrival of swifts swallows and cuckoos has been all to cock, so maybe next week will be the week. Plenty of fish have been caught, but it hasn’t been easy fishing. A heavy hatch should spark the locals into action, as most of them sit there on the fin looking upwards in expectation, but with a river so clear, a single artificial alone without a procession of naturals is more often than not ignored.
You will see from the amateur photos that weed is having a high old time of it. Ranunculus is in full flower, and water celery is growing clear of the water. It’s weed having a wonderful time, which is tremendous news for all folk that live in a chalk stream.
The reason the weed is wearing it’s hat on three hairs?
Winter rain,
Once again,
Winter rain.
The water's receding at a remarkable rate. Both April and May were particularly arid, just to be clear that's the months and not Donald Duck's nieces. Rumours abound thatwe are on the cusp of having drought conditions declared in the south, but the evidence of the high winter flow remains with the river retaining a sparkle not seen at this time of the year for sometime.
In other news, we have finally been refunded the money for our early April six day trip to Porto.
It’s been a painful business with lots of wriggling by the online agent, and why we incurred a fifty pound admin fee for the issue of the refund was beyond me, but it extended my trance of open mouthed incredulity by a further three days.
Apologies, the name of the online agent…
Travelup,
That’s TRAVELUP everyone,
We won’t be using them again.
Returning to the virus.
No not that F*&^% virus, that keeps making me cross.
Ash dieback.
At this time of the year, it’s very apparent that we have a cluster of mature trees infected with the lurgy in the middle of the wood.
If anyone needs a rustic broom handle, don’t be a stranger.
Looking up and not down, we find that there are some trees that demonstrate immunity to the virus.
Here’s one of two ash trees on opposite sides of the river. Despite Suitable social distancing, one has succumbed to the virus, while the other seems to retain some immunity.
One will be felled and, following a period of maturation, be introduced to the wood burner.
The healthier tree will produce immune progeny and slowly a new population of immune ash trees will form.
If anyone was unsure, the infected ash tree is on the left.
This virus will impact on the make up of woods in this area for several generations, and take decades to be defeated.
Fingers crossed mankind comes up with a solution to the crafty covid 19 a little sooner than that.
Today is the 13th May, there is no discussion over the prospect of Christmas tomorrow, my ruby wedding is not imminent, and we have not just had the millennium.
Yes, today I know what day it is.
Today we fish again,
Huzzah!
I/We am/are back in the room, bar the surfeit of backslash punctuation
Fishing safely,
from distance of course,
smothered in sanitiser and with body temperature monitored every two minutes (orally!)
but fishing all the same.
The fishing hut is out of bounds as it is difficult to observe social distancing rules in an abode that is 8ft by 8ft square.
By way of shelter for our two anglers a day, we’ve erected a large Bedouin/ Tuareg tent affair replete with hookah and pipes on the opposite bank. There are rugs on which to lounge at distance, bowls of dates, wandering tortoise and incense continually on the go.
Fishing at Bransbury will be a little bit different this season.
Yes the Corona, and yes the social distancing, but the river has not been in this kind of form for some seasons.
There is a good head of water, clear and free from foam and algae.
There are fish, many many fish.
And there is weed, that I have already cut in April which is always a portent of a super season ahead.
And we are fishing, which is brilliant, but we are fishing SAFELY!
The Angling Trust have been magnificent in the past few weeks in making representation to politocos on behalf of all quarters of Angling. If you are not a member, please consider joining, they do great things in the name of all things rod and line.
The Angling Trust have chucked up advice on the correct course of action to take when flicking a fly or flinging a float safely in the coming weeks. It mirrors the advice we sent out to our regular rods a few weeks ago on how we envisaged fishing would be at Bransbury this summer. If we all stick to it, then we’ll see the season out. If people bend the rules as they go about their business, then the season could be curtailed sometime this summer when we go into lockdown for a second time.
A few mayfly have hatched and fish are just starting to show a little interest.
Here’s an Ephemera Danica making its entrance to the outside world.
It floated down the river for twenty yards or so,
Before drawing the eye of Brer Brown Trout.
Who completely missed his target. It was a clumsy, slashy rise and a few seconds later the mayfly reach up for the stars.
It’s surprising how often this happens early in the season. It seems that sometimes trout need to get their eye in when feeding on surface flies and they miss the fly. Anglers are often hard on themselves when they miss a rise to their artificial fly but sometimes it is the fish that is at fault.
On a few warm days last week our kitchen played host to several daddy long legs, which may be the fly of first choice for the new opening day of the season. Hawthorn hatches were a bit of a dud, but then we did have a wettish winter, which doesn’t hawthorn fly larvae who have taken up residence in a soggy meadow.
This leveret looks in on our yard a few mornings each week. We’ve a few about the place, which is good to see as their numbers took a bit of dive in this parish a few years ago.
I don’t know where all the swifts and swallows are.
Lord Ludg insists they are have all been captured by natives in North Africa and put into pies.
I’m not so sure.
Lord Ludg has been out in his hot tub in the sun quite a lot of late (It is difficult to unsee the digital images).
Weather could be a factor in swift and swallow absence. Clear air with a dearth of airborne particulates may have caused them to move through the airborne significantly faster than they expected, causing them to overshoot Blighty for a sojourn in Iceland.
We don’t know,
In further news of occasional cohorts,
The English has let his locks down during lockdown and now sports a tight head of curls on what was once a smooth shiny pate.
It’s an alpine look, with distinct echoes of Heidi. There is no doubt The English is apt to wander. He now sports a goatee, and with the wind in the right direction, each morning we can pick out faint yodelling….who will be his Peter?
Zoom and House Party have been quite a lark over the past few months but goodness it will be good to bump (from a safe distance of 2m, no terms and conditions apply) into anglers on the bank over the next few weeks.
I’ll own that I’m finding it difficult to chuck up guff at the moment, and now it seems to be Sunday, I think. Each passing day acquires an increasing level of fug and the piece may shortly become a series of short public information films with musical accompaniment last heard on the demise of Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko.
The Dever is in superb condition but this stretch remains unfished.
The Itchen carries some colour and I haven’t seen much grannom during my fleeting visits to its banks, but it is main river and has always taken a little more time to clear than this tributary of the Test.
Hatches of hawthorn have been all what one would expect following a wettish winter, sporadic and light with, with more of these terrestrial flies making it through the rain on higher ground.
Wet winter water meadows are anathema to the Hawthorn fly.
Grass is growing well, as is weed, and each must be cut, which kind of fills the day. The merlin is about and each evening as I cycle up the lane by way of exercise, my camera has been primed to catch a clip of it swooping up the road before me, but so far no luck. I’ve also given the field the “side eye” as there are several hares that have been hunkered down along the field margin. Wild garlic is in full bloom as is the cuckoo flower, although as yet, I’ve only heard a single cuckoo. Swallows, martins and swifts re slow to put in an appearance in this parish, the vanguard briefly appeared in the skies this afternoon.
Today (still Sunday, I think) I saw mayfly hatching.
Only Valeries (singletons)
and fish demonstrated little interest, but mayfly all the same, which brought a lump to my throat.
It’s a special time of the year to be on the banks of a chalk stream and the appearance of Ephemera Danica et al always causes the mood to soar.
As I said earlier, we are following advice from The Angling Trust and Test and Itchen Association and are currently not open to anglers.
A few stretches have opened, which has come as a bit of a surprise.
We could open, and provide a safe fishing experience for our regular rods. There is a washroom in the yard where cars are parked and anglers would be asked to wash their hands on arrival, don a pair of the plastic gloves provided and make their way to the river via a single designated access point, that will be disinfected each day.
The fishing hut will be out of bounds, all seats will be sanitised daily and daily catches will be recorded online, filled in by yours truly each evening.
The fisherman’s washroom will be steam cleaned each morning as will all gates and points of multi contact.
I am confident we could fish quite safely,
I hope that the few stretches of river that have ignored the advice from The Angling Trust and T&I and opened for business, have given the matter a similar amount thought.
I didn’t expect it to be an issue at this halfway stage of life but hair has now become a problem.
It’s been many months since I visited my mad Turkish friend who always insists that he could do great things with my salt and pepper locks via the medium of some sort of jollup he imports from the other side of Europe. He likes to surprise me with his lit lighter in order to deal with any nasal hair that may be about.
Anyway, hair.
It grows into an unusual shape and there are echoes of my Jesus and Mary Chain/ Inspiral Carpets phase of life .
1990 and the age of Aquarius if anyone is wondering,
and where's the sunshine?
Crete if memory serves, with Madam and our mates.
They didn’t have gyms then, at which point I’d like to point out that I have never set foot in a gym in my life, which some people may find quite surprising, and let this photo stand as evidence that If you live well, look after yourself and keep clean you will never lose your looks.
Taken with my Praktica SLR by the way, on old fashioned film.
Colour film was available at this time,
but I took quite a bit of black and white stuff on this trip.
Getting lost in a box of photos seems quite a good thing to do at the moment. (and it may now be Monday, who knows?) I can remember the family slide show, with the ironing board very much to the fore but my goodness the quest for this photo has confirmed that I’ve taken an awful lot of photographs.
Six figures and counting in the digital form and a coffin full of the old school solid state stuff that takes two people to lift.
I don’t know how many photos you have to have to qualify as an archive.
Anyway, I’m off to order a magical thing called a “comb” on Amazon, plus some scrunchies for my impending pigtails.
