And now the Bourne Rivulet's turned yellow!

Temperatures reached double figures this week sending Blackbirds and Ducks decidedly frisky. The male Blackbirds belting out their complicated calls with increased gusto in their quest to establish a territory and tempt a mate, the drakes cutting to the chase and jumping the bones of any duck who hoves into view. No swallows or swifts here yet but over on the Itchen, a dozen or more House Martins swooped for any invertebrate that rose from the water.

Two weeks to go before the trout anglers turn up, and today saw the vanguard arrive to take food and wine on board and pass judgement on the winter work, a fun day with regular rods, many of whom have fished here for over twenty years. Initial murmurings were encouraging despite the river looking a little stark at this time of the year, afternoon sunshine added a little sparkle and the sight of a few fish on the fin certainly helped.

A brief digress: As I write, the Golf is on the goggle box and isn’t it forward thinking of the US government to allow the interns of Guantanamo bay to caddy at the Masters as a means of aiding their reintroduction to society.

On the Itchen, fun and games were anticipated with the arrival of a Shepherds hut. A steal on eBay, it was driven from Dorset and plonked on the queen’s highway by the bridge at the top of the beat. With a profile and aerodynamics suited to speeds of little more than five miles an hour, it was a miracle that it survived the trip. But survive it did, and head scratching commenced when it was left at the side of the road around midday. With no shepherds available to advise, it was shackled to the back of the jeep, dragged up the road and then with many fingers crossed a course was taken through bramble thicket and willow to its final resting place by the top pool to significant sighs of relief. The preceding weeks had seen visions of the thing laid on its side in the river or breaking into a billion pieces somewhere around Salisbury but all went well and it was installed in “position A” within an hour of its arrival, we just need a shepherd/shepherdess and some sheep now....................... Oh and a lick of paint, as it’s a lovely shade of lime green with patches of canary yellow and is currently visible from the edge of space.

The Dever valley at Bransbury remains reasonably dry, spring ditches are about where they should be and on the water meadow above ewes and lambs have been put out on to some unlush grass, further down the valley this is not the case the middle of the main river around Stockbridge has significant standing water in the meadows that would not see a sheep on them for several weeks.

There is much muttering afoot about the recent water Framework Directive and the public consultation following a two year survey by a company of international repute and high protein diets. As I have previously stated the report for the two stretches of river on which I work was inaccurate at best, inept at worst. Comments were called for, regarding the report which many duly did. Four weeks down the line none of these comments have been published, which suggest that things are not quite running to plan. For every other survey on rivers in the UK carried out for Water Framework Directive purposes, public comments have been published on the consultation website. Something smells fishy

A few miles away the Bourne rivulet continues to take a battering. To recap, last summer the leading washer and grower of bagged salad spilt several hundred litres of diesel into the river that attracted a fine equating to five eighths of f*** a**. Later in the year the groundwater rose following rain, not an unexpected phenomenon, but one that caught out the local water company whose cracked sewage system couldn’t cope with water leaking in and for over half a year they have been sending raw sewage bar a few johnnies and floaters skimmed off by rudimentary filter down the Bourne. Late last week several on the Bourne and Test down to Stockbridge received a call from Command Centre Central that the Bourne had turned yellow, a call that was repeated the following day when Plunkett Green’s bright waters once again assumed an amber hue. Some have suggested farm slurry may be the cause, others that it is a dye being used by the water company to test the sewage system for leaks. Either way it ain’t good. Farm slurry high in organic matter Phosphates and Nitrates is the stuff of algae dreams and chronic leakage from a cracked sewer is not the best tonic for a river that, following the last twelve months, is on its knees; if this was a boxing match the referee would have stopped it several rounds ago. If either of these acts had been committed by a private individual, would the level of fines and inaction been the same?
The Bourne is one of only a few chalkstreams in these Isles. A SSSI, it has been let down by those who have damaged it and by those assigned to protect it. Despite the huff and puff from on high, protecting the home environment does not appear to be as high up on the list of jobs to be done as they would have us believe.

As a cold war baby I remember Mrs Thatcher, and like most people in the UK grew up with nuclear missiles aimed at our house. I remember the strikes, riots and several senseless acts of terrorism. There are several in this village who ground out ground at Goose Green and they think the world of her, myself I don’t have any strong polarised opinion, she was just Mrs Thatcher who ran the country as Mr Gunnery was the man who ran the local grocer shop. The only thing that I do feel strongly about is that she was a woman who worked her way up to the top job in the land. There are still societies where this is not possible, women are suppressed, denied education, independence or an opportunity to better themselves. This is one aspect of Mrs Thatcher’s time in office that this country should be proud.

This has been a party political broadcast by the “Isn’t Germaine Greer great ?” party

A £5000 fine ought to teach Europe's largest bagger of salad a lesson

Still cold, snow earlier in the week and a wind that bites bones from the east continues to phew. For forty eight hours daytime temperatures hit double figures, although only just, and spring threatened to spring; when it does, it should be short but sweet. We often have a phallanax of swallows and martins formed up on lines of wires above our home at this time of the year but no sign of either yet. Buds fail to bulge and the wisteria in the mill house remains in Christmas mode.

During the two day hiatus from the icy wind the field behind our house filled with hares. Every year they rock up in numbers on this five acre patch of arable to muck about and act daft as the days warm up. The deer are having a hard time of it too, there is not much on which to munch and any strips of maize grown for game cover have long been ploughed in. This week on the mile of main road that runs adjacent to this parish there have been several roe, a couple of muntjac and a fallow laid out on the verge crushed by cars after wandering into the wrong lane in their quest for sustenance. This sometimes provides an opportunity for some to fill their freezer with road-kill venison, but these looked fairly mangled, fit only for sausages and mince. Several years ago a fireman friend of mine was summoned one evening to drive the engine to a thatch fire in a neighbouring village. With the smouldering thatch removed they were required to stand guard through the night lest the fire should revive. With first light just gone they were startled by a bang in the nearby lane, an early bird racing for her commute to the smoke had smashed her GTi into a roe doe. The fire crew gallantly tended to the damsel and the bended car while my friend, with country blood flowing thick through his veins and a smattering of butchering nous, deftly retrieved a few fillets with his trusty leatherman, revived a fire from the failed thatch and breakfasted on venison before the tow truck arrived to cart off the GTi.

With the new season only weeks away final preparations are being made for the arrival of anglers. The sleeper walkway below the fishing hut is undergoing a revamp after a few bearings gave way; initially under my weight, but then under a popular quiz show host who was told not to walk that way.
The digger has been strapped to the back of the tractor to fill my trailer with chalk to apply to the pressure points at the end of bridges and around the hut that have not had a chance to mend this winter and remain a muddy morass. It’s controversial stuff chalk, the voles are none too keen which carries a lot of weight in these parts, Too much of the stuff can create a lifeless hard bank that is great for fishing in your dancing shoes, but a little on top of gloopy mess binds, after a drop of rain and a bit of frost, like the egg white in a meatball. Just keep it away from the precious marginal growth and all is ok, problems occur where too much is used and it stands proud of the river or it is allowed to swamp the marginal growth.


Building work almost complete. Thunderbird One (the tractor) will never have been so comfortably kennelled,Thunderbird Two (the jeep)will rise seamlessley from the 20mm gravel surround and Thunderbird three, shoud we have one, would ease from its undergorund bunker to strike at all who currently threaten the chalkstream environment. I shall command all in big glasses from a swivel chair set in a cage, or was that Captain Scarlet or possibly Joe 90? and the lady who sleeps on my left will be known as Lady Penelope and must be addressed as "m'laydy"

Mwhawwwww ...........(I think that's right)

The anglers will now enjoy extensive facilities that include toilet, toilet roll, wash basin with hot and cold water, soap and possibly towel (to be decided)

Connecting up the amps and ohms was no mean feat, and I only had to do the phone calls. Scottish and Southern were the provider of choice and they have taken a bit of a pounding of late so after many conversations about compliance and choice six men arrived to disconnect the supply: and that will be £300+ please sir. Last week the same six arrived to connect a cable from a pole and run it through a twenty yard trench dug by my own hands (operating our retro digger) the ducting was declined because the stuff we had provided was the wrong colour, before the same six rode out of town, with another £300+ . The cable that they installed must now be connected to a meter supplied by an electricity provider of our choice. This process takes another two weeks because we must be allowed to “cool off” there is a chance that we may change our minds, candles and fire may be our thing and electricity not our power of choice. We are currently in the middle of our cooling off period and are still excited by the idea of electricity so the same six will undoubtedly ride again to put a meter on the end of the cable that they so successfully installed last week (think plugging in your telly) and that will be another £300+ please sir.
Scottish and Southern was always an unlikely alliance, are these repeated requests for £300+ the continued cost of Culloden?


“Shit happens” is an oft quoted phrase when circumstances have gone awry, on the nearby Bourne rivulet a lot of shit has happened in recent times with no little amount of it finding its way into the water course. Pumping of filtered sewage into the Bourne that began over six months ago continues apace, the water company responsible has promised funding to solve the problem that occurs when the groundwater is higher than to be expected but this has happened before and a few dry months has seen funds and effort diverted elsewhere. It has also come to light that the water company have previously pumped sewage into the Bourne during conditions when groundwater levels have not been exeptional.

Further on down the Bourne one of Europe’s largest salad growers and packers goes about its business, growing and packing its fine fayre with the sparkling waters of the Bourne. During the middle of last summer an operative allowed a diesel tank to overflow and 500 litres of fuel entered the river, fines have just been issued and this leading supplier of salad in a bag, the Real Madrid of the Watercress world, will be forced to think twice about the way it conducts its business after a swingeing fine of £5000 (No I haven’t missed any noughts off)
Sixteen years ago the company were fined £6000 for a similar pollution incident. The cost of living has gone up during that time but apparently not the cost of polluting. If any other country’s government behaved in such a manner towards a unique environment that it proclaims to protect, our own leaders would be up in arms, for form’s sake at the very least if not the media’s. With planning restrictions being eased in the coming months the chalkstreams of the south face an increased threat with any hope of protection or help from over the hill coming not from command centre central and the bungling buffoons within, but from europe and its habitat directives.

How did the management and protection of our rivers come to this?

A little bit of sunshine would be nice

One afternoon, this time last year, I spent a sunny half hour without my jumper filming a dozen or more grayling making their opening dashes across the shallows in preparation to spawn. Principle concern was over the amount of water and the fact that several of the fish had their backs out of the water. In complete contrast to last year the wind chill is minus something or other, my thermal vest with “I feed millions” on the front delivered free with a tonne of fish food is close to being worn out and there is a stoat at large still clad in winter ermine lest the snow returns. Water levels are good, a little above average, but not yet exceptional so I shouldn’t complain. A few days of sunshine would make a huge difference to both mind and mood and buds currently reluctantly breaking on hawthorn would joyously unfold; a flick of the spring switch would bring a few mild sunny days and birdsong would inevitably be delivered with a tad more gusto than the current reluctant chorus , that said it is often quoted that we are statistically more likely to experience snow at Easter than Christmas but a few days of warm sun as opposed to prolonged grey and gloom would certainly lift the mood.

Bridges have drawn the eye in the past ten days. Most winters one must be replaced, but this year has seen one reach the end of its life and three others in need of a face lift. Green oak purchased from the local saw mill but plucked from a far flung corner of Europe is the material of choice, and banging the posts through three feet of gravel with a bumper doesn’t get easier as the years progress. The fishing hut stands on four eight foot lengths of telegraph pole that I drove seven feet into the ground, by hand, twenty years ago before my chest had slipped. The hut weighs a bit, with over a ton of tiles on the roof, and it remains level (I check every year) When they next need replacing I will get a nipper to bang the bloody things in while my wasted muscles give instruction from distance via megaphone.
Banging square posts into gravel by hand can be a tedious business. Putting a four faced point on the end rather than two reduces twisting as the post goes down into the earth but it is still necessary to stop every few tonks to twist the post one way with the two hands while gently rotating it the other to bring it back on line; go through the gravel seam and the post can disappear, rub against a root and a rakish angle may result. When you walk over the thing every day, any anomalies grate, there’s no photoshop for real time viewing and I am very grateful to all those who paint pictures of the fancy bridge over to the fishing hut and make it look level, but if you bang a post in that is likely to remain in situ for a decade or more it pays to take the time to get it straight and get it right because every wonky post draws the eye and serves as a reminder of a job bodged.


The accompanying photo of a newly constructed bridge has not been touched up or subjected to soft focus.

Surface feeding fish are few and far between in the current conditions, although most appear to be in reasonable knick. There are quite a few rainbows in the river between a pound and four pound in size which suggests that the neighbouring "big fish" water lost a few during the festive floods. Rainbows don’t count on this stretch so some of our early rods could be taking home a bigger bag of fish than anticipated. Water on the meadows through winter often results in poor Hawthorn fishing and wind may be welcome in late April to blow a few on to the river from surrounding higher ground where the larvae will not have been affected by pools and puddles. Weed is growing well and ranunculus in particular looks to be having the time of its life in the strong flowing water, bets are off on the likelyhood of cutting weed in mid April.


There are a few funny birds around, plenty of duck and geese with an eye to pairing, and one small tweeter that makes a funny noise whenever I approach that I have yet to see beyond a sideways silhouette; more people in the valley are reporting having seen a Bittern. The Common land below this stretch often appeals at this time of the year and is currently fairly inaccessible to all but the most persistant of intruders due to the amount of water lying about. Emboldened by a belly full of beef and fortified with Fitou I sallied forth on a Sunday afternoon to conquer the common and record any species I may find, think Dr Livingstone without the elephants, porters and accompanying caravan but with a glass of wine on board.

Owls are always about on the common day or night, one obdurate barn owl tolerated me to within ten yards of his perch before he flopped off and flapped away. The local school at which the lady who sleeps on my left has worked for many years and which both Child A and Child B attended, has an owl as its emblem, nobody knows why, but it is particularly apt as the village and the surrounding countryside play host to every single species of owl native to the British Isles.
A Curlew was making its distinctive call somewhere on the common but it remained invisible despite some super silent creeping by yours truly in muffled wellies before snow flurries drove me home for tea.

The roads around here are in a bit of a mess, the little lane that is both entrance and exit from this diminuative collection of dwellings is pocked with holes. For thirty yards the route traverses the bank of the river with a hedge bordering the other side, holes big enough to swallow a swan cannot be avoided and subsequently it is a rocky road to town.



The Von Trapps, at home.

Once while camping in Switzerland, when Child A & B were not very old and I could comfortably pass for Ewan Mcgregor, we crossed the Alps into Italy via the Simplon Pass. They save their holes for their cheese the swiss and we enjoyed a stunning ascent in spring on superbly maintained hole free Swiss roads that had seen far harsher conditions than we have here this winter. On the Italian side of the hill the contrast could not have been more stark and much of the budget for road building and repairs appeared to have been siphoned off somewhere. The same was true of roads around Naples and the Amalfi coast where we briefly sojourned recently, mistakingly ticking the “car hire” box to take on a lawless road system where anything goes,and good luck on your quest for your final destination. It is with this in mind that much of our menu currently carries an Italian theme, as every pop to the shop brings back memories of our bone jarring entrance to Domodossolla or bumping around the bay of Naples.

And here’s the thing:

Roads can be made from hard surfaces that take a long time to wear out, the principle drawback of such surfaces is road noise at speed and a harder ride. The same sections of our little lane have been repaired many times in the past decade, the fifty yard stretch over the spring ditch by the football pitch is repaired annually after each winter; the same old holes patched up with soft tarmac each year.
Rather than resurface with blackstuff and gravel why not go for something harder, it isn’t the fastest road (or it shouldn’t be) so road noise shouldn’t be an issue and I’d take a harder ride if it meant avoiding holes in the road that I enter wondering if I will ever make it out the other side.

River restoration meetings in a hat lifted from Lenin

After a cold dry week during which the wind caused the toughest skin to chafe and flake, the scorched earth policy has been rolled out and reed beds burnt to a cinder. For a few days conditions were perfect and a single dropped match caused a steady burn driven on by a zealous zephyr that ensured much of what stood is burnt. I had a go over on the Itchen but the growth is not as thick and it didn’t make quite as good a job of it, this may be because it has not been burnt off before, dense dry reed beds undoubtedly burn better than those with more sparse growth and it may be that the job will be easier next year for having been done for the first time this year.

The black soon turns green and I can’t emphasise how thick and diverse the re-growth has become on reed beds that we have now been burning off annually for well over decade, like whacking into the willows and maintenance of marginal growth a prolonged management programme really does make a difference to the chalkstream environment.

We currently have more duck on the river and meadows than we have for some while, cold weather normally sees an influx of teal and wigeon but the ducks flitting about this valley are still mostly mallard with the odd bunch of tufties, not many geese or snipe either who can often arrive in numbers when the wind blows cold from the east. Following a dry spell the river has dropped a little although the banks retain a squidge factor of five. The water is clear and weed is starting to grow Trout are keen to feed as are the pike who are preparing to move to the spring holes and ditches to think about spawning as will the grayling who also remain active but will soon switch off and shuffle to the shallows to do their thing. The next month we will scan the skies for winged oddities as it is often at this time we see migrants moving through in their way to nesting grounds, an osprey hung around for a while five years ago, taking a fine fish of about three pounds from the river in front of the fishing hut on my fortieth birthday. At the time, which happened to be an alcohol fuelled birthday lunch, this was attributed to be a bad sign. Runes were subsequently read, juju wood burnt and a totem pole constructed featuring my own features above a carved osprey head, but all came to naught, and a few winters later the totem pole was introduced to the wood burner along with our old kitchen table chairs during a particularly cold snap when the requirement for warmth won over the need to ward away evil avian spirits.

Recent cold weather and the loss of my favourite hat led to a new purchase from the internet, crafted from the finest fleeces of eight week old persian karakul lambs in uptown Ukraine it was offered on ebay and may well have been lifted from Lenin’s tomb. It’s the warmest hat I have ever had which outstrips the fact that it looks a little odd. After initial approval Otis has since taken to walking at least ten yards behind me, as has the lady who sleeps on my left who declined my offer of wearing it in bed for some Russki role play, I was to play the surly diplomat and she the dusky maiden seeking freedom from her life of turnips, cabbage and vodka derived from their peelings. When we first connected up to the internet over ten years, ago one of our opening emails after “welcome to compuserve” included a list of four hundred such women seeking to make a new life away from the Russian Steppes. The email had profiles for each and every one who were keen to offer marriage along with a list of items, attributes and skills that they were able to add to our union, last year when we were struggling to get a plumber to call, in desperation we dug out the list in the hope of a Svetlana skilled in the use of a pipe bender and stilsons, but no joy.

Demolition is well underway on the stable block whose roof I fell through before Christmas. Two days of crash bang wallop and driving at it with a digger has reduced it to dust, well sixteen loads of concrete at the very least.

The first draft of the Test and Itchen Restoration strategy report has now been published online. To recap, the EU’s water Framework Directive requires the SSSI’s of the river’s Test and Itchen to be brought up to scratch, they are currently deemed to be failing and if they are not brought up to the required standard by 2013 fines will be issued from Brussels, or possibly Strasbourg.

The Environment Agency and Natural England subsequently commissioned a highly reputable company to come up with a detailed plan of action. On the company’s website they describe themselves as :

“One of the world’s leading design, engineering and project management consultancies with the breadth and depth of expertise to respond to the most technically challenging and time critical infrastructure projects”

The Water Framework Directive has potential to afford these two Hampshire rivers protection against a variety of threats and the results of the two year survey were eagerly awaited. I can only comment on the report for the two stretches of river for which I am responsible, but if it turned up in a pile of marking for the lady who sleeps on my left a line would be drawn through it with “do it again” writ witheringly large in red at the base. It may be that those who assessed this stretch of the Dever were from the “High Protein diet division” because they failed to demonstrate any understanding of how hatches and sluices work or where they are on a map. As expected, the report suggests an alternative method of use for the hatch in front of the house. A few years ago during the opening skirmishes of the restoration strategy I had an entertaining afternoon with the late Tim Holzer, a keen protagonist for throwing open all the hatches on the river. I argued that if the hatch on the house was removed it will undoubtedly improve the hundred yards of man-made stream in front of the house half of which has a concrete bottom but would impact on the mile of main river which is in pretty good shape. We have done what we can with the top two thirds of the man-made stream with woody debris very much to the fore and a plethora of faggots, casting platforms and replanted marginal growth, so the SSSI may have to take the hit of a hundred yards of perched stream, and anyway there has to be an eye to heritage and a seventeenth century mill house and its elaborate workings, the voles can’t conquer all. The survey put the sluice in front of the house on the main river and not on the mill stream, classified the hatch at the top of the mill stream as a weir and fundamentally failed to grasp the machinations of these two split streams and what is achievable with either. The Mill itself does not appear on the list of “in stream” Mill houses on the river despite the current building being in situ for over four hundred years and a mill on site for over a millennium.

On the Itchen the report’s findings were surprising. The short stretch of single bank that I am responsible for is hard piled throughout its length and the EA have installed a gauging station to warn Winchester of impending flood, there is also a substantial fixed feature midstream below the road bridge that deflects flow around the top pool but also holds the water level up by a foot above the bridge. Following the November restoration strategy consultation meeting, I made contact with the EA about the possibility of removing the piling and of a week with a digger re-profiling the bank. Extensive onsite meetings with the EA, Natural England and the magic man with the digger confirmed that this was undoubtedly the way to go, even the hard-nosed man from hydrology conceded to the removal of twenty yards of piling that afforded belt and braces protection to his gauging station, some funding was even secured. The survey conducted twelve months prior to these meetings subsequently declared that there is nothing to report and the current state of this hard piled bank should be conserved and enhanced, the massive structure two yards downstream from the bridge that is having a significant impact on the stream was missed and does not appear on the list of “in stream structures”.

I have only been working on this stretch of the Itchen for a just over a year but on my opening forays down the river I suggested that a few weeks bank work with a digger would pay dividends, a lifetime walking up and down bank of one sort or another suggested that all was not as it should be . It’s expensive work, bank re-profiling and persuading a riparian owner that this is the way to go to benefit his stretch of stream is made all the more difficult following a duff survey that declared everything to be “tickety boo”. Germaine Greer recently wrote an enlightened article on the threat faced by the rivers in the south, which was a quite a surprise from this champion of female emancipation, perhaps she should be given a go at surveying a few stretches of stream and the international company of fine repute return to their more specialised field of high protein diets.

It is only a draft copy and I am sure that common sense will prevail and the mistakes will be corrected, but it doesn’t instil faith in the whole process. I desperately wanted to write something positive about this report, and it may be that all the cock ups occurred on the two stretches for which I am responsible, but for the two bits of bank that I bumble along it is inaccurate at best, inept at worst.

How much is this consultation costing the public purse?

The meeting that followed on from the draft publication was reasonably well attended, and ran through what happens next. Examples where given of what the ideal chlkstream should look like and at one point the leading lady suggested that if anyone needed guidance as to what the ideal is they should take a look of any bridge bordering bank that has been classified “conserve and enhance” and there ye shall find. The stretch of Itchen on which I walk has received this classification and the bridge at the top gives a clear view of the bank so expect a rush on pig iron in the coming months. The survey continues to peddle the myth of the miracle of “woody debris” which has the potential to become the monorail of The Simpsons season 4 episode 12, but for the first time I saw writ in “action to be taken to conserve the chalkstreams” a hint that all wood in the river may not be such a good thing.
You have to know what your about with woody debris, done well in the right spot it can undoubtedly help, done badly in the wrong spot it doesn’t and thousand plus word articles in the Angling Press urging all to fling timber willy-nilly into any river by those who proclaim to know better were irresponsible (I’m sorry I will not let that one go for a long time)

Advice on Willow management was muddled and one riparian owner eloquently highlighted the problems of meeting the different requirement of higher level stewardship schemes and managing the SSSI each of which called for conflicting management plans to be undertaken.
There was however sensible advice on changing angler expectation as to their chalkstream experience with regard to mowing and marginal growth.

We heard from the Environment Agency, Natural England, The Test & Itchen Association and the company of International repute, a complicated enough cabal that will be muddled further by an increased role for The Wild trout Trust. Strong leadership is required to prevent a repeat of “The people’s front of Judea” of Monty Python fame.

Most recognise the need to protect and improve the southern chalkstreams, they have taken a bit of a battering in recent times and need protection from diffuse pollution, over abstraction and much more besides. The Water Framework Directive and the push to improve the condition of SSSI’s promises to do this and should be encouraged, but if fundamental mistakes are made early on in the surveying process and the group charged with implementing the action are seen as a large unwieldy alliance it will fail, and Riparian owners and keepers who in my time have received contradictory advice to both remove fences from river banks and fence river banks, chop down trees and plant trees, received grants for the installation and renovation of hatches and sluices and been asked to remove hatches and sluices, will understandably question whether the advice being given is valid and return to practices of old, both good and bad.

Park and Ride! the future of entering the urban environs

February half term and the lady who sleeps on my left and myself have just returned from a four day child free break in Amsterdam. We emerged early from Euro’s tunnel, breezed past Bruges, pootled through the Polders, crossed the Maas and its massive carp, before traipsing over a thousand ditches and dykes to the Dutch capital’s Olympic stadium where we declined the offer of a “Fanny Blankers-Koen” experience (two laps of the track in retro shorts with a baby at the breast) opting instead for the excellent Park & Ride scheme.


Enthusing about a Park & Ride scheme in this way serves as a reminder that years are ticking by, but also acts as an indicator that any crisis may almost be past. Dreams of Harleys and hoodless hairdresser cars are gone, and the merits of “Park & Ride” and its associated subjects seem to serve for a withering life’s rumination.

It worked like a dream (the park and ride.......help!)

A super safe car watched over by a man in a hat and epaulettes throughout its stay and free tram tickets in and out of town for only eight zobs a day, if you are driving to Amsterdam I can’t recommend it highly enough, 24 hour parking on the street on which we stayed was the best part of fifty zobs, sans the security guard in full fig.


We stayed on the banks of a canal fifty odd yards from where Anne Frank got stuck in the loft. Canals have long held an appeal for me and Mdme, and in 1990s BC (before children) when house prices were way beyond our means we came very close to buying a boat to live on. A historical working water course that served as a home, employment and also supported a diverse habitat was typical of the canals that criss-crossed the North West and threw up engineering leviathans like the Anderton lift and Pontcysyllte aqueduct. Canals are all about man having some control over the forces of water which is pretty much what I strive for in this job day in day out.

Ensconced in the canal ring laid out in the 17th century we could cover pretty much all of town on foot. As canal systems go it doesn’t seem too complicated, flat land, no locks just push the water where you want boys, just go a bit steady if you plan on putting up anything over two stories as the land’s a bit squishy.

All of the buildings lining the canals of the inner ring are four stories or more, all bar a few chucked up in recent years are slightly off centre. Built on soft ground hundreds of years ago many have settled to an angle where they lean forward, back or slump on the shoulder of the adjoining house, take out the wrong house and a whole street could crumble, there’s no front doors plucked from Homebase fitted here and while we are on doors most front doors and windows on the canal ring are over eight feet high. Your average Dutchman/woman can be a big old unit but the front doors on our street hinted at inhabitants of Hagrid’s proportions: our ground floor apartment had curtains that would not have been out of place in a school hall.

Food was a surprise, Indonesian was everywhere and drew rave reviews, but the best we ate was at a nondescript cafe that scored well on trip advisor (8th out of 1721 Amsterdam restaurants no less) the menu was filled with fish and game and I punished the Duck and Venison while Mdme opted for Scallops and Beef. On a neighbouring table a distinguished Dutch couple were eagerly devouring a quorum of quail, Mevrouw who had remarkable eyebrows and could have passed for the mother of Ming the Merciless mishandled a wing that subsequently flew beneath our table. Unperturbed by age, appetite or etiquette she dropped to her septuagenarian (I’m guessing) knees and scrabbled around for the errant bones and any meat that may remain, emerging wing in hand, to her table as if nothing has happened.


Both the Van Gogh museum and the Rijksmuseum were under refurbishment, and as a result an abridged version of their contents were on show which suited us fine, all the good bits without the tat. The Potato eaters didn’t disappoint and neither did all the swirly stuff with black crows dark skies and flaming Cyprus trees he produced when marbles were being lost.
I can’t get excited about old Dutch masters so the Rijksmuseum started as a box ticking exercise. Loads of Rembrandts that were much better than anticipated but the best for me was Vermeer and his Milkmaid, this man could draw sunshine and the painting hung in its temporary hall with a dozen other masterpieces drew the eye as soon as we walked through the door. Twentieth century stuff is more to Mdme and my tastes and the plastic chairs of Stedelijk museum along with the odd Picasso and Magritte filled a morning although all were bested by some photos by Ansel Adams.


Culture done we returned to the streets. At the age of thirteen I visited Amsterdam on a school trip, things were a little different in those days and for much of a three day stay we were left to our own devices. A lot of our time was spent jumping on and off trams and wandering aimlessly around the streets wondering at the funny smells emanating from some cafes and why the Dutch had a preference for red light bulbs when football matches suggested that their colour of first choice was undoubtedly orange. Each evening after our hostel tea of packet soup and mild cheese we were released onto the streets; I can remember several passes through and a brief game of football with some colourful characters in what I now know is the red light district.

On this trip Mdme and myself walked its streets on a late morning. An elderly Amsterdamonian was restapling the faux fur that surrounded the window of a store titled “Pure Lust” while his wife buffed up the exotic window display with some Mr Sheen. Further on a fancy underpant emporium seemed shackled under the name of “stout”, while a few doors down a young lady, who I can only assume had just got out of the shower, appeared at a window waving frantically and beckoning me closer. I didn’t recognise her as a follower of this page although she may have taken The Shooting Times and wanted to pick me up on some rubbish that I have written of late. I tried to take her picture but as if by magic Larry the large Latvian appeared and persuaded me otherwise. Obviously a jealous type, he had nothing to fear, as I only had eyes for the lady who was, at the time, scowling on my left.

With water, water everywhere opportunities for fishing were keenly anticipated. The travel rod and bits of tackle were packed but were removed at border control (our front door) by security (Mdme) there is fishing to be had in the middle of Amsterdam and some super Zander can be caught down near the station where the Amstel River meets up with the sea. Guided fishing can be had, with spinning the preferred method of choice. The canals themselves contain a few fish but are ultimately void of life. Victor the vole man would have a fit at the amount of “hard bank” and we saw very few water fowl, although the plethora of ditches and channels on the city’s periphery are a more attractive place for a wildfowl to hang out and we saw thousands and thousands of all types of geese on our drive up to town.

Four days flew by and Mdme wishes to return. In spite of, or because of the sex and drugs and rock and roll, it is the friendliest city we have visited in recent years. Incredibly tolerant and non judgemental we only felt threatened during the morning and evening rush hour when a million strong peloton careered all ways around town on their sit up and beg bikes. Mums with a host of kids in a box on the front of a bike, glamorous city workers in designer gear, shop delivery boys and much more besides, all peddling furiously making the most of a flat land with no hills.

Hay Knives and Celebrity Squares

The current generalissimo at command centre central of all things environmental, has declared that the rain we have experienced over the past twelve months is of a variety previously unseen on these shores:

Scene 1 Lord Smith of Finsbury is preparing his speech in a warm office in an urban environs with a cast of thousands tending to his every need.

Generalissimo Smith “Microwave rain is a..

1st minion, (sotto voce ) “Wrong oven Generalissimo sir it's Convection....Convection rain”

Generalissimo Smith “My apologies, halogen rain is a rele.......

1st minion, (sotto voce ) “Convection! Convection!”

Generalissimo Smith “Ah yes, convection rain is a new phenomenon that this country had better get its head around because experts predict it is the future of rainfall in theses Isles...... ( fill/wing it, give them what they want and bugger the substance)

Convection rain is not a new occurrence in the UK; mention is made of it in meteorological records dating back over a hundred years. We had an exceptional amount of rain fall during last summer but this winter’s rainfall has been marginally above average. As I write there is a programme on national TV dramatically titled “The year that Britain flooded” a more apt title for the rivers of this region would be “The year that the chalkstreams got out of jail” needless to say I am sitting in the kitchen away from the TV but close to a small gammon joint that is almost ready to come out of the oven. Since both a roof and a bridge gave way beneath my weight, the lady who sleeps on my left has declared that calories must now be counted. As a result I am now half a yard closer to Usain Bolt in the run for the bus but food tends to crop up at regular intervals during conversation. I am quite surprised that I am trusted to be left alone in a room with only a part cooked ham for company.

Anyway, the rain and the flooding

Much more of the sensational hyperbolic rubbish on rain with decrees from those completely unsuited to the post to which they have been appointed, and I’m donning my loin cloth and heading off to a cave to grow the mother of all beards. The world is increasingly ruled by loons and it’ll be a hermit’s life for me.

A few yards downstream much of Bransbury Common is under several inches of water, (which is how it should be at this time of year). There are islands amongst the puddles and parts where, if you went through the top crust, you would just keep on going down. It wasn’t the easiest trek for the world’s wobbliest spaniel, but he did insist on coming along.

At home the river is in great condition. When the sun shines again the jaded look that the river assumed for two winters will be washed away and the gravel will take on a sparkle unseen for several seasons. Ranunculus is peeping through and an April weed cut is guaranteed. The spring ditches that run down through the village are running well but drop back after a succession of rain free days. Otters are about, and one of our few remaining carp was duffed up at the weekend. The trout in the river are back on full form and take any olive that puts in an appearance around midday.

On the Itchen the main river carries far more colour than the Dever and is close to going over the banks. Weed growth should once again be prolific during the coming season with the only course of action to cut everything out.

On the small stream water is also high and I have been digging one bank back that has encroached a little too far into the channel during three years of low flows. I have had to do the same at home at the top of the Millstream. In a nod to retro riverkeeping I have been using one of the few hay knives to escape a life hung on a country pub wall to cut the marginal growth that has encroached into cubes, these are then pulled out with grabs and laid on the edge of the bank. The channel is gently widened, a bank that previously had the consistency of instant whip is firmed up a tad, the marginal growth will be twice as dense as the previous year and a soft edge to the river is maintained for all those biodiversities that we are being spurred on to protect.

I was also invited along to the neighbouring big fish water to witness a netting operation by a group of fishery students; a useful stock assessment and great practice for the students.
The hundred metre net took some hauling but after forty five minutes the leads were lifted to reveal large numbers of small roach, some jumbo pike and one of the biggest chub I have ever seen in the Dever valley living alongside a good head of supersize rainbows.

At the end of last week, a popular quiz show host arrived to fish along with a well known fishing author to trot for grayling and roach. The lady who sleeps on my left has always garnered a secret ambition for one of us to appear on a game show, a fast track to fortune or a speedboat at the very least. I must admit that in my youth I was quite envious of the top three booths in celebrity squares. The glamour of answering questions from height, appealed and where were the ladders? Rusty Lee’s acrophobia was cruelly exposed by her insistence on a seat in the bottom row (which was a surprise as she seemed such a confident woman) and Willie Rushton’s messiah complex revealed by his commandeering of the central box on every show. To date neither my wife or I have made any appearance on a quiz show.

Anyway


The angling quiz show host was a thoroughly nice man, a very keen fisherman with a car full of gear and funny to boot. Unfortunately, in the true spirit of Tiswas, he fell in the river up to his neck around lunchtime while leaning over to look at some roach, blame was immediately apportioned to the phantom flan flinger and my application for “who wants to be a millionaire” moved to the bottom of the pile.

Last week a nice man called Graham with an Open Reach turned up at our house and after the best part of a broadband free three weeks our internet connection was restored. Graham was the first BT engineer in recent months to take his ladder from the roof of his van. He replaced the short stretch of line from the last pole, where there was broadband, to our house where there wasn’t, Simples! We had suggested this course of action on several occasions but what do we hicks in the sticks know about telecommunications. We have been offered a £40 discount for our trouble but have declined and are making a formal complaint to OFCOM

Enough is enough; I’m off to snaffle ham. With muffled cutlery and judicious carving no one will ever know,

and if suspicions are raised there’s always the cat to blame.

Rural Broadband on Poles and lines? mobile broadband is the future

But for the thoroughly inefficient forces of BT, this would have been on here ages ago.

Sorry its late.

The following has been written with one fat finger on a phone in my neighbours garden in the falling snow with little wine while my neighbours watch Flog it!

If I am found frozen in the morning "sans pulse" please erect a telegraph pole in my name in a forgotten field and mark it with a pile of broken BT broadband hubs....no flowers.

And so it begins, the fighting season and the annual clash with the dark forces of crack willow. All shall yield to the shock and awe of the saw and victory will be mine Mwahahahahaha!

Willow management is key on a chalkstream the size of the Dever, although it was not mentioned at the Water Framework presentation and chalkstream summit. In these parts a rotational cutting back of Crack Willow has a beneficial effect and bumps up the all important biodiversity. A few years ago I was asked to look at a stretch of river a few miles upstream from here that had not been submitted to the shock and awe of the saw for some years, Crack Willow had formed a triumphant arch over the entire stretch of river which was void of weed and marginal growth and few fish had chosen to make it their home. Two months of Willow management (going bananas with a chainsaw) let in light that saw weed return and biodiversity increase, some Willows will be cut back each year, others every two years and a few afforded the treat of a third season.

At home much of the one year old willow has been bundled into faggots and floated down river to help mend an over-widened bank on a bend. Two Large Hawthorns had cast a shadow over the bend,the marginal growth had thinned and the bank was open to erosion. The Hawthorns have gone and the faggots have been staked on the original line of the river bank and planted up with sedge from the Millstream

I have been accompanied for the past three weeks by two students studying countryside management at nearby Sparsholt college. Good company and full of ideas, they have taught me much about the potential of the Iphone and its apps, the urban dictionary and what the happening country dude/ho should be wearing bankside. We have achieved much during our time together, the war on willow has finished a week earlier than expected, and they carried out much of the work on the bank repair and made a great job of it to boot!

Midweek, my employer and I were summoned by the village elders to give an account of our activities. A potentially difficult crowd, we were warned that if they started talking loudly amongst themselves mid presentation things were not going well and, at the close, the thumb may well be pointing down. An hour of chat and power point pictures seemed to go well enough and we received several nice comments at the end, including one elderly lady whose husband had looked after a neighbouring stretch of river for eighteen years in the sixties and seventies. Sadly the estate in question no longer employs a full time riverkeeper and the river has slipped into decline, so it was interesting to hear her talk of how that particular stretch of river used to be.

We have had the odd Grayling fisherman in attendance and all have caught fish. Despite being bank high the river remains fishable, clears fairly quickly following rain, and the Grayling and Roach continue to co operate. Through the village the spring ditches are at a level that have not been experienced for a few years. Water is rising in fields to the east of the village and a few ditches could do with a bit of a clear out but although high, the groundwater is nowhere near the level that it was in early 2001.

Over on the Itchen similar water levels are being experienced, the spring ditch is flowing strongly although surprisingly coloured. It winds its way through the middle of Easton and may also act as a point of drainage for direct run off. On the main river the top pool continues to hold Salmon although I can see no sign of redds or spawning fish.

Heavy snow has tidied things up a bit, and the place looks a picture,the springs that feed this river resemble black satin ribbons as they slice through the pristine fields that flank the valley, all manner of things hammer away at the few pheasant feeders and all and sundry are missing the easy larder of the three acres of maize that would have been in the parish had we been shooting this year, Oh for a jolly farmer etc etc.

Child B made the most of the snow, following 18th birthday celebrations a house full of hungover dudes/hos woke to blizzard conditions and no clear exit strategy to their homes. Much of the day was spent dragging half an upturned car roof box containing said dudes/hos behind a Peugeot 207 up and down the road until Ivan and his snowplough arrived mid-afternoon to re-open the road.

Family celebrations on a snow filled weekend undertook more conventional sledging practice on the hill two fields behind our house, albeit in the same roof box that managed to accomodate three generations; all made it safely to the bottom of the black run despite a lack of helmets, life jackets and several hours of risk assessment. The rain that fell in the weeks that preceded the snow is working its way down into the aquifer freeimg up space in the upper soil for any snow melt or rain that will inevitabvly come. The river has dropped a few inches during the cold snap and is back within its banks.

The Indian runners that live on the bottom island have taken a bit of a pasting of late, with half a dozen vanishing in the night. No sign of feathers or footprints in the snow or mud, the finger is being pointed at a human fiend tempted by some of the fattest well fed ducks in the valley. The few that remain are understandably a tad jumpy and we make great efforts to bed them down for the night in an old kennel situated near the island. They seem to respond to my proletarian tone and I can shut them in most nights, my employer however has experienced problems. If it's my northern vowels that bring them in, it may pay her to adopt her best Bradford accent when calling them to bed.

This current piece of poor prose is penned in the dark from a bench in my neighbour’s garden, snow is falling softly on the ground and ice is beginning to form on my glass of red wine. Welcome to BT broadband in the country. Our home internet connection is not the sharpest, Child A who currently resides in an urban environs is quick to point this out on her home visits, but now it is currently defunct. After several hours on the phone, Sanjay is very sorry, but this house will be sans internet for two weeks or more. A man with an open reach will visit in a few weeks and if the problem is found to be of our own making we will be charged a hundred pounds or more. After a decade or more of poor service from BT we are resigned to our situation and feel a tad “mugged off” (studentspeak picked up in recent weeks). We are the furthest property from the exchange and must expect poor service. Thirty yards from this property is a BT pole connected to a different exchange that enjoys an imperious Internet service as does the rest of this small village. Five years ago BT took the decision that it was best to replace the twenty nine telegraph poles and one and half miles of cable to maintain this ancient telegraph spur than connect us to the other exchange thirty yards down the road.

Bonkers!

In the grand scheme of things, no internet is no biggy. The lady who sleeps on my left and I are relearning the art of conversation, a little hesitant with a hint of staccato rhythm, it is back and forth conversation all the same. Child B has started to notice things and occassionally look up. On current performance BT and their poles and lines must be under threat from the mobile companies and the air borne pixies that deliver the internet via the magic of fresh air.

At home, following my triple pike with tuck, salco and flop from the roof (Olympic legacy?) the wrecking ball has been booked and a substantial redesign is planned for the out buildings that house the tractor and all the other gubbins that are necessary for looking after a chalkstream and rearing a few brown trout.

A mile from here Flash Gordon only has twenty four hours to save the earth and a few acres of solar panels are currently being installed to help him in this task. For some reason Scottish power supply the parcels of electricity to the people of this parish and for several weeks they have been busy connecting the field of panels to the amps and ohms at the substation a few hundred yards from here. This has involved a surprise road closure that lasted for two weeks and a host of funny machines moving up and down the lane in the middle of the night. Investigations as to how the work is going and when our exit route from the village will be restored are invariably met with a chippy reply and a few verses of “O Flower of Scotland”

Culloden still counts for some in certain quarters.