Let it snow....

Only an inch or two by first light....

It seems too short a time since we last had a snowfall of such proportions. We moved house in the last lot only to be snowed in for a couple of days afterwards with up to sixteen inches more of the stuff. Not that we minded - it gave us a break to square the cottage. Yet here we are with November still not ended, temperatures dropping to stay at around freezing during the day and well below that during the night. Altnahara in the Highlands recorded -20 and -10 has been fairly common across the UK.

It does, however make for some pretty scenery and walking around the estate today with the camera proved lucrative enough as far as Chocolate Box photography is concerned.

My wife was saying how much she loves the sound of the crunch of footsteps in the snow and it really is an evocative sound. The sound and sight of snow takes one straight back to one's childhood. I wasn't brought up in the UK but West Germany until my teens and snow was certainly not uncommon over in Europe where my father was stationed, being further east. So snow for me is a direct memory link to my formative years, sledges, thick gloves and hats being requisite from November to February.

The Holly is full of berries this year...

Our bird feeders are taking a severe hammering. We're having to fill them up on a daily basis with a scattering of seeds around the base to feed the pheasants, robins, pied wagtails and other visitors that can't or don't like getting up to the feeders. I haven't seen much sign of the rabbits, though the squirrels are as abundant as always. I suppose all the wildlife struggles at this time of year, so we're glad to help really.

Foraging Forays.

Mainly Parasol Mushrooms





Parasol Mushroom, Sweet Chestnut
Field Mushroom, Hazel Nut
Chantrelles, Rose Hip
Ceps, Walnuts
Boletus mushrooms, Rowan Berries
Horse Mushrooms, Elderflowers
Amathyst deceivers, Elderberries
puffballs, Sloes
Chicken of The Woods, Blackberries
Wild Garlic. Sorrel

The above list are most of what we've picked up in the woods over the last six months or so. Obviously care is needed when foraging - there are many pitfalls for the unwary, uneducated or merely hopeful. Certainly when picking mushrooms extreme caution should be excercised, there are a dozen or so mushrooms that can kill and several dozen that can cause severe gastric upsets. If you're not 100% sure - then don't eat it, don't even pick it!

Horse Mushroom

The same goes for some of the flora that can be foraged. There are many members of the potato and carrot family that can kill or at the very least cause severe illness, so again, make sure of what you're picking. There are many brilliant books available - try the River Cottage series on mushrooms, Hedgerow and Seashore for information, humour and recipes.

Sloes, chestnuts, hips and walnuts

But we've made chutneys, jams and jellies galore, sloe gin, bramble vodka, rosehip syrup, risottos, omlettes and eaten the nuts au naturelle, so to speak.

I would encourage anyone to get out with a couple of good books and have a good look around. It's fun, educational, healthy and free!

Bewl

Harry and I met again at this large Kent/East Sussex reservoir hoping for a change of luck and as I now live less than a mile away, it seemed churlish not to have yet another go at the pike that have eluded me thus far. Harry's had a couple including a lovely upper double - I usually catch trout!

This time we took deadbaits with us as well as lures - actually that should be well dead baits, as I'm sure they were not the freshest baits by a very large margin. However they worked, Harry, they worked.

The Autumn colours were as wonderful as always at this time of year and spotting the red maples amongst the yellow and gold birches, chestnut and beeches was a real joy, even more so as the day was bright, calm and mild. The reservoir, however, did not look as pretty being lower than I can ever remember seeing it before. With all the rain we've been having lately, one wonders where the water has gone.

I was the first to catch after a couple of hours drifting and casting. We anchored up in a quiet spot, cast out a bait rod each and proceeded to cast a few lures around the boat keeping an eye on the floats as we did so. After almost an hour my float disappeared and the resulting 5 pound jack was as tatty as any I've caught before which leads me to wonder about the viability of Bewl as an ongoing fishery.

We then spent a few hours drifting and trolling and although we found many interesting features - we found no fish. I had one pull, from a trout probably, and as we settled back into the earlier, lucrative swim, Harry had a take on a small plastic which resulted in a small jack - but at least we both caught.

The shame of it was, as always, that just as things started to look up, we had to get back, the boat needed to be at the jetty by 4 pm. However, the fly anglers could stay out until dusk - another hour or so of fishing. I think our money is as good as theirs....

Accidents will happen

Since we've lived in the cottage - we moved in January this year - we've had a plethora of accidents, incidents and happenings on the road alongside.

Although we live on the A21, we are shielded by trees which means the traffic is a quiet woosh and we don't hear the bangs and smashes that occur up and down the road. Usually, though, we see the cars pull up onto our drive, or the flash of indicators - sometimes even the police, ambulance or recovery truck.

So far we've had a young man who smashed his wheel and didn't know how to change it, a delivery van in a ditch, several lost drivers, a rear end shunting and, just last month, a deer hit. AS yet no-one has been hurt (except the deer) but we don't relish the next few shunts and scrapes.

The delivery van was an interesting case in point; he was delivering some items for my wife's business when he reversed into a ditch whilst turning. I towed him out with the Defender and he delivered his parcels. Then he drove into another ditch! Out with the Land Rover again.

The last incident with the deer was naturally a sad event as a wonderful large buck was killed. However, it wasn't wasted. The guys who hit it were on their way to a shoot and Steve, a colleague of their's, pulled up in his Nissan truck and three of us loaded the buck into the back. Later that evening he turned up with a shoulder of venison for me and two duck he'd shot that day. Very nice. I've since been on a couple of shoots and met some wonderful characters.

Fishing again!

I dunno! No fishing for 6 months, then twice in 5 days! Another friend, John Dashfield - from the same breakfast meetings - invited Phil and I to fish a little lake just a mile or so from where he lives. John is a md keen c*rp fisherman and has fished all over the country for his prey. he's caught fish to well over 30 pounds and has an almost scientific approach to his angling. He was winching his baits across the lake today, to ensure that they were in exactly the right place. He has far more patience than I.

It paid off. He caught the only carp, whilst Phil and I contented ourselves with catching roach and bream on the feeder and float. I used the float for a couple of hours in an attempt to see what else was in the lake, but I only caught bream and only up to a pound or so. I had a carp run on the boilie rod, but it went straight into a snag and came off almost imediately.

So I sat taking photo's of the mallards and a mayfly as it drifted past, in between the rain showers and catching up on gossip with John and Phil, good company both.

John returned a few days later and caught a fourteen pound mirror, but he's sure there are 20 pounders in the lake.

I might have to go back!

Fox Cubs

I was walking through a thick Sweet Chestnut copse at the back of the cottage about a week ago. These thin trees used to be coppiced and grown tightly together so that they would grow long and tall, then they were cut as hop poles to be used on the Kentish Hop Farms. Now they struggle to grown as they are so dense and yield little in the way of fruit in the autumn. Ongoing work on the estate is creating clearings here and there in order to diversify the wildlife.

Anyway I was walking through one of these areas at the back of the cottage when I spotted something moving ahead. At first I thought it was a couple of rabbits, but realised they were walking not lopping along. My next thought was badgers, but I soon realised that they were fox cubs. By this stage I had pretty much scared them off so I vowed to come back and tog them if I could. By the way togging means photographing, it's just quicker to type.

To get close I had to walk the long way around the den to make sure I was down wind and then sit with my back against an oak tree to keep as low profile as possible as possible. When the fox cub appeared it seemed not to see me and was relatively unconcerned. It seems they have great hearing and smell, but the ye sight is not so good. Then, of course when you have a photo of one cub, you then want a picture of two together, and although vermin, they were very cute.

One evening, as Franc and I sat waiting for the cubs, we were granted the sighting of two Fallow Deer. They spotted us immediately, but stood watching us warily as I tried to get some photo's of them through the foliage. It was our best sighting so far.

Corporate Days

Yes, fishing - on a fishing blog - and it was absolutely fantastic to dust off the rods, brush off the flies and shake the cobwebs from the reels.

Phil Sharnock, a friend, invited me to a Salmon & Trout Association organised day, an annual event held at a local Trout Fishery and attended by 20 or so souls of varying ability. It was a bright and very warm morning and would end up as the warmest day of the year thus far. The water was exploding with tadpoles, clouds of them appearing from the weed like an oil slick, not that trout like them - they must taste horrid!

Having arrived later than most, I chose to fish in a bay for the first hour or so without a touch. It was obvious that the fish were in the deeper water at the dam end, and as soon a spot opened up, I jumped in. I had a fish fairly quickly - a fat 3 and a half pounder - taken on a slow fished gold head damsel, and half an hour or so later I had another on a deep nymph.

It was soon time for a rather wonderful lunch - heavy on the carbs and wine, but nevertheless a welcome time to sit back, relax and listen to some tall tales, mostly from Phil and Glyn Hopper before returning to the warm sunshine and another fish taken very deep and slow.

I won a Swiss Navy Tool (!) in the raffle, but I have to say it was an enjoyable day spent in good company and I am indebted to Phil and the STA for their hospitality and to Glyn for the local information.

Cheers fellas.