The cruellest month

 

Greetings!   It is said April is the cruellest month. It is not. It is January, the interminable opening month that comes around each year distributing gloom to every corner of the countryside. Sure, there are a few snowdrops as proof of life in that there earth but they are like Royal icing on a cold, soggy cake. Let us appraise a typical January day.    Sunrise is late; at 8am we are still as enlightened as moles. A few songbirds make a feeble effort at the dawn chorus but if Simon Cowell was on the judging panel it would be three noes from us. On the water the mallards fight each other because, like disaffected youths inhabiting the lunar wasteland of some post-industrial town, they can in the absence of anything else to do.   The moorhens, scared witless by I know not what, run screeching hither and thither for no apparent purpose. The trees drip, drip, drip cold greeting on all and anything beneath their spindly canopies. I would bring you tales of arrow light streaks from kingfishers or the foraging of cute voles to lift your spirits to engender hope of better times ahead but they are all entirely absent.        January dawn at Nether Wallop Mill

 

Forget about Dry January this should be Grey January, the universal colour of the sky. If it is not raining, it is grey. If it is not blowing a gale, it is grey. If it is not grey then it is almost certainly night. Occasionally the sun will appear for which we are pathetically grateful commenting to colleagues, friends and family as if it marked the Second Coming. Any outside activity is done in the belief that, as D:Ream sung, Things Can Only Get Better. Or that the very fact of being outside is Doing You Good. And it is not the cold that eventually drives you indoors but the damp that seeps to your core regardless of microfibre layers.   As we say goodbye to January, has there been anything good about the month? I will say in its defence it is a great month for spectacular sunrises and sunsets. It is also, to completely mangle Churchill, if not the end of winter then at least the beginning of the end of winter with 67 minutes more daylight than when we started the New Year.   PS Some facts random to make my point: ·     The Anglo-Saxons called January “Wulfmonath” as it was the month hungry wolves came scavenging at people’s doors ·     More couples separate or divorce in January than in any other month. ·     Daytime temperatures in January make it the coldest month of the year in the UK. ·     "Blue Monday" falls at the beginning of the third week of January and, according to scientists, it has been found to be the most depressing day of the year.

 

 

A bright intervention on a gloomy day   Soon after writing the above I went outside from The Mill in the gathering gloom of dusk for a final hatch inspection; it had pretty well been raining all day. In my cunningly chosen moment at a break in the rain I came across a cheerful little creature perched atop a gate post loudly warbling to an unseen companion who replied in similar kind.   Robins are the first and last birds to sing each day, so his (or her as the plumage gives little away in that respect)) timing was impeccable. Robins are, apparently, fiercely territorial and have been known to fight to the death to defend their patch. Maybe this was a new arrival as this gateway was an uncommon robin perch?

 

For the most part robins are faithful homebirds, preferring to live and die within a couple of miles of their place of birth. But not all. Some of the population hate the British winter as much as I hate a British January, migrating to Spain and Portugal until warmer weather draws them home. Or some, in search of food and fleeing snow and ice traverse the North Sea from Scandinavia.  For a while the robin kept me company, watching me as I went about my business the singing a happy antidote to January blues. But soon it was too dark to sing and too dark to work so we both called it a day.     Nether Gone   The mystery sign stealer is back. After a furlough of some years whoever had a penchant for our village sign is back, nicking it sometime last week.  It is all very odd because Nether Wallop hardly ranks up there in the UK village name stakes like Brown Willy, Brokenwind, Shitterton or Penistone. Or so I thought until I did some Googling to come across You Tubers who have ranked Nether Wallop as the UK’s fifth funniest village name.     Gone but not forgotten ......   The pair who are, to be truthful, quite engaging, are correct in the origins of the Wallop suffix though there are just two villages, Over and Nether, with Middle a relatively recent creation when the airfield, surrounding barracks and military housing came into being around WW1. In fact, until very recently in some Cold War throwback Middle Wallop never appeared on any maps or road signs to confound invaders.       How wet was 2024 for you?   How wet was 2024 for you? Pretty well regardless of where you lived the answer has to be wet to very wet. It takes a lot to significantly move an average but that was the story across England.   The driest region was the north-east at 114% long term average (LTA) rainfall with the wettest the south-east at 131%. Translated into rain gauge measurement that represents annual rainfall for the south-east of 42 inches instead of an average 32 inches. In case you were wondering the LTA is the years 1961-1990, though quite why it is such a trailing statistic I do not know.   What does that mean in practical terms for rivers? Well, if it was coming on the back of a dry year such as 2022 it would be catch up as the aquifers recharge a bit like topping up a water bottle. But, coming as it does on the back of a wet 2023, your water bottle is spilling over the table and drenching the floor in turn. Everywhere I go the meadows are flooded, streams bursting banks and winter bournes pummelling though. Three years ago I wondered whether the source of the River Kennet in Berkshire would ever flow again; last week it looked like a proper river.   I never like to say ‘if it does not rain between now and the start of the season we will still be fine” because that feels like offering a hostage of fortune to the Gods. So, I will not say it, but you know what I mean ……

 

A swollen Wallop Brook

 

 

Quiz   Back to the normal random collection of questions inspired by the events that took place on this date in history or topics in the Newsletter.   Answers are at the bottom of this Newsletter.   1)   Who wrote: “Above all, there are villages [in Britian] almost without number whose names are just endearingly inane………… Nether Wallop, and the practically unbeatable Thornton-le-Beans. (Bury me there!).”   2)   What was postponed on this day in 1944 until June?   3)   How many heads did Janus, the god on beginnings hence January, have?

 

Have a good weekend.  Best wishes,

 

 

Simon Cooper simon@fishingbreaks.co.uk Founder & Managing Directorwww.fishingbreaks.co.uk

 

 

1)   Bill Bryson in Notes from a Small Island 2)   Operation Overlord, the D-Day landings 3)   Two to allow him to look both forward and back