Of course, our frustration is nothing to the heartbreak and cost to farmers, coming on top of their most terrible time for many years past. And it does seem to point up the fact that the farming business is something with which virtually no other business has to cope - the weather and animal ills.

At least in Sussex (at the time of writing) there have been no outbreaks of the dread F and M, although sheep had to be slaughtered on a reserve run by our sister trust in Essex. The main problem in Selwyn's Wood is that deer find their way into the wood. Deer are, of course, cloven-hoofed animals and thus are subject to the disease.

In some ways the closure of our reserve was coincidental because we were about to stop working within the less-frequented parts of the wood. This was because birds are now nesting and we have to be careful not to disturb them.

We had been taking down a few trees in an area where the trust wants to convert derelict coppice into high forest. Our job was to select the best trees from the outgrown chestnut coppice and remove some of the small, misshapen and double-stems from the many birches.

Now that we have called a halt to that work, we plan to widen a footpath or two before the brambles close them completely in the spring. It is work which will not disturb the wildlife unduly.

Hopefully, we will be able to start on that before too long.

John Hall © 2001