The trouble is that it is not like slipping into the garden for a quick dig or a spot of weeding between the showers. No, like most busy people the green team can each allocate just so much time for the reserve. So if the weather messes us about, the situation is compounded. For instance no individual is allowed to work alone on the reserve for reasons of safety. Then again, if you HAVE got two people, one must be a first aider - and probably the second one forgot the first aid kit! And lives five miles away! So because of all these and other hold-ups my planned winter schedule has gone completely awry. Heigh ho, that's life...

So we are desperately mowing the top ride because the spring flowers can grow like a dream without the brambles. We have worked out a routine for mowing - mainly to make certain that we don't overdo it and mow more than we can clear up in a morning's work. This way no brash is left by the mower to rot on the grass and become nutrients.

Mind you, there will soon be nothing much to mow! In which case we will have to resume work on another stretch of alder coppicing along the streamside. They are pretty big trees, which will make for hard graft, more particularly if the stream is running! But we can always find an alternative job to do.

The "streamside" is something of a misnomer because part of it is frequently just a deep ditch until a real stream joins it, followed by a second, bigger one, after which it becomes a tiny marsh, slips into a neighbouring wood and chuckles away to join the Cuckmere. Mostly in a dry summer there are no streams at all. On the other hand they have now been running for 18 months: evidence of the heavy rainfall during that time.

What a pity that things have come to this pass: too much or too little weather - which, I now realise, is what I grumbled about when I started this article. It has come full circle... But I must just add that it doesn't help our wildlife that the springs fail in most summers, probably because we all bath too much!

John Hall © 2002