The long journey home
By Jeremy Lucas.
IT is every bit as good as we knew it would be, better even. We are free again to do what we love to do; explore our rivers and lakes, be a part of nature again. It’s like going home after a long time away. For me, right now, this means the Teise, in the Weald of Kent. One of many heavens given to us fly-fishers.
A meandering, clay and gravel-based stream, the Teise is fortuned with a guaranteed flow from massive Bewl Water, so is a precious ecological corridor in this often arid region. But really, the garden of England is a lovely place, and oddly not suffering the worst of the agricultural abuse so rampant throughout England, particularly the north.
In the glorious spring sunshine, the landscape unfolds with an impossible beauty, as seen from the Greensands Way, looking out over the High Weald, where the Teise and Beult flow down towards their shared confluence with the Medway.
I grew up in this landscape, and now I find myself on beat three of the Teise, walking downstream until I find a good access point from where I can move up or downstream, occasionally in the water, but mostly on the bank among the plethora of spring foliage. I’m home again where a kingfisher plunges, with unbelievable delicacy, and all manner of invertebrates, danica and olive uprights among them, lift off from the stream.
