Reed of all trades

      I do like what the people in this area call Norfolk Reed. It grows by and in the dykes, at the side of the  large and small drains it seems that if there is moisture it will grow, the roots travelling along underground and throwing up shoots in a seemingly random fashion.

      When you have lived here for a few years you realise how important it must have been to the original inhabitants of the fens and even up to the present day. Way back the ubiquitous reed roofed their homes and buildings and chopped and mixed with clay it made the walls of the houses, it provided the winter bedding for his animals and even roofed the hay stacks that provided fodder for his cattle in winter, never mind the stuffing for his own mattress. Then there's the firelighting potential of the dry reed, clever stuff Norfolk Reed and it's totally disposable or to use a current word, biodegradable.

      On a more trivial level to survival I've made fishing floats with it and pens for drawing too, they're even more throwaway than cheap biros because they compost down although they would never have replaced the large quills used for serious writing and record keeping.

      The sound that it makes in the wind varies from summer to winter and whether the reed is green or dry but either way that's the sound of the lonely places out on the Fen. Then you realise that it's home to lots of wildlife; reed and willow warblers, water birds nest and live in the small jungle that it creates along the river and drain banks meanwhile underwater the reed stems and root provides cover and a home for insects, small fish and amphibians as well as the larger predators.
      Norfolk Reed is a clever plant and sadly it seems to be taken for granted. The reed is everywhere but I don't think that people see actually it anymore.