In amongst the bracken

Ouaisné Common is a wild, wild place. Which is a bit ironic, because it’s completely hemmed in by human settlement and development. In the summer, we’re told, tourists flock to the Mediterranean clime of its beach, and various bars and cafes make good business. But come to Ouaisné as winter is encroaching, and stand at the edge of the sand facing the mouth of the bay, where the buffeting gale pummels you with murderous force, and you won’t be able to imagine such a thing.

It’s bitingly cold, and there is rain in the air. Jagged escarpments of granite fall away into the headland of Corbiére, shifting shadows lost in restless waves, and surreally enough it’s like a scene from Homer’s Odyssey. Despite the weather and the time of year, the water is a startling Aegean blue. Frothy white tips betray a sullen anger.

I pull my hood up over my head as we endure the first spatter of rain, and then the wind becomes too much and we duck into the shelter of the coastal protection wall, constructed by the Germans during the Occupation in 1940-45. We’re on the Common.

Ouaisné (pronounced ‘Way-nay’) is actually one of Jersey’s richest and most diverse nature reserves. We’re here because, among other things, it’s now the last natural breeding site of the Agile Frog, Rana dalmatina, in the British Isles. Ouaisné’s history and current predicament reminds me of Pulpit Hill. The Common was originally an expanse of sand dunes, again kept sparse by the grazing of livestock such as sheep, cattle and horses. Tenants of the community also had rights to harvest bracken (for animal bedding) and gorse (for fuel and human bedding), but since the 17th century these practices have gradually fallen away, and now the dunes are reverting to wild heathland. The only bit of grazing these days is done by rabbits, who now play an important role in controlling scrub. But it’s a difficult task to bring the dunes back, since the German wall has cut off the sand flow from the beach.

The bracken, the gorse and the bramble love this. They demonstrate it by proliferating madly along the Common in huge, dense clumps twisting towards the sky in tangled glory. We walk in amongst this writhing mess, out of the wind, into a singularly strange landscape. It’s bleakly beautiful. In places the ground is moist and spongy, adorned with colourful mosses. In other parts, efforts have been made to cut the scrub back, and thick blackened stubs stick out of a ground overlaid with grey powder.
Sometimes the bracken has grown so high it claws up above our heads, and we have to stoop and squeeze and wriggle our way through. Daunted, and a little afraid, we push in, our passage punctuated by curses and cries of pain. The bracken is not kind, and there are sharp little bits lying in wait everywhere to poke you and snag you as you go past. The delicate scent of mint, crushed underfoot, floats up around us. Above us, the wind continues to bluster.

The pond where the frogs breed is all dried up. It’s now a gentle, shallow dip in the surrounding landscape. It’s so unassuming that at first I don’t even realise it’s supposed to be a pond. The most remarkable feature about it is the entrance to a rabbit burrow, a gaping hole, set into the earthen bank just below the lip of the pond. There’s nothing else to be seen. And then Bahir, ever the herpetologist, pounces upon a single frog, and suddenly there's something to be excited about.

Jersey’s Agile Frog is suffering. It’s a small, nondescript little thing, and it’s doomed (“If it’s so agile,” Richard Grisdale the ex-archaeologist asked, “why is it endangered?”). Otherwise common throughout Continental Europe, it’s not on the IUCN RedList, but due to its desperate situation on Jersey (it’s considered to be the most endangered amphibian in the British Isles), Durrell Wildlife has classified it as locally Critically Endangered. Numbers and range have been declining since the 1900s. The main culprit is poor water quality, on top of already low water levels. But the intensified property development around the beach doesn’t help either, and neither do the introduced cats and ducks which eat up the frogs and their spawn.

DWCT actually started a captive breeding and reintroduction programme, but one of the reintroduced populations was completely wiped out by a pesticide spill into their pond (doh!). Now the only remaining wild population is the one at Ouaisné…but it can’t even remain viable without being propped up by direct human intervention…so…you end up asking yourself the question: What’s the point anymore, really? …

We return the lone individual back to the damp moss, and leaving the shelter of the bracken, return ourselves to the open emptiness of the sea. The sun’s beginning to set, and it’s casting an eerie glow across the seething greyness of the sky. We’re given a few minutes to wander along the wall, to climb up and lean into the wind. The darkness is falling like a pall.

As if on cue, the fitful rain starts pelting down on us. We’re running now, freezing, flinging ourselves into the dry warmth of the taxi. This field trip, by unspoken agreement, is over and we’re ready for the comfort of Les Noyers.

The taxi backs up and turns. Trundling stolidly up the winding country road, we leave Ouaisné behind.

And I wasn't even drunk!

Despite being in a former farmhouse, now training centre, in a zoo on an island, we had one heck of a Halloween party here last night. Consequently this morning everyone was tired, and miserable, and visibly hungover. I wasn’t hungover myself, but I was certainly tired and miserable.

It started out well enough. The lemurs didn’t wake us on Monday morning, but we stepped out for classes to be greeted by the whooping of gibbons – a bizarre thing to experience in such a quaint European countryside setting. Then in the afternoon we were taken on a whirlwind tour of the zoo. And Jersey Zoo is definitely interesting. Instead of focusing on the usual popular crowd-pullers, Jersey keeps lesser-known species that are endangered in their home ranges, and every single exhibit is part of a wider conservation project. So instead of the usual elephants, tigers, zebras, giraffes, chimps, hippos etc. the zoo houses Golden Lion Tamarins, Black-and-White Ruffed Lemurs, Gentle Lemurs, Goeldii’s Monkeys, Livingstone Fruit Bats, Rodrigues Fruit Bats, Andean Bears, Nicobar Pigeons, Palawan Peacock Pheasants, Lowland Gorillas, Aye-ayes, Malagasy Jumping Rats, Mallorcan Midwife Toads, and Poison Dart Frogs.

We were hurried along too quickly to linger and observe, which was probably just as well since towards the end of our visit the grey skies opened and started dripping down on us. It was sometimes difficult to simply walk past and ignore the animals, particularly when a heartbreakingly endearing Goeldii’s Monkey scampered to the edge of its cage and chirruped inquisitively at me. The highlight of it all, though, was probably watching the Silverback (i.e. male gorilla) beat his chest and give his enclosure door a spectacular kung fu kick. He then rammed himself at the glass wall, probably in an attempt to flatten Shash and Sanjay, who were grinning at him from the safety of the other side.

Well worth a return visit, kung fu kick or no.

Halloween

Ah yes, Halloween. It didn’t use to be a big deal over here, but due to the increasing influence of popular American culture suddenly everyone is having Halloween parties left right and centre. Our class too, it seems, had to have its own Halloween party. Even despite (or perhaps because of) us being stuck on Jersey. At least that was what Louisa (not to be confused with Louise) was determined to make happen. And – horror of horrors, it had, of course, to be fancy dress.

In typical non-conformist fashion both Daria and
I showed up with no costumes. Louise, on the other hand, had hastily grabbed a plastic orange get-up from Tesco’s, complete with, err, blinking horns. She seemed mortified at having to put it all on, but when she was all dressed up she actually looked quite impressive. Even more amusing was the fact that Tristan was attired in exactly the same costume (“She’s my evil twin sister!”), although the discovery of a warning label on the back of his cape put a slight damper on things – no pun intended.


Sanjay and Shash, who technically should have been celebrating Deepavali, obliged wonderfully by carving out an absolutely wicked face on the pumpkin. Which is another example of Americana creeping in – traditionally, the English used to make their Halloween lanterns out of turnips(!).














I have to admit, although watching everyone jiggle and shimmy (and, as the night wore on, stagger around) in their Halloween finery was fun for the first 5 minutes, I quickly got bored. I tend to get bored at parties. I don’t drink, I don’t dance – and parties are never a good venue to attempt a deep and intellectual conversation. We were, at Louisa’s instigation, subjected to two party games – what’s that pass-the-ball-of-newspaper-around game called? Probably Pass the Ball of Newspaper Around, I guess. I remember playing that at birthday parties in Nottingham when I was about 5 years old. The other game was, er, I suppose, Dress Up the Mummy. It involved choosing someone who wasn’t in costume and using a roll of toilet paper to transform them into an Egyptian mummy. Guess who was one of the victims?? Before you laugh though, I was small enough that my group had me all wrapped up in record time – thus swooping in on first prize!! That was probably the high point of my evening. Oh yes, and getting dragged onto the dance floor several times. There was a lot of Abba being played that night.



















As I said though, after awhile I simply found it boring. So I decided to take a leisurely shower, and then go to bed early. Yes, party pooper, I know, but I was tired and I needed my rest. I escaped upstairs and took my time in the shower, but when I made my way back to the bedroom I discovered that the door was locked.

Now the door to the room is a very weird design. It’s one of those old-fashioned things that doesn’t actually have a handle, just a keylock. But instead of locking it manually with a key, it locks automatically as soon as you push the door shut. Louise and I had both been careful to leave the door wide open and carry our keys with us at all times. But this time, because I’d been in the shower, I’d left my key in the room. Oh, bugger. Alright, Louise had locked the door then. I had to find her and get her to unlock it.

A very drunk Daria came pounding up the stairs and practically fell over me. “Oh! Oh! You’re not asleep! Do you have the key? Louise is looking for you! She wants you to open the door!”

I stared at Daria as a very horrible feeling started to descend on me. “No, I don’t have the key. Does Louise have her key?”

Louise came up the stairs. “I don’t have a key. Who locked the door?”

“Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!” Daria swore drunkenly.

As Louise and I stared at each other we both started to realise something. The window in our room had been half-open. Louise must have pushed it up at some point to let the cold air in, because the room became particularly toasty when the heating switched on automatically every evening. Our part of the building was especially susceptible to wind; you could hear it howling coldly round the walls each night. And that night it was very, very windy…

I sank down onto the stairs, suddenly feeling very, very upset, as I grappled with the discovery that we were locked out of our room. All I had wanted was a hot shower and an early night. Now I couldn’t even get to my bed, and for a long moment I was literally paralysed with misery.

Daria, meanwhile, had flailed downstairs and frantically got Sanjay’s attention. Thankfully, Sanjay is a Jain and doesn’t drink. As the responsible class rep and kind-hearted saint that he was, he came up the stairs to see what was wrong. Miserably, I told him. Or rather, tried to, but I kept getting interrupted at every sentence by Jipate, who had followed on Sanjay’s heels and was now weaving unsteadily on the landing.

Jipate is African. He’s from Malawi, and each time an English person tries to say his name it comes out sounding like “Chapati”. All night he had stood resolutely in a corner and refused to be pulled into the festivities and merrymaking. I had noticed, however, that he had been steadily helping himself to the Bacardi all night. Now he was so wasted he was staring at me with the wide-eyed innocence of a young child.

Jipate: “What’s wrong?”
Me: “I got locked out of my room.”
Jipate: “But how did you do that?” (giggling)
Me: “I left my key inside.”
Jipate: “But just now you were wearing different trousers.”
Me: “Yes, because I just showered and changed.”
Jipate: “But how did you do that if the room is locked?”
Me: (gritting my teeth) “Because I left my key to go shower, and when I came back it was locked.”
Jipate: “But you are not wearing any shoes!”
Me: “No, because I went to take a shower.”
Jipate: “With no shoes?” (more giggling)
Me: “No.”
Jipate: “But how did you do that??”
Me: “Never mind, Jipate.”

I have very little patience for drunks at the best of times, but that night Jipate really was picking the wrong moment to try that patience. I was very ready to push him down the stairs.

Sanjay, thankfully, came to my rescue. After trying the door unsuccessfully, he pushed open the window on the landing and poked his head out.

“Err, no, Sanjay, not a good idea,” I said.

"No, it's not," he agreed, to my relief.

“What’s wrong?” asked Jipate, who had followed us to the window. (Later I saw him hugging Tristan, and apparently trying to kiss him).

Abandoning his idea of climbing out the window, Sanjay did the next best thing he could. He grabbed a mattress from a spare bed in his room, and dragged it all the way to Daria’s room, sheets and duvet and all. “You can sleep in Daria’s room for tonight,” he told me, “and in the morning we’ll get the spare key from Hannah.”

I was incoherent with gratitude. Louise had found herself a spare bed in the other girls’ room, so I set about making myself comfortable in Daria’s room. The mattress was on the floor, wedged in between Daria’s bed and the desk, and my head was right in front of the radiator. I didn’t care though. I was nice and warm and cosy, and it felt good.

I fell asleep almost immediately, and had an absolutely wonderful night’s sleep.