Author's note:- I became fascinated with dendritic chalk streams when I first moved to Sussex and learned of their uniqueness. This fictional creative piece allows he voice of cyril to talk about similar streams in Hampshire in the context of 'shifting baseline syndrome'. It is the first in a series of 12 essays on 'Shifting baselines' looking at different ecosystems and how they have become depleted in living memory. They are written in dialect where possible to acknowledge