I´m no expert on the fish of Loch Lomond but I am more of an expert than I was this time last week after having made a trip up to the Loch and to stare, for the first time, into its dark, peat-stained water. Continue reading
Category: Folks I know
My son Leo plays rugby and he just sent us a message to say that his team, Whitton Lions RFC, had won the league. This was his first season of rugby and he has obviously taken to it! Being in Spain while Leo plays in London I have not been able to see his weekly matches but last weekend I had a chance to get over there and arrived early enough to make the Saturday game. Continue reading
I fished on Christmas Eve with my son Leo and Johan Terblanche and, as we headed out to the river, I was quietly optimistic about our prospects. I had made an exploratory visit a couple of days before and had managed to extract a gypsy barbel from the Río Grande and the river looked good. It was running clear and there were a few fish around. Continue reading
Yesterday a few of us headed up into hills to a little town called El Colmenar. It turns out that at this time of year that sex-crazed deer, loaded with hormones, descend from the surrounding woods and start rutting. Pretty recently they were even seen walking about the town and there were X rated scenes involving these beasts witnessed by the outdoor swimming pool of the Hotel Rural Buitrera. Continue reading
Every now and then my brother Sean and Mark McCann manage to get a few days of fishing and head off into the hinterlands with fly rods thrown into the back of their cars and their heads swimming with dreams of trout and Guinness, both of which essential to the success of such ventures. Very occasionally I get to join them but it is increasingly hard to do because I live a long way away and the best times for fishing in Ireland tend to coincide with my busiest times at work. Continue reading
This blog of mine is the nearest thing I have to a diary and, as such, it´s great to be able to report on Leo´s big day on Saturday when he graduated from the University of York with a B.Sc in Accounting, Business Finance and Management. Catriona, Pippa, Grandad and I made it up to York for the occasion and we had lunch afterwards with the families of two of Leo´s closest friends from university. Continue reading
My brother Sean and our close friend Mark McCann head off fishing the mayfly every year on Lough Arrow and it is one of my few regrets about living in Spain and working as a teacher that I am unable to join them. I do however insist on getting a full report and Sean invariably provides an account in his own inimitable style. Mr McCann has also contributed to the cause this year and I have therefore, in the finest tradition of plagiarism, stolen their words and pictures, without their knowledge or consent, and include them here for us all to enjoy.
I was in Bavaria last week with a school group and met a very interesting chap. His name is Frank. He has a surname too but I don´t know what it is. Frank taught our students how to rock climb on a climbing wall outside the hostel. Frank is no spring chicken. We guessed his age at something greater than 60, maybe a good bit more, but he was fit as a fiddle and there wasn´t an ounce of fat on his wiry frame. Continue reading
