There is a lot to be said for goats. They wander round in flocks ringing their little bells. I bump into them on the river all the time and yesterday after I was done fishing I followed a herd back to the car where we parted company. I don´t know how many there were and, frankly, I had better things to do than count the damn things. This is not an easy job anyway. They move around a lot and so you could end up counting the same goat twice or maybe miss one completely. This is a job best left to specialists, in my opinion, or to insomniacs who find the counting of ruminants helpful in ameliorating the stresses caused by sleeplessness. Continue reading
Category: Other bits and bobs
I heard from Dave Felce a little earlier today and he told me about a fine pike he caught. His words describe the circumstances better than mine and he was kind enough to allow me to reproduce his account below, together with a photo of the fish and its captor…… Continue reading
I had no time to go fishing yesterday but went anyway. I figured I needed to be home within an hour and that the journey to the river would take 10 minutes, then another 5 minutes to tackle up, and then another 5 to reach a broad shallow where you can find the odd carp. And of course the return leg would take just as long. All of this mental arithmetic was carried out on my way to the river and the upshot of it all was that I would have only a few minutes to try to catch anything. It didn´t matter a jot though. I was going fishing anyway. Continue reading
If you don´t want to witness the pathetic spectacle of some bloke gushing over his daughter´s achievement you better look away now……. Continue reading
I was ambushed a few weeks ago by a bunch of women who made their way into my lab. They were on the lookout for some bloke with Celtic blood who could be coerced into wearing a dress onstage and taking part in an Irish dancing routine.
Why they should have chosen me remains a mystery. I have no co-ordination or grace to speak of ,and I am nothing to look at but I do tick the boxes as far as gender and genetic provenance are concerned. In the end I did what I always do when surrounded by domineering women; I meekly acquiesced to their demands. Continue reading
John Muskett sent me a message to tell me he had attended the funeral of Murray Thompson. By all accounts it was as good an occasion as you might wish for with fine words spoken. Murray was piped out of the church by his son William.
John included in his message a poem that Murray penned 20 years ago. It is lovely. Here it is: Continue reading
It pissed rain last night and the unrelenting downpour was such intensity that it would get the Noahs of this world asking themselves “have I got two of everything?!” There was lightning too and claps of shuddering thunder that had the dogs scratching at the front door. And then today began with open clear skies and a warm sun. Puddles on the track outside mirroring the blue sky were all that gave testament to the dramas of the previous night.
The river was swollen with rainwater. I brought the rod when I went to look, first at the Guadalhorce and then at the Río Grande in the vague hope that a quiet eddy might have a few fish I could try for. I lowered my rod top into the stained water to test the visibility and it was no more than an inch or two and it soon became clear that fly fishing was a simply not on the cards. Continue reading
The fish had the last laugh on the river this afternoon. The only one I did manage to hook flew off as though he had been fired from a cannon and then buried himself in a pile of weeds. When I finally caught up with him and waded into the river to extract my leader from the weeds he got away. Good luck to him. You can´t beat a bit of initiative. Continue reading
An odd thing happened this afternoon as I was exploring a little section of the Río Grande. I looked down on the arm of my short-sleeve shirt and realised I had snagged a some little twigs, probably as I had been pushing through some brush, and it was only as I was set to brush them off that I realised it was a praying mantis. Continue reading
Bird watching is not rocket science. All you need is a notebook, a pair of binoculars and some kind of bird identification book.
Pippa and I reckoned that even a couple of morons like us could manage that. In the event we had no binoculars. I do actually own a pair have but they got drenched one time I took them fishing, and using them is like looking through a submarine periscope while the sub is still underwater, during the night.
When we were on our outward journey we realized that the notebook and pen were at home on the table, just beside the RSPB Complete Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe. Continue reading
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