I don´t know which one of us is thicker, me or my dog Sable. We have not had her for very long and I suspect that if you asked those who know us both which of the two of us was the brighter most would say that it is very likely the dog. Sable, they might tell you, has the edge in terms of cerebral firepower, if only by a whisker.
Continue readingCategory: Other bits and bobs
In our last night in Japan we had a chance to meet and speak briefly to a Maiko, a young lady undergoing training to become a Geisha (this training takes five years). She was moving from table to table in the restaurant where we were having dinner and she spoke briefly to the diners. She started with the table furthest from us and approached us slowly, table by table.
Continue readingJapan really is some country! There are so many wonderful things there – beautiful buildings, temples, bullet trains, courteous people, great cuisine and on and on. These things, and more, we expected we might find and we were never disappointed, but one thing that truly surprised me was the toilets of Japan. I do not mean to be discourteous or trivial or rude to our Japanese hosts in making these observations. The truth is that their loos demonstrate, if anything, the ingenuity of Japanese in an area of life that is relevant to all of us every day. They have given toilets much more thought than we in the west have ever done.
Continue readingWe have this new dog. Her name is Sable. A young black labrador, she is sleeping at my feet right now. I think that I knackered her out when we went fishing today.
Continue readingWhen we witnessed the cormorant fishing on the Uji river we were told that the fish that the cormorants catch are sweetfish or Ayu. I knew nothing of these fish and, in learning more about them, I found out about an ingenious way that Japanese fishermen catch them.
Continue readingA highlight of our recent visit to Japan was getting to see cormorant fishing on the Uji River which runs through Uji city in Kyoto. We came across this opportunity by chance, having climbed nearby to see the macaques on a nearby hilltop (these are monkeys famously seen bathing in hot springs during the depths of winter). Having worked up quite a sweat we decided to “chill” for a little while aboard a little hired rowing boat on the river nearby. It was only when we returned our boat that we came across a poster advertising boat trips to witness the ancient tradition of fishing with cormorants. We decided that we would return to do so the next evening.
Continue readingI spent last week with a group of school kids and a few colleagues in Doñana which, if you are not familiar with it, is an important National Park in Huelva Province on Spain´s southern Atlantic coast. Doñana is particularly famous for the population of Iberian Lynx which thrive there and a breeding centre located here has been instrumental in bringing these endangered felines back from the brink of extinction.
Continue readingA couple of weeks ago I had a day off and my wife Catriona was away for her work. So it occurred to me that I could do a lot worse than head off fishing in the Conde del Guadalhorce reservoir at El Chorro and have a crack at the carp that occasionally venture into the shallow margins.
Continue readingYesterday morning I took my little trio of newly-tied carp flies to the reservoir at El Chorro to see whether I might come across a carp to tell me whether or not they were up to scratch. As mentioned previously, the carp here may or may not put in an appearance. They´re kind of moody.
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