I wasn’t the first person to notice how good Carmelo is at spotting fish in the river. I imagine that most of his clients point this out to him. Carmelo and I were born within a year of each other and, being of a certain age, we might be expected to struggle somewhat in the eyesight department. This is certainly true for me, but it is not at all true of Carmelo. Few situations reveal deteriorating eyesight as clearly as tying tiny dry flies or attaching them to fine tippet, yet Carmelo can do all of this without the aid of glasses. When we discussed this, he pointed out that his mother, now 103, can still read the newspaper without spectacles. I guess it’s all in the genes.
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If a person had even half a brain, they would not have given a second’s consideration to walking from Reinosa to Fontibre yesterday afternoon. The rain did not let up for even a moment, and that would have come as no surprise to any of those half-brained people who had kept an eye on the weather. So yesterday afternoon — as you will not be surprised to hear — I decided to leave Reinosa and walk to the source of the River Ebro at Fontibre.
Continue readingPaul Reddish and I took a trip along the Pisuerga River yesterday, meeting the river in Aguilar de Campoo and following it upstream towards its source in the Cantabrian Mountains. The road can only take you so far — we pretty much ran out of tarmac in the little village of Santa María de Redondo, home to dogs that sleep in the street and begrudgingly allow you to drive on. There’s an ample car park for those who want to hike further, but it was a little late in the day for us to do that. That hike follows the course of the river initially before separating, but it eventually leads to the river’s source, said to be a spring called Fuente Cobre.
Continue readingI don’t know which one of us is more stupid — me or our dog, Sable. The two of us have taken to wandering the local tracks of the campo and trekking across open fields in the moonlight, when anybody with half a brain would be tucked up in bed.
Continue readingWe have just come back from a hike up the tops of some of the peaks that we had seen when previously walking the caminito del Rey, Andalucia´s famous cliff edge walking path. There were three of us, my daughter Pippa, myself and Sable the black labrador that, you may recall, had disgraced herself during her audition as my fishing companion. Today, to her credit, she did not put a foot wrong and was excellent company throughout. She is knackered now though, and is fast asleep at my feet.
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