Last night I was asked to a friend’s belated St Patrick’s Day party. There was also a works do I could have gone to, and every Saturday I have a standing invitation to a regular film night at a friend’s house. I went to none of these. I was boring and I stayed in and had an early night – even though I’d spent a large part of the afternoon asleep on the sofa, I was worn out. But was still wide awake at 9am this morning.
I have a theory that I would do far better actually having two sleeps a day, each of about four hours, rather than trying to have one big sleep of eight hours like everyone else.
I looked at the lawn this morning and thought about mowing it. Mind you, I only thought about it. Had I not wasted an hour or so earlier by mucking about on my work-related web projects I would have had time to do the lawn. I decided it would still be there late and left it to carry on growing.
And then the door bell rang. Next door (the ones we get on with) were having a dilemma: they’d had a parcel delivered, but it wasn’t for them. Did we know anyone locally named “Mannning”? ‘er indoors TM did, and directed the nice lady from next door to a house down the road, with the advice that the house she wanted used to be painted green. That was helpful, and after a minute or so, ‘er indoors TM realised what she’d said. I did laugh.
I could have gone to the arky-ologee club’s dig today. ‘er indoors TM did. I left her to it, and once “Daddies Little Angel TM ” and the Rear Admiral arrived, we went fishing. The plan was to go to the pond at Coldblow, but “Daddies Little Angel TM ” wanted to see Pork Chop and the other lambs, so we went to the Batfarm instead. Whilst Batty and “Daddies Little Angel TM ” did ovine activities (look it up!), me and the Rear Admiral set up fishing. There are those who say that fishing is a dull pursuit. At 2.30pm this afternoon I would have agreed with them. After an hour and a half without a single bite, we gave up, packed up, and set off home. Seeing it would be on our way home (if we went home by a very stupid route) we thought we’d have half an hour’s fishing at Coldblow.
We should have gone there first. “Daddies Little Angel TM ” had a fish within thirty seconds of casting out. I had two in the next minute. And so it went on – loads of fish. “Daddies Little Angel TM ” ended up with twenty, I had thirty-five. And even the Rear Admiral caught something. Whilst at Coldblow we were joined by a fellow blogger who had never been fishing before in her life. We kitted her out with a rod, and she hooked the biggest fish I’ve ever seen at Coldblow. The carp she had on was enormous – certainly bigger than any Koi I’ve got in my pond. Unfortunately it got away, but this wasn’t a bad fish to have as the first fish she’d ever hooked.
Another piscatorial first happened today. Both the Rear Admiral and I caught the same fish. At the same time! The one fish had both our hooks in its gob when go collectively caught it. I’ve never heard of this before, and certainly never seen it.
We’d arrived at Coldblow at 3pm and had planned to be there for half an hour. Eventually falling temperatures and fading light forced us to pack up at 7pm. It was surprising just how cold it got in a very short space of time. But it was a very good first fishing expedition of the year. Mind you, there is a minor hiccup we discovered today. Over the winter a farmer has fenced off half the pond. The entire southern half is now utterly inaccessible. I shall have words with those to whom I pay money so’s I can fish that pond….
True story: I once caught the same 4 pound smallmouth bass as a colleague of mine caught, only I caught it a week later. I know it was the same fish because it still had his lure in its mouth. He had just about landed it the week before when it broke off and escaped. Knowing of all this in advance, I sought it out at the same location, and damned if I didn't catch it! I even returned my colleague's lure to him.
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