I
woke rather early, and once up I tiddled the dogs. Both then wanted to go
upstairs to bother "er indoors TM". "Furry
Shark TM" charged up under her own steam, I had to carry
"Furry Face TM". Since he’s taken to eating the
high-calorie puppy food he’s piled on the pounds and climbing the stairs is a
bit much for him.
My SkyPlus box had recorded another
episode of Dad’s Army so I watched that over brekkie, then got my fishing gear
together and drove round to collect "My Boy TM".
We had a spot of brekkie then drove down
to the canal at Kenardington. We’d been planning a spot of pike fishing for
months. Imagine our disappointment when we found the canal was empty. Yes –
empty. Someone must have opened the sluice gates; where once the canal was ten
yards wide today it was an expanse of mud with a trickle of water which was
barely two yards wide and one foot deep. It was utterly unfishable, so we
resorted to our backup plan; Shirkoak lake.
According to the information sign the
gate to Shirkoak lake is opened at 7am every morning. We got there at 8am to
find it locked. We rang the enquiries phone number but it went to answerphone.
Thirteen times. We walked up to the nearby farmhouse where the fishery owner
lives. There was no sign of life. We had little option but to try Chequertree
fishery.
We were soon at Chequertree. We set up
and started fishing. Fishing was slow; but what do you expect for the shortest
day of the year? Dan had caught seven before I caught my first, but I
eventually got going. We both eventually lost count of how many we had, but
using our usual criteria of counting species I won by seven distinct types of
fish (perch, dace, rudd, roach, common
carp, mirror carp and crucian carp) to five. Mind you "My Boy TM"
did catch a goldfish. We’d neither of us seen that done before, let alone done
it ourselves.
The weather forecast for the day hadn’t
been good. We’d gone along expecting rain for the morning, and rain came. It
stopped for a brief spell around mid-day but soon came back. There was a minor
disaster when we found that the stake for the brolly didn’t actually fit. By
2pm we were both rather cold and wet and decided to call it a day. I took a few photos whilst we were out. I
would have taken more but I wasn’t keen on having my phone out in the rain.
Once home I ran the dogs round the block
then watched the last episode of “The
Young Pope” whilst the dogs got into mischief. I understand that there is
to be a second series of that show. I’ll be interested to see how that pans out
seeing how he croaked in today’s episode.
I then had a little doze in front of the
telly. Despite having got cold and wet on the shortest day of the year I still
somehow caught the sun.
"er indoors TM" boiled up a
rather good bit of tea, and then Charlotte came round and we spent the evening
getting savaged by "Furry Shark TM"… not a bad way
to spend the evening.
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