I slept rather well. I
knew I was tired as the alarm woke me. That rarely happens. Over brekkie I
watched this week’s episode of “South Park”
in which Butters was selling vaping juice to the kindergarten kids.
I got myself organised and set
off to my car. I came back for my watch and set off again. I collected the
first fruit of my loin and we drove to Rocky’s café for second brekkie. You can’t
beat a fry-up. And then on with the business of the day. Fishing!!
We’d decided to try Charlie’s Lakes today.
You can see what we got up to by
clicking here. "My
Boy TM" likes it there. I’m not entirely sure. The place
has more rules than you can shake a stick at. When I mentioned where we were
going in the tackle shop yesterday no one had a good word to say about the
place; or (more specifically) about the
pedantic jobsworth attitude which prevails there. I don’t like the “don’t do this – don’t do that” which
characterises the lakes, but "My Boy TM" says he
prefers fishing somewhere which has that ethos. Apparently it encourages the serious
angler and discourages the idiots.
I
am reliably informed that I am neither serious angler nor idiot. I (apparently) am “borderline”.
We arrived, we handed over our money
and were issued with landing nets. We were not to use our own, nor were we to
use our own unhooking mats. We were to use the ones provided. I must admit this
suited me. I got to try out an unhooking cradle (I liked it) and at the
end of the day the car didn’t stink of fish.
It wasn’t long before we were
fishing, and I had a rather good carp on the bank within minutes. And then
another. And another. The fish weren’t huge, but on the light tackle we were
using they put up a good fight.
Yesterday the weather forecast
had said there was a twenty per cent chance of rain between mid-day and two o’clock.
The heavens opened just after eleven o’clock. I got my brolly up, but my tackle
got soaked. When the rain stopped it dried out somewhat, only to get sodden
again in the next deluge.
The rain finally stopped at two
o’clock by which time everything was wet through. Bearing in mind we were cold
and our tackle was wet (and so was our fishing apparatus) we moved
across the lake to a spot in the sun where we might dry out.
This wasn’t quite the brainwave
it might have been. I found myself facing the sun and was blinded every time
the sun came from behind a cloud. I did hook a *really* big fish, but it
got away. That boiled my piss.
So I decided to go for quantity
rather than quality, stuck a maggot on the float and went for the silvers. If
ever you find yourself thwarted piscatorially I can heartily recommend sticking
a maggot on a float and going for the silvers. I caught loads,
Eventually we dried out. "My Boy TM"
had received orders from home, and so we packed up and came home. I left my
tackle strewn around the shed in the forlorn hope that it will dry out, and I
took the dogs for a walk.
For
no reason that I could fathom Treacle kept going into the “sit” position every ten yards. Eventually she stopped; I wonder
what that was all about?
Just
as we got to the Hubert fountain the heavens opened again. Getting wet was certainly
something of a theme for today. We came home, I gave the dogs their dinner, and
with "er indoors TM" off to a works do this evening
I went up the road to forage for my dinner.
Oh,
I got cross.
I thought I might go to the kebab shop and get
kebab and chips. And as I would be sharing it with the dogs I would get an
extra portion of meat. Kebab and chips and an extra portion of meat. How
difficult is that? First of all the people in the kebab shop had a go at me because
the meat portion comes in one size. Eventually they got the idea that I wasn’t
asking for extra for free, but they couldn’t comprehend the concept of a
portion of kebab meat with nothing else with it. I suggested I had kebab and
chips twice, but only had chips with one of them. It was when they eventually made
it clear that they would do this as a special favour to me (on the
understanding that I should be eternally grateful) that I saw red. I told
them not to bother and that I would get my dinner from the KFC. “KFC?”
they asked. I pointed to the KFC over the road, went there, and waved to them
as I walked in.
The people in the KFC had no
trouble whatsoever with a Mighty Bucket for One and two extra mini fillets. As
I walked out I again waved to the doom-brains in the kebab shop who were
looking at me with the most blank of expressions.
We all enjoyed our KFC. I then
sparked up my lap-top and started my latest Coursera course.
Archeoastronomy. Rather interesting stuff. I found it rather ironic that I
should be doing this on the last Friday of the month. Time was I would have
been at the astronomy club on the last Friday of the month. I’m learning astro stuff
again, but this time without having to smile sweetly at those who make no
secret of their contempt for me…
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