The Good Life

During the middle of last week, the call of the coast became too loud to ignore, so with a freshly washed and fettled truck we made our way to Wales for a spot of "The Good Life". The journey was fine, apart from the rain that is, the truck was filthy by the time we arrived on site. Once at our desired location I filled a couple of buckets from the river and quickly washed off the truck, I hate it looking dirty.

It didn't take me long to get the fishing gear set up either and soon I was hauling in the first wild brown trout of the season, remembering the difficulty I had catching this time last year, I was very pleased with myself and this fine fish (albeit small). The next couple of days were quite relaxing, fishing whenever the mood should take me, enjoying a reasonable amount of sunshine and when I wasn't fishing, tying a few flies. Sadly, the weather began to take a turn for the worse, winter made a stealthy attack, and left teeth marks in our rear, the river has been running fast and brown since. So the last couple of days, have seen us confined to the "not so great indoors" and the comfort of the gas central heating. I took to making a few more items from my leather stocks, the first is a belt that I carved, I really like the pattern, it is not too garish and I left the leather in it's natural colour, just polished it with some beeswax. I may put it in my internet shop. Then, I thought that I would treat myself to a new wallet, so for two days solid, I sat building the most ornate wallet that I have made to date using calf skin and some cow hide for trim. It's a bit fancy, but what the hell and it is probably worth more money than it will ever carry at any given time. Of course, I made a matching

belt loop and rein to go with it and I even remembered to put my makers mark on this one. Now the forecast is for a few days of warm sunshine, so with a little luck it will be back to spot of fishing and maybe a little saving on the gas.