The "Santa run"

With the festive feasting all but finished for a while I thought that I would write a few words. We both had the Christmas that we wanted, (as I hope you did too) quiet, but also with some time with our loved ones. This is the scene that we woke to here in rural Staffordshire, a crisp -10 degrees Celsius, absolute stillness and not a machine could be heard to spoil the silence. After walking Meg along the river bank we loaded up the car and set off on the "Santa run". Our family all live quite close by (within 15 miles) and so it wasn't long before we were looking at their happy smiling facing. I suppose we spent about an hour or so in the homes of each of our daughters, getting spoilt and bombarded with the excited chatter of the children. As always, we were presented with some lovely, thoughtful gifts for which we would like to thank them all very much. The thing that gave me personally the most pleasure was the giving of the gifts that I had spent weeks making and whilst they may not be adorned with those desirable designer labels or high price tags there is much love and respect in every hand stitch that I made. Girls, I do hope they are ok.

So, with Santa's sacks all now empty and my heart filled with contentment, we returned to the truck where we opened our gifts to each other before Pat set about the cooking of the most delicious Christmas dinner. Thank you all, so very, very much.

"Sods law"

The winter solstice was yesterday and for me it is always a day to look forward to, the return to lengthening days perks me up and with today's repeated dumping of snow I am pleased to have something that lifts my spirit. For the last four or five days, "T", who is 9 years old and one of our grandsons came to stay with us, he likes to go fishing with me and seems to have a growing interest which I am keen to encourage. Many times he has told me that he would love to fly fish, so after a few fruitless sessions, in temperatures that can invoke temporary, involuntary sex change in men we made a trip into town where he bought himself the basics in fly fishing gear. He is naturally very proud of his new equipment and despite the fact that the river has been frozen over for much of it's length we kept having a bash. I would love to have seen his face when he hooked into a decent grayling, but sadly this time it wasn't to be. This morning we had to take the little chap back home to his Mom in order to ensure he is in his own bed when "Santa" calls by. As we returned to the site around midday, the snow began to give way to the sun and I went walkabout with my camera. It was so pleasant, that within half an hour I decided that I just had to try my hand fishing once more. I made my way to a spot that I know often holds a few fish and knelt down facing the sun. Casting here is difficult, there is only a narrow window of about six foot between the boughs of trees but my little 7ft rod is perfect for the job. The water here runs quite slowly and so I laid the fly with as much delicacy as I could muster. It took no more than ten minutes before I was in a full scale battle with a good sized fish. I was sure that I had hooked a grayling because this fish fought me long and hard for several minutes. When the fish finally conceded defeat and was nestled quietly in my net I saw that it was in fact a chub, the second in a week and weighing in at 2lb 1oz. I felt so sorry for "T", only a couple of hours since his departure and "sods law" applies.

One more cast

Today has been quite overcast and despite a temperature of 5 degrees Celcius, with the northerly wind it felt more like 0 degrees and with nothing very pressing to do I went fishing, fishing for grayling that is. For an hour and a half, I searched a stretch of water of about half a mile or so without so much as a sign of any fish. Having only caught one fish each time that I have been out this week, I wasn't too surprised. When the cold had penetrated my bones to the point of near immobility I decided to head back to the truck. Every 20 metres or so I would stop, peer into the water and make another few half hearted casts in the hope that I may get lucky. As I approached a sharp bend in the river I saw a large dark fish, unfortunately it also saw me and moved away. Like a geriatric commando, I crept away and upstream in the hope that the fish wasn't feeling too energetic and may still be in the area. From a kneeling position I made several casts of a fly followed by a slow and gentle retrieve. Another half a dozen fruitless attempts and a small collection of rotting twigs and I decided, one more cast and I'm off back in the warm. So, one final cast and a long dead drift toward the bend before beginning the retrieve. To my surprise I felt the hook set into something quite heavy. Slowly I pulled in the line thinking I had hooked a dead branch or tree root, then the line really tightened, my rod bent over and I had to ease my grip on the line so that my 2lb line tippet didn't break. This was followed by a large swirl on the surface of the water and the brief showing of a fin. Gently and smoothly I hauled in the line and brought my prize over the net, a big fat chub. Before releasing it I weighed the fish on the new digital scales that Pat bought me for our anniversary, 2lb 8oz. what a corker.

The dangers of a safety rail

Well, what have I been up to for the last couple of weeks? Shovelling snow, defrosting water pipes, consuming huge amounts of fuel in an attempt to keep warm, much the same as the rest of you, I imagine. Of course, I took a few photographs just to look back on in the future. I have continued making Christmas gifts and have just about completed my list.

For the most part we coped with the last cold snap quite well, the one persistent problem was the freezing of the waste water pipe. It is routed on the exterior of the truck under the floor and therefor I don't really see that lagging it would serve much purpose in temperatures below minus five degrees Celsius. Defrosting was not an option and so we just took to using a bowl for washing etc. and emptying it in the normal place. Pretty as the landscape may have been I am pleased to have sight of green grass and tarmac once more. For a couple of days we had to return to the house, each day the children board the school bus just a few metres away from where we park up. The pick up point is on a corner and for the safety of the children there is a tubular steel safety rail to stop exuberant children from spilling into the road. Six of our eight grandchildren catch the bus here each day, one of them being Anabelle, aged nine. Now "B" as she is often called, is the kind of child that if you tell her not to do something because of inherent danger she has to find out if it is true. One day last week the temperature locally reached a piercing minus ten degrees and "T" (our grandson) warned all of the kids "Do not touch the rail with your tongue because you will stick to it" So, you guessed it. "B" did no more than walk over to the rail and licked it like a lolly. You can imagine her panic, when she tried to call for help with her tongue stuck firmly to a length of scaffold type railing. Her arms and legs flapping as she tried to attract attention to her plight. Unfortunately all of the supervising adults, myself included, were unable to assist due to incapacitating laughter. Poor little "B" eventually broke the bond and dripped a trail of blood in the snow back to the truck for some first aid by her Nan. Like a true hero she boarded the bus to school, a little embarrassed and with advice not to eat any salt and vinegar crisps for a day or two.The evidence was clear and visible for the next 24 hours and not just on her tongue. Oh "B", sorry for laughing but it did look funny.