Catch up

Where to start!

Home: Next door

Result...  a much better view! I know they are from Cambridgeshire but the travellers camp has moved on!

Garden

We've still not picked the fruit and it's holding on getting sweeter, must get some trays to keep the Conference and the Howgate Wonder in storage..
We've (I've) decided the grapes will be left to the blackbirds.

The pond though, does need a good clear, I can hardly see the fish!

We've got the back hedge trimmed by the local farmer.At this time of year he deals with all the roadside hedges around his land.
I just happened to catch him in time as he was trimming the next door field. £50 in his pocket sorted a job which cost me over a ton last year.
The gardener who did it has gone lorry driving.
So a tractor with a cruncher(technical term) on the front, made quick work of it.
I just had to go around to the road with a broom, to make sure the hawthorns that bounced off the cruncher didn't affect some of the "locals" who seem to think a bit of hay in the gutter is out of order.
The immediate affect of the hedge trim is that the sparras have less protection from the local sparrow hawk. A a pile of feathers shows me only too well, he has had some success. It is, at the moment a male, I've disturbed his after dinner nap a couple of times.

Shares 

What a difference a couple of weeks makes, the oil price has fallen and the doom and gloom merchants are plentful.
My Oily's 780% growth is now down to 440% and reducing quickly, I think the Russian's have more to worry about than I have though.Having said that the Footsie has taken a real bashing too.
More doom and gloom for pension funds!

I can't wait to see what comes out of the new well being drilled at Gatwick, hopefully close to finding large quantities of home grown oil and gas  very soon.

Holidays

Our long weekend in east Sussex worked out very well, mixed weather, but the pub we stayed in looked after us very well for our 3 night stay.
The Bell at Iden, just outside Rye, had Harvey's best bitter,an Old Dairy Red Top and Doom Bar(which I won't give house room)
The Harvey's was very well kept, the Old Dairy must have something in it, because the session I had on that gave me extended sneezes. So my main drink, and The Bell was open all day everyday, was the Harvey's.
The menu was relatively short, always a good sign, and the food excellent.
If you are in that part of the world at anytime, highly recommended by us.

Next trip, Boston Mass. for Thanksgiving.

Booze
Our trip to the Santander Brewery in Bradford worked out very well for the 16 of us.
A drink as much as you can, combined with the wander around the brewery, pint in hand.
Pork pie and a fine chili with three separate brews was enjoyed  by all in an all too brief 3 hours!
Next trip being hunted out.

The International Drinking Society outing took us to the Marquis of Cornwallis in Bloomsbury, and we were knocking at the door at Noon to start.
A good few hours celebrating Dave's 74th birthday, drinking good real ale and plenty of chat.
The food wasn't bad either, and was a step up from pub grub.
In fact, we've decided our Christmas get together will be in the same location.

A result of these London visits is that I tell Mick our landlord what beers I've tasted, and my opinion of them, but, I daren't tell him the price of a pint, I just to say it costs more than his £2.70!

Fishing

For sometime I've been discussing a barbel trip with fellow blogger Flyfisherman Richard,we eventually got around to it yesterday afternoon at 2pm and met on a stretch of the middle Trent that both of us hadn't fished.
I passed on an idea or two to Richard who is a "learner", not that I thought I could help a great deal.
But, he did follow some of my advice and ended up with four barbel to up around the 8lb mark.
Me ? Not a touch, until time to get off the water at dusk.
Richard had packed up at around 6:30 just as I started to get some interest in my quarter tin of garlic spam left to fish itself down the inside,on top of a pile of hemp/caster/maggots and corn from the freezer.
My mind was thinking a barbel, but it was fiddling about quite a bit, with the occasional couple of quick snatches, taking a little bit of line off my Purist ll, enough to make the ratchet tick.
We said our goodbyes and I started my clear up, keeping a watchful eye on the rod tip(MKlV fibreglass).
By now it was getting too dark to spot anything other than a good 3 foot twitch, and it had started to rain quite hard.
I gently lifted to rod so as not to disturb the line and felt for  movement and was soon rewarded, after a couple of twitches with the sensation of line running through my fingers towards the center of the river.
I placed my thumb on the reel and struck, put the ratchet on and was met with some good resistance at first, but the fish was soon overcome by the tackle and netted.
Not a barbel, but a nice chub, I quickly photographed to send to Richard, to show more than anything that I hadn't blanked.
I then hastily chucked everything in the boot and headed home, fairly happy with my first river trip of the season, but very happy for Richard.

Well, I hope it was everything I haven't checked yet!