Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May

Long time no see!

are we there yet?

just a bit further

it's still there!

Had another go down on the lake last night with just hempseed and bits of worm.
There was a full on blow straight into my face a good sou'wester,so I tucked myself in close to the eastern corner of the lake.
It's about two feet deep at a couple of rod lengths.
I decided to fish lift method, with just three inches between weight and hook.The primary reason for this is to get the bait down fast and avoid the small rudd and to avoid the drift.
It works well,on most occasions!
I have to say I'm not impressed with the quality of the fish I've caught so far, or that there are any great monsters in residence.
The crucians have started feeding though, so at least there is some variety, and a nice net of them always goes down well with me.
Well they were feeding at first then the big black clouds moved in and all went quiet...except for the song thrush and the bloody geese!
No rain though.
My catch was the usual  roach and rudd,plus a couple of crucian, and one bream.
I'm pleased to say that the carp were quieter, and I only got disturbed by two, the later which lead me a fair old dance and was a mirror at just under 10lb.

I shall go down again tonight and try out bread flake, my aim this spring is to take less choice of bait and see how it goes without tempting myself to bait change every five minutes.
I'm beginning to feel more and more that I'm quite happy to do this sort of fishing, just aiming to see what's in a fishery, no pressure, just me and my thoughts, and who knows?

Visits

I forgot to add some photo's from my Suffolk visit, so here are just a couple of a town that was in the late 15th century the 14th richest towns in the country, when wool was the money maker for Lavenham.

Whilst we were staying in Suffolk my brother Pete joined us for a couple of days, which was good,he seems to have fully recovered from the brain bleed he had last November.
Having been given the all clear to drive a little while ago, he decided to test himself with a longer car journey than usual
The 90 minutes from Leigh on Sea didn't create too much of a problem for him.
Anyway,he enjoyed himself so much that he came up to us for a long weekend and his 56th birthday celebration..
A  good 3 hour journey.
We had a good few beers, wines, some good food, and chats about the future over the 4 days and how he and we propose to live our lives.
I have to say, that he had somebody looking after him that day in November, or maybe he was just in the right place at the right time?
He had a six month scan last week, before he came up to us...we await the results.

In and around the garden

I did a nest count yesterday whilst cutting the grass in the gardens.
We have a song thrush with four eggs and a blackbird also with four eggs in the front.
Around the back we have another blackbird nest just completed and she's sitting on it now.
The pair are feeding two youngsters from their first brood. That nest wasn't obvious to me, so may have been in next doors garden.
I have to say I haven't hunted too deeply for nests, but have a feeling we have robin, goldfinch, chaffinch greenfinch and dunnock close by. I'm not counting the woodies or the collared dove but they are in the hawthorn hedge somewhere..
The great tit did no more than lay a good foundation of a nest in our box, but never lined it and we haven't seen or heard from them for some while.
Swift and swallow are overhead, but no sign of the martins...yet. Three buzzards also overhead yesterday mewing away, would the third be a youngster already or one trying to butt in?