Still no fishing....

2018
We've moved house, 8th December, just before the snow, we beat it by a day. Unlike our last move to Ludford fifteen years ago.
We are now living in Irthlingborough, near Wellingborough, a ground floor apartment/flat, with two bedroooms, a tandem garage, and a little bit of our own fenced garden.
Back to civilisation.

So, why no fishing ? 
Well, it takes some sorting out moving home, we got that out of the way, and in the meantime Pauline arranged for us to have 28 days in Los Cristianos on Tenerife, she hates our winters.
Off we went 10 days after the booking.
In the meantime,we arranged to have our kitchen totally renewed, including all main appliances, whilst we were away.
28 days of sunshine mostly cloudless days about 22c, plenty of seafood, I've got a bit of colour, and a bit more weight too!
We came back last Saturday, to a new kitchen, it is well up to our expectations.
New bed coming next week, so a bit of shifting to do before Wednesday!

Another mate dies!
My old mate Mick Huckle, a Yorkshireman who I met and played darts with from about 28 years ago, at our local pub in Castlethorpe. 
He is the third of my six, younger than me team mates to die since we left that village 15 years ago.
He and his wife Denise retired, and followed us across to Lincolnshire after his parents died, they took over their bungalow in Withern, about 20 minutes from us.
We took up our darts partnership again, and I started to play golf with him.
Mick was one of the most competitive of people I've known in my life time, he just had to win. 
He also called a spade a spade, probably why we got on so well. 
We challenged each other!
Some of my old readers may recall, Denise died some 8 years ago.
In the last 6 years Mick found another love in his life, Keren, and was due to be married later this year, alas this was not to be.
Anyway Mick died on the 24th January aged 66, and we got notice of his passing while we were away in Tenerife.
His funeral was yesterday, he had no religion, so the ceremony was conducted by a celebrant.
Mick's choice of music started with us following his coffin into "the chapel" to  In the air tonight . After the welcome, we sat in silence  with our memories listening to Knights in white satin.
After a good few laughs, and even some heckling during the eulogy, personal tributes, and reflections on Mick's life from his son, Simon, believe it or not, his next choice of music was Firestarter, yes The Prodigy hit. 
https://youtu.be/wmin5WkOuPw
It wasn't played at full blast, as it often was in his car though!
This was followed by personal tributes by his oldest friend from Keighley (Mick's hometown) and his fourteen year old grand daughter, Ebonnie.
Then came the committall, and our exit past his coffin to the sounds of  Stairway to heaven.
His sense of humour showed through in his music choice!

        Rest in Peace Michael John Huckle: 
          9th June 1951- 24th January 2018




Next ?
Who knows?
I've got myself one ticket for fishing this year, so far, and
I need to get out, and see what chub we have in the local rivers, but only after a chat at the tackle shop.

It's been a long time

2017

Well, that's almost a year gone by, and I haven't been slightly tempted to write down my thoughts.
Things are changing though, we've had an offer for our house, and solicitors have now been instructed for about 2 months.
We've also had our offer accepted for a ground floor flat/apartment in the town of Irthlingborough.
So, all things crossed, our new life should start in the next month, or so.
More funds for the holiday pot!
Fishing
My last expedition was on the 15th March to the middle Trent! 
I've was not tempted to fish the stillwaters down  in the valley during the close, and so it would appear my mojo has left me, all sorts of excuses not to go, mainly the marketing of the house leaving us in a state of limbo.
We'll see how it goes, but if anybody knows the Irthlingborough/Wellingborough area, they will know the possibilities are huge. The rivers Nene and Ouse being close by, with even Adams Mill is looking like it may be worth a  return visit after many years away.
There's plenty of stillwater too, right on the doorstep.
One thing for certain, this is my last year as a Barbel Society member. 
I may well tell my readers about it, nothing to be bitter about, just
from my point of view the organisation is treading the wrong path.
Travelling
We did not loose the mojo for getting away though.
January started with us having 6 weeks self catering in an apartment in sun at Benalmadena, Southern Spain.
March found us celebrating my birthday at The Crab & Boar in Chieveley for a couple of nights. This included a day at Newbury races where I got the better of the bookies.
Very good, despite the fact that the landlord had done a runner leaving his staff, unbeknownst to them, in charge.
April gave us a special long weekend in Dubrovnik, flying out of Humberside on a 50 seater jet after a champagne breakfast and enough wine during the flight to keep us all going.
A lovely city for the early May bank holiday weekend. 
Loads of food and drink and meeting like minded people. 
One couple we met, and have kept contact with,were definitely of a like mind to us, but younger. 
We've since been out with them for dinner in Cleethorpes and hopefully will again before we move away.
In June we had a week in the Old Manor Cottage, Halford, on the banks of the Warwickshire Stour. 
I took the rods, but they didn't leave the car for our entire stay.
An excellent cottage with all mod cons in good riverside gardens to rest in and play tennis if you felt energetic!
July found us having a night at The Bull, Stony Stratford, where we celebrated the life of a young, old friend and colleague, Nalini, taken from us at the age of 50 by Lupus!
A good few of the old Abbey National friends were also there, so reminiscences were the subject of long conversations into the night.
The remainder of the year had been somewhat put on hold for house viewing appointments, and visiting various locations around the country for our new home.
That was until October, we did a last minute booking of guided train journey's around Switzerland to celebrate our 45th wedding anniversary and Pauline's birthday on the 6th.
This entailed, starting our train journey's at Newark, into St Pancras,  via Paris and Strasbourg, to the small town, our base, of Tiefencastel.
We spent 8 days, and in total 26 separate train journeys, around the Swiss Alps including into Italy and Liechtenstein.
To say we needed another holiday, is an understatement....knackered.
We will try and book another warm winter break for January to March, once contracts are exchanged. 
Pauline fancies somewhere in the Canary Islands. She really doesn't like the dank, dark winters of home.
She has however, lined us up for a river cruise in Cambodia and Vietnam for our next wedding anniversary!

The future ?

We shall see, I may well keep my readers up to date with my 


Experiences
Some of this and some of that......and maybe some fishing.

 

...some of this and some of that

2016

This may well be my last blog,
I've only written 16 this year, including this one. 
I've not really felt the urge or inclination to sit at the keyboard like I used to.
I have one fan though, who signs in everyday, according to my live traffic feed, from Wilmington, Delaware in the US, my guess is it's Google. Having said that, I'm registered as signing on from Newcastle upon Tyne, so gone are the days when I could almost pinpoint the viewer from Maidenhead!

What a year it's been though for the man with the scythe!
Although I suppose, the longer one is on this Earth, the more names one comes across, so for somebody of my age(68 next March) that's anybody who was famous, or known to me from the 1950's onwards.

It does of course relate to family, friends and acquaintances, and I've lost a few of those this year, only this last two months three funerals,my cousin Joyce, my uncle Reg, both of whom have been mentioned in the past, and old Bern around the corner.

Rest in Peace

So, on to other things.

 I've fished a good few times, but nothing to write home about fish wise, I've even taken my notebook for those quiet moments, and it's stayed in the bag. The chub are calling though.

Our house didn't sell!

There were not many viewings, we can count them on two hands, not certain of the reason, although living in the sticks with no facilities, apart from the pub and the village hall probably doesn't give great appeal.

We've decided to stay on now though, having discussed again the reasons we decided a move and they are not insurmountable problems. 

We'll probably take the equity out of the house, update and rejig here and there, and have more long haul holidays....who knows how long we have left? 

We're both in agreement that we don't want to leave inheritances!

Talking of holidays, this year saw us floating across to, and up the Amazon, We have learnt from this, 42 days at sea probably isn't the best way to spend our hard earned gains, and that with 1200 folk on board a boat, no self respecting jaguar, or come to that bird, is going to be posing for a photograph when the hoards off load!

Which was really what we wanted from that cruise.

Amazon Cruise

As a result of being too far from the wildlife, I've upgraded my lens on the Nikon D3200 to a 55-300mm, so may well be hunting out the bird life a bit more.

First test on our Mr & Mrs sparra!

The Amazon trip took care of most of January and half of February. We visited Plocton in March, picking up our resident Scot's (Stirling) friends on the way up. A beautiful spot and pub, to stay in and wander the hills.

In May we had a few days in London by the river, seeing the sites, eating good food, and generally soaking up the big smoke. Pauline having not been in the "Big Smoke" for almost 30 years was somewhat overwhelmed by the changes

July found us wandering the Lake District for 10 days.

Our trip to Portugal failed as reported, and was replaced somewhat by pub 3 day stopovers, in Poole, Leyburn and Thorpe Market.

We've been at home since November, but 2017 so far, will take us to Torremolinos for some long winter warming,  a long weekend in a foodie pub near Newbury, around my birthday in late March, and a luxury long weekend in Dubrovnik at the end of April.

The International Drinking Society has lived on, as have the six remaining participants, with 5 trips throughout the year to London pub venues of good repute.

My turn to find a new venue in March.

So, as I've mentioned, this may be the last blog entry, then again it may not be. It will depend how the mood, and my delve into photography takes me.

A great 2017 to look forward to, especially the signing off of our EU membership. 

The referendum was the first vote in my life, and I always vote, that I felt would really make a difference,we shall see!

Thanks to my readers, have a great 2017, with good health and tight lines for my fellow anglers.

THE END

It's been a while

Fishing and thoughts
I've been down the Trent a few times since my last blog and I''d like to say it has been a productive time, but it hasn't been worth putting pen to paper.
Having said that, the last time out, I took a note book with me I've, never done it before, but thought I'd see if I was getting inspiration to write whilst awaiting that three foot twitch.

So, this is how it went, and as written.

The idea is that if I get any inspiration or thoughts whilst I fish two rods into the middle Trent perhaps I should jot them down.
I can't say that I normally have inspirational thoughts, so having sat here for an hour without movement from my rods, accompanied only by the occasional passing boat, an annoyed wren, and a vole at my feet having a fleeting dash out of cover towards my spilled hempseed, I've taken up my pen.
A skein of geese pass before me in their usual V shaped formation, for identification purposes they too far away for my eyesight, and my lens.

Probably pink footed

Over my shoulder is the mewing of a buzzard, generally though it's all quiet.
There are three other cars along the stretch, not near enough to chat to. The wren still wants to though, and there's a kingfisher close by betrayed by her call but, not by a fly by.
It's 2pm, very little movement from the fish, but that is not unusual on this stretch, as surface movement usually starts as the sun goes down.
A chap named David A from Oakham has turned up at this time, and we chat for some while before he settles down to tackle up in the swim just upstream from me. 
He fishes solely for barbel and uses an apple corer chunk of spam as his main bait, he feels it picks out the bigger fish.

It's now 4pm, just a couple of knocks, if I was negative I would have put down to leaf debris!
A good size flock of fieldfare pass overhead chattering individually to each other.
David pops over again, he's bite-less too, but he's just had a four horse accumulator come in, and goes on to tell me a few tales about what is his favourite and well studied hobby of horse racing, and betting.
I'm getting desperate now, only two hours to go to dusk at around 6.30, other anglers have passed by on their way home, all reporting a bad day with no bites.
So, I've poured myself a cup of coffee, and have a pee in
the hope, as so often happens, a fish is induced to bite....well.... that failed!

David pops along for a further chat (he's obviously getting bored). This time he tells me of his business woes, a total loss of his premises due to a fire in his chimney's last May. 

It then occurs to me just who he is, so we continue chatting about the insurance claim, and how it affected his staff.

I'll not go into the detail of our chat here, as it is still an ongoing matter.

Once again I'm on my own it's 5.30pm, I continue in hope.
At last, a few nudges on my quarter tin of garlic spam, time to put the other rod away.
The nudges continue and finish with a big tug stripping line from my baitrunner...and that was it. 
Big spam gone!
I think the eels come out at night, as I've experienced this before. Maybe I'll have a go for them sometime. It's reported four pounders have been taken accidentally .
The session ends with just one last cast, as always, in
the hope of that three foot twitch.

I'll be taking my notebook with me again

Portugal
I mentioned last time that my 10 day trip was  cancelled.
It's subject to an insurance claim, but basically our flight out of Humberside to Amsterdam was delayed four hours due to a  gauge failure. 
A four hour delay would find us arriving in Amsterdam just as our fight to Oporto was leaving.
So we removed our luggage from the hold, and made our disappointed way home after checking if a later flight was available to Oporto. 
There wasn't.
As it happened the four hour delay eventually turned into a cancellation,so we are entitled to compensation of around £200 each plus the tickets cost to Amsterdam. Leaving us with an insurance claim for the air tickets to Oporto and back home, plus the lost deposit for the holiday.
So far the insurers have denied any liability, but the fight will go on.

Short breaks
We've had two since I last blogged.
Our first to our favourite inn in Norfolk, the Gunton Arms at Thorpe Market, a three night stay that lived up to all expectations in this deer park location. 
If anybody is interested, I last reported on this inn here. Gunton

Our next trip, just last week was to Poole in Dorset, the weather was at it's best, a final fling,18-20c after the morning mists.
We stayed in The Antelope Inn which was alright, and had a few pub crawls along to quay over three days.
A trip out to Brownsea Island was probably the highlight. 
A very natural place almost untouched by the National Trust.
We sighted our first non captive red squirrel which started off a three hour walk around the island. 

A magical place

Life on a big tree stump

Until the next time.