Saturday 30 October 2010

Ah well!

The inevitable !

Visited my mum again on Thursday to take her along for a Friday am appointment at the Romford breast cancer hospital.
The news we half expected, and found out after, that she had also, was that the lump which had reduced  on the last visit, and was being controlled by the drugs, has now grown.
The drugs have failed, and the inevitable must now happen.
All we have to hope is that it has not spread. The next appointment is a scan.
Followed soon after, we assume by the big operation.
Mum's ok and has accepted what has to be done, at 87 I suppose decisions like this are easier? I don't know!
We know even more where our funds will be directed, the nursing staff at this NHS facility are diamonds, although the "Specialist" needs to be able to look his patient in the eye when passing on bad news....especially when the patient is nearly deaf!!
Good job we were there to tell her what he said, especially as it needed clarification from the African accent.
We only stayed just a short while, two nights, so that I could get back and finish off the work of magazine production whilst we await the call.

Saturday 23 October 2010

Off my chest!

A quote for the fat bald one and his little mate
"Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option”
See later.

Ah that's better

Anyway back to normal..ish, I forgot to mention between the Petersfield party and my trip to France, we did an overnight in Portsmouth for the early fast ferry sailing.
A friend, the 70 year old, had recommended a visit if we had time to spare, to the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
Well, we did have time,so we visited.
The first thing that sort of pleased me, being always on the lookout for a deal, was that at 61 I am a concession,so got in for £3 cheaper than Pauline.Total ticket cost £36!

All in all a good morning visit, we didn't see everything, but a one hour guided trip around HMS Victory, the museum of the Mary Rose for about an hour.The ship itself is currently being rehoused, so we couldn't see that,a bit disappointing, but the museum is very good.
We finished off with 45 minute sailing tour of the harbour, looking at, what we soon learned were some of the soon to be mothballed Royal Navy ships of the fleet.
We then headed off for lunch.
Still plenty to see, and our ticket will get us back in to to see HMS Warrior and many of the interesting sites should we venture back that way anytime in the next year.

The guidebook is full of detail and worth the expense for a pure history lesson of our fighting ships since Tudor times.

Highly recommended  http://www.historicdockyard.co.uk/


...and another thing

Our Indian restaurant, The Taal at Market Rasen, was all boarded up on our return from France and the "For Sale" signs are up.
Looks like a few taste test visits are needed.
A real shame, very good fresh cooked curries, a bit expensive for Lincolnshire folk methinks.
If it's not piled high and cheap, they think they are being robbed. Even though they leave most of the piled high fayre on their plates.
Funny lot!

The kids today

The later bit!
I know I've made mention of this before
BUT
A certain Napoleonic individual, took it upon himself to mock us, for the fact we have no kids, from no apparent fault of our own, or choice.

I'm all for leaving children the house, if you have too, but to keep those that don't fend for themselves in a comfort they don't put themselves out for, is to me a true sign of some today's generation of parents.
Give everything, but do nothing to improve the life output of the individual child.
Our mum's and dad's in most cases were not fortunate enough, to provide the easy life for us, but they worked to do the best they could.
His parents in particular I have no doubt weren't either.
Some of us have improved our own well being ourselves by sheer hard work.
Yet he, I know, buys his offspring's "love",  and no doubt is providing for his leisurely life style in the future years.
Well,that's  if he doesn't do anymore daft money deals!
Now, he may say I don't know anything of his life, but neither does he know mine.
He thinks that my pot is running out. Well it's not and it won't.
All of our money will be spent, on long distance foreign holidays until we're unable to travel, we will then spend our money closer to home.
If we are fit enough.
No scroungers will have access to our worked for funds.
Good causes may get a little bit, if we don't live long enough. Maybe the house.

Wednesday 20 October 2010

A view from The Lot

Where we stayed

 For those of you who are happy to accept recommendations, this is an ideal family holiday or fishing location. Just have a look.
We stayed for our week in the apartment Papillon.


http://www.labrise.co.uk/lang/en/index.php




Abundance

Having read Bob Roberts Blog whilst away, (French tele is crap) and with my notebook freezing and losing a long comment on fish fry. I decided that perhaps I should not fill his space with my thoughts but put them on here on my return.
Bob mentions the fry he saw on the Trent, well the River Lot was unbelievable.
I effectively fished a back garden stretch of 40 metres and the margins were full with I would say thousands and thousands of fry. Every cast of my feeder, about a third of the way across,also produced eruptions of small fish, going for the dust off the feeder.
Something that I have never seen in any of the English rivers I've fished.
It occured to me, as it has for a while anway,  that all this fuss we have about cormorant and otter predation of our rivers is just people looking for an excuse.
My view is, our rivers are suffering from something far worse than natural predation, or any natural occurance.
I think we should be looking at the water companies, and their use of our rivers before anything else.
The AnglingTrust should be hitting them, forgot otter, they are not a major problem in the overall scheme of things.
The stretch I fished had barbel, bream, gudgeon and "silver fish" in abundance of all sizes and age classes, yet I had 5 cormorant fishing in the stretch at one time , more kingfishers and heron than I've ever seen on a UK river stretch.There are catfish, zander, perch and pike also in good size and numbers.
My guess is if we had the coypu here, as they have on this river, that they would get the blame too, and I think they are veggies!!!

Wake up fellow anglers some of our rivers are dying, and natural or introduced predators are not to blame!

Photo's of My Lot!



Saturday 16 October 2010

Certainly beats fishing for tame fish!

That's yer Lot

6c!!
Misty all day yesterday, I fished from 4pm to 9pm, plenty of "splashers".
It takes some work to actually angle for my fish, that is rather than just being a catcher on that old middle Trent weir stretch I used to fish, where they crawled up the rod even on a not brilliant day.
On close inspection in daylight, my hooklink hadn't failed,but I do  use a snood link to connect my swivel ended hooklength which had somehow it came off the link??
After yesterday's experience I decided to touch ledger.
Anyway, I picked up the culprits..bream, and very good ones too, I also caught my first kitten (poisson chat) as well as barbel,but no chub.
I must make use of the method more often.

Thursday 14 October 2010

Part du 12-14/10

Started fishing about 4pm, not a nibble'til 7.25 and a frantic hour into darkness for 5barbel before all went quiet again! Fish weighed between half a pound to about 41/2.
Woke about 5am for a morning session one barbel as soon as i arrived then not a touch, so went for breakfast at 8:30.
Evening session, sharp rise in air pressure ,not  a touch ,funny feel about the night, cold air coming down the valley,packed in at sunset.
This morning 8c,and a heavy mist that stayed with us until after a very fine bistro lunch in the village, afternoon 24c!!!
Started fishing at 4pm, no touches until about 8pm, when i got some bites similar to chub,couldn't hit them,so started to feel for them. A real tug and strike found me into a good slow moving fish,not a chub, unless it was very big!
Maybe a good barbel?
Anyway hooklink gives up on me,6..7..8
Now having been told there are zander present and I'm using a HNV shellfish paste wrap,I need to find out their feeding habits  and fight.
One more day to fish before home trek,things to try.

Monday 11 October 2010

French Fishing

River Lot

Second day at our cottage by the river ,first day acclimatising,getting the food and wine in and dodging the rain.
Grabbed couple of hours last night, got soaked in the process but caught my first French barbel of about 3lb.
Rained all day today,until about 5o'clock,so I took Pauline down to give her a few tips,as she has never fished.
Within an hour I had hooked and lost one fish, then a spotless 6lb barbel came to my net.
Next it was Paulines' turn,her first barbel,I have never seen one of this size, 6 or 7 inches long on a size 6!
At about 8pm we decided to call it a day,I lost my feeder and hook length on a snag,it was pitch black and Paulines baitrunner started to..run.
With some advice from me, a fine 5lb2oz barbel was safely netted and photographed.
I think she's hooked!

Wednesday 6 October 2010

Survived

Parties
 Reporting in after  celebrating a 90th and 70th birthday party in Pulborough and Petersfield respectively.Both a bit out of the way,but equaly as good in their different ways.
The 90th was my mums eldest sister Maggie,different in outlook to my mum in all respects. She has always been outward going and lively,she didn't get off the dance floor for the whole time the party was going.
Save that is, for a break for pie and mash with liquor and spotted dick and custard to follow!
The 70th was for my mate Dave,whom I've known since 1968,he was a member of The International Drinking Society,mentioned in a previous Blog entry.
We got down to Petersfield for a lunchtime session in the Square Brewery, we drank many a pint of Red Fox,but for the life of me i can't remember who brewed it. Probably Gales, I think.
After a short break back at our hotel,we started again with a later arrival of friends and family, his birthday was on the 4th(Monday),so only a few of us could do the lunchtime warm up.
Needless to say the aftereffects of the day were only a single dose of Alka Seltser for me,I blame it on the Guiness and wine mix in the evening.
We stayed the night and headed off to Portsmouth,for  a relaxing day and overnight to catch the ferry to Cherbourg this morning.
Today is Paulines birthday and our 37th wedding anniversary,so dinner in a few hours in St Malo.