17 April 2011 (Sunday) - Fishing


I woke this morning having had something of a revelation. I really enjoyed going out for a curry with friends last night. In a novel break with tradition I drove there, and when I drive, I don’t drink. At all! Not even a half of shandy. I was on diet coke last night – it’s the way I am. Usually when I’m socialising I drink like a fish, but if I’m the driver, I won’t touch a drop.
Normally when I go for a curry, it’s after a heavy drinking session, and it usually shows. I vaguely demand popadoms, smear spicy stuff over them, then I ask for a vindaloo, and it all becomes rather vague until I’m farting flames the next morning. But I have a clear memory of last night, and now I know what goes on in a curry house. The spicy jollop I like is called “lime pickle”; the nan breads are nothing like the ones that come from Asda – they had a filling. And there were some interesting-looking desserts too.
I’m going to do the driving for more curry evenings.

I wasn’t up *too* early today, and I spent a little time on my websites of advice for my students. I say “a little time” – it was an hour. Whilst it’s entirely work-related, it’s something I don’t get time for at work, for which I don’t have the technology at work, and… I know, maybe I shouldn’t do work stuff at home. But these websites have become something of a personal hobby. Over on another blog I’ve posted a map I obtained from the blog software. My work-related websites are getting readers across the world, and I’ve actually got to the point where professional work-related websites are quoting some of my articles. I’m just hoping that my little hobby will somehow get me onto the lecture-circuit-gravy-train.

I then found that both lenses of my specs are scratched. There are great gouges in each lens, as though a stone has chipped them. I have absolutely no idea how that happened, but I do know that any hopes I had of buying a Kindle in the near future have gone west. Oh well – such is life. I was due for an eye test in the autumn anyway. And I’ve not been happy with the varifocal bit for a long time. So I looked up the optician’s phone number on-line and was amazed to find that they were open today – on a Sunday. I’ve booked an appointment for Thursday.

And so to the day’s business: fishing. I’d mentioned to a friend at work that I was part of a syndicate that had obtained fishing rights to a local pond, and so the two of us set off for an afternoon’s fishing. We arrived at the pond to find something quite unusual: someone else was fishing there. No one else is ever there when I go to that pond: that’s the attraction of the place. But we made polite conversation with the normal people who were there. They seemed nice enough. On my last two visits to the pond, half of it had been fenced off. Today the fence was gone, so we set up where once there was a fence and we started fishing. Within minutes the normal people had gone. Perhaps we scared them away?
The fishing was slow, but I eventually caught a rudd. Only a small one, but a fish nonetheless. After an hour or so more intrepid haddock-hunters arrived, as did a fellow Blogger, and the friend who organised the use of the pond in the first place. This was the largest group we’ve had at the pond (apart from the clean-up crew last year) and we had a great time. The fishing was rather slow, we lost count of all the tackle we lost in the trees, I got more sheep poo on me and my gear than I have in the entire rest of my life, but it was a fun day out. And Richard (who fishes for large carp) caught a fish. I caught twelve, but mine were all tiddlers. His carp weighed eight pounds. Which proves that there are big fish in that pond…

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