Busy Doing Nothing: Fishing
I wake at 6.15am with a hangover from family cards night at the pub. This is a new Tuesday fixture in family life that’s fast becoming a low key highlight of my week. Playing cards with beer encourages informal conversation and storytelling that we don’t always manage at family dinner.
I drop Fi for her second shift in the stroke unit at Eastbourne District General Hospital and return home to prepare for a fishing trip with Louis. This preparation consists of taking paracetemol and going back to bed. Fishing will require more energy that I currently possess.
By 10am I am in at our flat in the centre of town to meet a heating engineer about getting a bigger radiator installed in the living room, where we have removed a gas fire. I mention that I am considering double glazing and he recommends we leave the old beautiful sash windows and install some interior secondary glazing for the three winter months. It is a tempting suggestion though it sets my my mind whirring with the complexity of calculating which solution is the most energy efficient.
At 11, Louis and I set off in the car for the half an hour drive to Horam Manor Fishery. We scoop up the fishing gear from the cellar and take some sweetcorn for bait. No thought has been put into today’s expedition apart from us both wanting to be outside on the last warm and sunny day forecast for the next week or two. We sit fishing for four hours without catching a single fish. We have a great time chatting and sitting in the sun looking at the lake, the trees, the birds and some mesmerising blue dragonflies. I teach Louis some important life lessons: i) you can only catch a fish when your bait is in the water; and ii) when there are bubbles by your float there are fish near your hook! We are both satisfied with an afternoon out together. And we don’t allow the lack of bites when we see bubbles by our floats to spoil a good myth. Next time we will bring worms to weave their magic.
Louis drives us home as he’s preparing for his driving test, much delayed by COVID. For dinner, I cook our favourite Madhur Jaffrey salmon curry with pollack from the freezer. It’s a simple and quick fish curry which I highly recommend.
