With first and second breakfast completed there is only early lunch left to punctuate the morning. Neither of the meals were memorable and the girl child said I needed to up my game for early lunch as I have taught her not to celebrate mediocrity.
Herself slipped out the door to the sanctuary of work. A quick peck on the cheek and the instruction that the washing machine would be finished in twenty minutes and could I hang it out as it is a grand drying day. And don’t forget to put up the fairy lights? Another long term mission. And what do you want for dinner?
I am beginning to think to think that an Illuminati Alchemist has weaved some sort of cloak of invisibility on the dishwasher, none of the fekkers can find it. If it is full it stays full, if the contents are clean they remain where they are until I crack the code to open it and if it is empty? the now double sink fills up to overflowing rather than open the sacred dishwasher door….. bastards. If there is nothing in the sink or in the cupboards or in the dishwasher I check the kids bedrooms. I am positive they believe a fairy takes dirty stuff away and replaces it with clean.
I speak to my peers some of whom are struggling with the lockdown, the resulting general boredom and I am asked how I am managing my time?
How am I managing? I don’t know how I ever found time to work I am still everyone’s bitch.
Got to go, the washing machine is playing my tune… ‘I’m pushing the broom boss, honest’
Wrasse off the rocks…
And that boys and girls is why we don’t put our fingers in the mouth of a wrasse, not even a small ones!
Of all the fish I wanted to catch in Clare a big wrasse off the rocks on soft plastic lures was at the top of my list. I came very close didn’t I Red Joe? So much so that any trips I manage home the lure rods are always out first even if my favourite mark now needs ropes and climbing gear to access.
Described as a ‘large heavy bodied fish with strong jaws” the wrasse has evolved for crushing shellfish and molluscs from the rocks and kelp bed around the shoreline they inhabit. They have an amazing array of colours and have developed a cult following amongst the lure anglers who choose to fish for them in preference of bass for their hard fighting abilities.
At one time they were very easily caught on the shores of North Clare, so much so that only juniors could weigh them in during club competitions. Hauling them in, massively outgunned on heavy gear with hardback crab or ragworm from rotten bottom marks does not allow the wrasse to display it’s best qualities as a sporting fish.
One auld fella told me his parents would catch them on crab lines and they would have to eat them at least once a week when they were boiled in milk with carrots and onions. From the look on his face while telling the tale eating wrasse would not be a fine dining experience.
Once threatened by crabbers and lobstermen who used them as potbait a newer threat is removing tonnes of live wrasse from the shores. Salmon farmers are using them to eat the lice which infect the netted salmon. On one hand this is a step forward to reduce the chemicals poured into the sea but it is wiping wrasse out from many marks. Commercials claim not to take juveniles but the wrasse is a relatively slow growing fish, all of which are born female and the more dominant fish become male at between four and fourteen years old. Thats a long time to wait for stocks to come back to a size worth targeting.
What do I know, my ten year old son catches better wrasse than me!
Protogynous Hermaphrodites? changing sex through life, sounds quite familiar in our modern civilised society?
Baitdigger's Blog 