Day 68…. Crepuscular creeping to no avail..

Blanked…again

Once again I feel that early morning accomplished glow. Last nights tackle is cleaned and hook lengths replaced.  I have mopped and brought the bins in. I even jet washed the big bin because it smelt like someone had thrown old squid in. (I don’t remember doing it, maybe someone broke into the back garden and threw old bait into the bin). Five minutes of furious scrubbing a particularly stubborn stain which turned out to be part of the marble pattern. Wash on, drying hung out and I am clear for the day.

The eldest chiId is up showered and off out to meet some of his butties, and before 2 o’clock. He  has not taken part in the lockdown at all, it just didn’t apply to him. Part of the snowflake generation that never found the fucks Generation X discarded years ago. However neither him or any of his crew have had so much a a sniffle. I have been called irresponsible for allowing him out but he is eighteen next month and I have to sleep. The days I have tried to talk reason he forgets our talk  and slinks out when I am asleep. Why can’t he be this quiet during the day?

He went down to my garage and borrowed his brothers bike and sneaked out. I know this because neither the bike or the child are in the house and I presume alien abduction is not in play. I don’t know if it is an act on his part but I do not understand a word the he says. Is it the result of my diminishing hearing ability or his incessant muttering? Even when he stands right in front of me it is an experience similar to learning a foreign language online and then facing someone for who the language is their mother tongue. If I am lucky I pick up one word in five, yet when I overhear him on the phone to a girlie he is almost coherent and can string more than three words together without saying fuck!

The girl child is visiting her Grandmother so it must be pension day. I do not think she is quite mercenary to check if the pension is in yet before she goes but I would hazard there is latent intent. She did make the call first to check that granny hadn’t check out overnight, but this is unlikely as I am sure the Witch will outlive me.

I am captive to the Galway Boi who is not really old enough to be left alone. I have already won round one. Every morning I ask him what he wants for breakfast and he tells me he isn’t hungry. He will then find me a couple of hours later and tell me he is starving because I haven’t fed him. He even facetimes herself to tell her I am starving him. So before waking him I cooked him some vegetarian sausages, well nearly vegetarian they are  ‘Heck’ chicken, vegeterians eat chicken don’t they?  I put it on the elephant table next to his bed along with a drink. Check mate.

Two things occurred in my world of bike riding yesterday one amusing and the other a total act of stupidity that almost defied words. Firstly following on from the schoolboy scramblers wearing surgical masks I witnessed a grown man wheelying a large motor cross bike across a field and down the road.. full face helmet and spongebob pyjamas.

The second was a moment of terror that left me shaken if not shaking. There is on the way to the mountains a castle ruin and a limestone quarry. The castle perches on sheer rock faces which at a guess would reach around 80 feet from the rocky quarry floor. I was resting, taking more selfies which I have now become prone to do. From the precipice above I heard voices saying they would have to get down. A group of three. An overweight mother, not a monster but probably carrying five stone more than her frame should be, an older daughter, non-descript and in her early twenties and a rake of a young lad of around ten, about the same age and size as the Galway Boi. I moved my bike because it was across the only sensible way down the rocks but they had disappeared so I moved again and I could see the boy walking the cliff edge, oblivious to the drop, he slipped on scree but did not go over the edge and the whole probable scene ran through my mind, I would have to go to the bottom to find him probably smashed at the foot of the cliff. In a calm voice I called and told him to go back over the other side which he did. The mother then came down the easy path and said ” We always get lost” I do not think she could possibly comprehend how close she came to being really lost.

Low water was 9.30pm so I left in time to fish two hours down. Again Aberavon was the destination because there is no reason for any confrontation with the law and I can hide the car in the MOT centre until we are allowed to travel more than five miles.

The road past the Naval club was rammed, I have never seen it so busy, but these were not anglers, they were roaming youths and families enjoying the beach on a sunny day.

Lockdown, what lockdown? social distancing my arse, these people we sitting in tribes, groups of thirty or more clustered around scorched sand which turned to fire pits as darkness dropped. and where they out of the way? no when the footpath ended the throngs began. To access the beach I had to walk through them.

I started of with a couple of squid baits and sat in anticipation of that screaming ratchet that never happened. In fact there was not even a little nod.

The tide dropped away and then started to fill again but no change on the fishing front

I waited and waited. As darkness fell a galaxy of head torches fill the beach to my left. I hope they had a bit more luck than me.

Two dozen frozen peeler later and not a hound in sight.

The lack of activity did not inspire me to stay longer than two hours into the fill and I have scanned web reports to look and see if the fish came on the feed after I left but they did not.

There was very little movement in the water, more big ripples than waves. The wind was offshore and I cannot help thinking that maybe the water needs a bit more movement to fish well?

As I trudged back to the car I walked through the tribes of youths, all grunting inaudible sounds which lacked vowels, consonants and discernible syllables and pondered on the Eldest child….. teenagers