Day…..?

..69 Dude…….

Apologies for the Bill and Ted Reference but strange things are afoot.

A disaster has once again befallen me…….I have been asked back in to work to plan my return tomorrow… so this will be (probably) my last fishing picture a day post.

No more idle ramblings, no more daily grind, no more selfies from mountains, rivers and beaches. No more will it be the loners time to shine. Those of us happy with our own company will have to get used to constant phone calls and winging clients and trades once again. Car and plane emissions will build back up and the insects and birds will once again be silenced. The bin men will pass my house un-noticed  and dialogue free, packages will build up on the doorstep, no more neighbourly chats when I am foolish enough to get caught out in the open.

Stay local, that is what we are told. Drakeford is quite insistent that I go no further to fish than five miles but he will be smiling on me tomorrow when I travel forty miles to the office and back, and the forthcoming weeks I will not be a threat to anyone when I am travelling hundreds of miles a week up and down the M4?

The United Kingdom? I think not. This little pandemic has only gone to show how divided we are and I have no clue why the peoples of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland get to vote in a General Election when the chosen Prime Minister doesn’t get to call the shots on what is a National crisis. Political squabbling has prevented a unified approach.

I have seen my view point turned, a full U turn based on the divided politicians. I was a staunch stay at homer, thinking that those who dared to venture out were placing us all at risk but as it transpired we were never locked down. You must stay in, unless you need to go out, or fancy a little walk or run or to ride your bike in the country. Only do essential shopping. None of the countless delivery vans have dropped off food or medical supplies to me. Am I at fault for ordering non-essential items? or did Amazon, Ebay, Veals and the like collaborate with me to put drivers at risk? The one way marker system at Tescos has been a joke, No one will wait while over-ripe housewives block the cheese aisle to have a chat, no you will go the other way to minimise exposure. People clambered over each other to get the last litre of Litre of Pink Gin, the last bag of pasta or bogroll, and when you reach the till you are standing two feet apart from the next person as you both pack plastic bags with you weekly shop.

Panic buying brought on by the hysteria of social media…. that which does not kill us makes us stronger only it appears that the news feed and daily posts which have kept many of us together have done so through a diet of shit.

I know there are those who have suffered loss and there are those who have not made it through and those families have my condolences. Herself lost and elderly relative who had both vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s but will her death be attributed to Covid-19?

God help us if there is every anything really nasty out there.

I only wish the call to work had come hours earlier? It would have stopped me putting in my Evil to the bike shop for some massive attention. I don’t know when I will get time to ride it next now.

I suppose I should be thankful to have a job to go back to really? It had to come sooner or later but I had planned another few weeks of lockdown leisure time. I laid in stocks of frozen crab and cheap leads all purchased click and collect from a responsible retailer a mere forty minutes drive away. I lovingly toiled the days away knotting 4/0 hooks to 80lb mono and 8/0 BMX to twisted wires in anticipation of days to come.

If I a thought about it a little at the start I would have retained some of the better images to go out with a bang but hey ho I am just going to rehash a few of my favourites again.

Stay Safe but life goes on

Neil