Positive Portents, Jack'ern and The Mummers

Right, decorating done, its back to the business of chucking up guff.

The river is in tremendous form, bank high with good flow tickling up the gravels. Not too many redds being kicked up but there’s still time yet. The ditch that feeds up to the field know across the ages as “Spring Bottom” already has water in it and all portents are positive and point towards a reasonable recharge of aquifers this winter. 

Higher water on spawning gravel reduces the impact of “Jack'Ern” spiteful stabbings, which is a tremendous thing, as they can do a lot of damage in low water with their indiscriminate sword work. Numbers of little egret always increase at this time of the year, and we’ve already three or four regulars. Cormorant numbers are also on the rise, although all sighted have been passing through and not pausing to fish this stretch of river or the pond. 

 Trees are still being attended to, with Lord Ludg and The English mustered as wingmen. Into the river this week to give battle with the forces of crack willow that have put on six feet of growth this summer. The riverbank might be a bit spongy in a few months time and not accessible by tractor, so the saws’ attention has been hastily drawn to bankside work with a controlled retreat to the wood planned for January/February. 

 Oh wait a mo, the jungle’s on, I’ll be back in a bit. 

 It’s a shame they couldn’t claim their annual beano to Brisbane, but it seems to have worked out well in Wales. 

 If it is Wales. 

 In my youth I hiked, yomped, camped, canoed and fished in the area that they claim the castle to be in but I can’t for the life of me place the thing. 

 Maybe it’s a new build, as a brief look back in time confirms that it is nearly forty years since I was down that way. Often with the scouts, but also with my Dad and his mate Jim fishing the Wirral Anglers water on the Clwyd and Elwy, and hey Chris Packham some of those critters in the cages are more famous than the celebrities. Several of the snakes are represented by their own agents and if a few eels do escape to the countryside, well done old Anguilla, as the Clwyd and Elwy used to be full of the things but since the collapse of the European eel population they are a bit thin on the ground. One week long scout camp on the Clwyd proved particularly productive, and I remember one night when a sea trout angler slowly creeping his way up the far bank in the early hours was startled as he swung his torch across the far bank. The solitude he sought had been broken by twenty odd scouts sitting shoulder to shoulder in the dark on a high bank swinging in eels for introduction to a waiting frying pan. 

 

I’m supposed to be writing end of season reports for bods various, but while we’re on TV. 

 Mortimer & Whitehouse have a Christmas special, 

 And the dancing’s a draw too. 

 Madam and myself used to enjoy a bit of hoofing back in the day and were often the last to leave the floor at some such do or other.

 And at this point I’d just like to put it out there, that I too have won a dancing competition in Blackpool. 

 It’s not something I have ever really talked about but there I said it. With each passing year I find it important to share such information for the ages. 

 Yes I was a champion dancer in Blackpool. 

 It was twenty three years ago and I was in Blackpool for the weekend on a pink ticket with friends. A varied itinerary had been drawn up by the group leader for the two days and Saturday afternoon found us taking in the jelly wrestling at one of the Golden Mile’s premier emporia. 

Michaela McManus v Kendra Nagasaki grappling in jelly for an interminable hour. If memory serves, Michaela took the tie by two submissions. On completion of the gelatinous grappling the band struck up and the dancing commenced.  I threw myself into a variety of shapes on the dance floor and half an hour in received a tap on the shoulder. They were picking out a few dancers to take the stage for a competition, the crowd would judge who was to pick up the prize. 

Emboldened by energy drink (Brown over Bitter) I threw myself into the competition, chucked in a few forward rolls with the occasional handstand, scored well with the crowd and the laurels were mine. 

 Six bottles of Asti Spumante. 

We left the establishment heading for the sea seeking another ship to launch. 

The remainder of the weekend passed with much more incident which is best not discussed here. 

Unexpectedly we found our ship to launch in the Imperial Hotel where an uber rich bunch of tax dodgers from the Isle of Man, who’d hopped over for pegs by helicopter, didn’t take to our impromptu mummery.

 Our rendition of Celine Dion's “My heart will go on” in an abridged adaptation of Titanic, with a mobile cloakroom hanger doubling up as both "ship to launch" and "doomed leviathan". Your correspondent stuck to the prow in the Kate Winslet role as it toured the halls of the Imperial. 

In house reviews were mixed, although in mummery circles it is still considered a ground breaking piece of work. 

 But this was all a long time ago. 

 More river news next week, which will probably centre mostly around saws.