Fishing

Today we had a brief reprieve from the endless, soggy gloom.

The skies were blue and the sun shone down. There was even a light dusting of frost early this morning. Don't be mistaken, everywhere is still soaking wet, but it was lovely to have a bright sunny day after weeks and weeks of cloud and rain.

After a hefty dose of painkillers* I headed out along the lanes with Hobson and TB. We completed the new three miler, before the dogs were dunked in an icy bath to wash away the mud.

Late last night 30% happened to mention that an important document** had managed to slip in to the windscreen vent of her car.  After listening to a somewhat waffly explanation, I avoiding saying "FFS," and advised that she might like to use the long reach, locking forceps*** that I have in my fishing bag.

Let's now roll forward to this morning. 30% advised that she had tried to retrieve the document with her eyebrow tweezers, but had failed. I asked why she hadn't used my fishing forceps and was advised that she "didn't know where they were." I would have thought that the large,  and only, green bag in the store room, adjacent to the three rods and the landing nets would have given her a clue.

Again I avoided saying "FFS" and went to have a look for the forceps. I have to be fair and say that I totally failed to find them. I must have left them on the bank on our last angling excursion. I then tried and failed to retrieve the document with a pair of long nosed pliers. I eventually fished out the damned piece of card with a steel rule, tipped with a piece of gaffer tape.

Here endeth the tale of my first fishing trip of 2026 ... At least I had a catch!

This evening we headed in to Redditch to see the Dazzling Diamonds drag review at The Palace Theatre. We had a splendid time watching three queens sing, lip synch, bitch and take the rise out of the audience. The humour was, most definitely, fellatio focussed and absolutely brilliant.

There were moments of true drag genius, and particularly worthy of mention was the mash-up of Rod Hull and Emu with Bjork singing "It's Oh So Quiet."

We had so much fun that we have already booked tickets for their new show in April '27.

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* My back is still not pain free, but I can now stand upright and walk, confident that things are on the mend.

** The arrival time recorder that accompanies her blue badge

*** Have you seen a pike's teeth!