September

Funny how the change in a notional word on a calendar can change your perception of the world around you. A system invented thousands of years ago to mark changing seasons or whatever reasons they had for breaking the year into 12 months, enshrined in our modern day selves.

The first of September. Say it out loud and I don’t know about you but I get the feeling that Autumn is almost here. A faint whiff of bonfires and the sound crunchy leaves somewhere on the edge of your senses, like seeing a rising fish on the very edges of your field of vision. I’m up with the larks and leave the house early, there’s not a breath of wind and there’s a faint mist curling off the rivers as I pass over on my way to a meeting in Exeter. The sunshine starts to push the temperature into double figures slowly and spiders webs on the bushes as I pass are decorated as if for Christmas, glistening with diamonds of dew.

The day plods through and by 3:00 I’m itching to escape the confines of my prison for the day, albeit historic and pretty as it is. I meet Andreas on the banks of the Avon and we fish in companionable comfort through the gloaming hours into full darkness. A pint with the added company of everyone’s favourite dour scot, mr Scotfly himself, finishes off the day nicely. I’m home by 11 and zonk out to try to steal a few hours shut eye.

The alarm intrudes at 3:45 and I’m up and out the door in record time. Andreas went straight from the pub after we’d finished last night to manning a water pump at one of Salisbury & District’s still waters which is suffering from an algal bloom. The pumps need refuelling every 1.5-2 hours (I know, I know) so Andreas took the 11pm to 8am shift, sleeping in the back of the land rover.

Being a nice chap I agreed to head over and relieve him at 4:00 so that he could get some sleep before working through Friday.

I’ve refuelled the pumps and had an hours sleep and the light is just starting to think about brightening the world around me. The more I’m up at this time, the more I have this feeling that there is a period between night and dawn, a half hour window of in-between dark and light where the world holds it’s breath. Rather than go back to sleep after refuelling the pumps I grab the rod from the car and wander aimlessly towards the river, enjoying the pensive period, knowing it’s too dark to fish but knowing that at any second life will erupt around me. I’m not dissapointed and like a flower opening to the sun, another glorious September morning dawns, silent, chilly but with the promise of warmth to come.

By 7:15 I’ve caught three lovely brown trout and a grayling of about a pound, all on tiny tiny dry flies. In the distance I can hear Amesbury coming to life and know it’s time for my magic solitude to draw to a close, and time to go back to the computer, time to get writing again.

What a start to the day. A just reward for helping out a friend I believe. By being there, in a place and time I wouldn’t normally be I’ve gained the opportunity to steal three more hours on the river bank. Additional 1′s and 0′s for the old grey database to compute again.

Malcolm

This entry was posted on Friday, September 2nd, 2011 at 11:48 am. It is filed under The Diary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.