The countryside around here, up until a couple of weeks ago was looking decidedly ruffled. Corn fields were slightly beaten by wind and rain and it really did look like crops were going to rot if they stayed wet any longer. Two weeks of good weather however has changed the face of the fields. Contractors working through the night, a constant rumble of large machinery towing grain trailers around, combine harvesters slowing down traffic, dust streaming off fields; it's all meant that in record time the fields have been tamed.

Man's stamp has firmly, once again, been put on nature. Parallel lines of cut fields give way to towers of straw bales or the somewhat haphazard arrangement of round bales. It doesn't feel like it'll be long this year until the smell of earth and the noise of gulls will signify that ploughing has begun.





I took off for a couple days and went up to North Devon over the weekend. Got in the sea at 6am, surfed until 9 or so, avoiding the ravenous hordes. Then spent the rest of the day on Crow Point fishing for Bass as the tides allowed. Caught several small bass, some wrasse from the rocks on baggy point and a pollack, but what is it with sea fish? I mean, they either have armour plating, spikes, razor sharp gill covers, or... all three! I'll stick to my nice safe trout and grayling I think...



the amusing thing is, and I haven't surfed for a few years so was out of shape a bit (I think I've been hanging round with tubby fly-fishers too long), that some things never change. Surfers are either bloody minded or eternally optimistic, who else would paddle out and then sit for 30 minutes waiting for a wave that just may come? Oh, actually that reminds me of fishing a bit, oh...