I find that I type an update for once, heavy in heart. Not just my usual outpouring of really pretty irreverent nonsense, this time I'm at a loss for words.

It is with great sorrow that I note the passing of Dr Mike Locke - sure he was the chairman of Salisbury & District AC and has done great things for the club, but to me he was a friend. A passionate angler, a proponent of a move to wild unstocked waters and a force to be reckoned with as a chair of an unruly committee. I'm deliberately going to focus on the positives though, I fished with him a fair few times and it's Mike's fault that I became a bailiff on the Nadder and a committee member of the club. Somehow I feel that we've all lost something.

I'll miss you Mike.





~ malcolm

Autumn eh? It’s a funny season, a sort of ending, somehow final. Although you know that spring is coming eventually, it has a terminal taint - a seasonal full stop.

A drawing to a close, the final curtain for barbecues, beaches, freckles, shorts and t-shirts. An end to those lazy dog days, lounging in the shade next to the river, letting the gurgling current schmooze past you, taking the heat of midday downstream towards Fordingbridge. Watching, lost in thought and anticipation. Waiting for the evening to gather you up in it’s cooling embrace, for the sights, sounds and smells of dusk to rouse you from your splendid slumber. Waiting for the river to come alive, the heart wrenching sploosh of the rising fish under the alder to wrest you from your repose and bring you heron like into complete and utter focus on the water that has the current slowing to a crawl. A seemingly timeless place that only a warm summer dusk and a rising fish can bring.

Ahh yes, Autumn. It’s like watching an old friend wither away and get old before their time, wishing you’d spent more time with them and squandered less in front of the computer, or at work. Every speckled leaf, helicoptering towards the grounds heavy grasp is another wrinkle on a once youthful face, every rotting plant stem hanging lifeless to the waters surface another grey hair. A bit more stoop, a creaking bone, a little less energy, stiffening joints. No, it’s hard not to become somewhat maudlin at summers passing, the end of the trout season. The dying back of summers bloom.

Apparently it's not just me that feels this vague discomfort at the passing of this years non-summer. I heard the radio the other day as I was preparing to head off to work, they were discussing, in what can only be described as a cheery manner, songs to be buried to. A great breakfast topic, but it got me thinking, what song do I want played at my funeral? I settled on a cover version of a carpenters song by Sonic Youth. You may have heard it in the film Juno, it’s one of the most bitter sweet love songs I’ve ever heard – alternative enough, just the right amount of feedback and a shining example of slacker-pop.



Man, seems I’m on a downer today! Can’t have that… Right, things to look forward to:

Wading knee deep through crispy leaves
Bowls of steaming soup
Jacket potatoes
Crackling log fires
Christmas
Snow!
Hats and scarves
Warm coats
Breath frosting in the air on cold mornings
Snow!
London on a cold crisp winter morning, walking across Westminster bridge - going against the commuter flow
Proper winter storms on deserted beaches
Chopping firewood
Bonfire night at Dinton
Mountains
Did I mention snow?







~malcolm