Firstly, thanks to those who contacted me to check on my sanity after my last post. I’m feeling much better!

I’ve suspended indefinitely all guiding and personal appearances but I have been delivering FaceTime presentations on watercraft from my bath using the trees from my model railway and a selection of objects from my aquarium.

 

Well, it seems I was right! My predictions for the end of the world drew cries of “He’s losing it” but in years to come I will be viewed as a prophet and a visionary. It appears that in addition to the floods, global warming and the plague, it’s been announced that we’ll next be visited by, not locusts but Murder Hornets!

So before the widely predicted Covid spike and the huge killer wasps descend on Warrington, I decided it was time to poke my head out of the door and try to once more reconnect with the outside world.

 

First though, I had to wade through the minefield of conflicting instructions from the government and the many bodies, authorities, trusts and clubs that control the waters on which I fly fish…but I eventually decided on the river Goyt.

I renewed my EA rod licence online and set about reinstating my lapsed club membership that I usually purchase over the counter. A few emails and texts later, I was instructed to send something called a ‘cheque’ in the post.

My club membership arrived by mail yesterday and the postman delivered it like a prison warden depositing soup at a cell door hatch.

 

As I opened my season ticket with the forceps, I was reminded just how long it’s been since I wet a line, let alone removed a fly from a fish…but I was now set!

So this morning, armed with face mask, hand gel and a 2m long cattle prod, I was headed for the closest, most remote bit of English river that I was allowed to fish.

 

The car was packed, the fly boxes filled, and the excitement was building…until I turned the engine over. I was met with the devastating clicks, chugging and choking noises akin to those of a man who’d smoked 20 woodbines a day for 30 years. It’s now 1.30 and after trying to jump start from another car AND a stand alone jump starter, I’m waiting for the man from Green Flag to try and save the day.

Stay tuned for the next thrilling instalment of my very public decent into madness.