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(aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2239 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad
All Rights Reserved. |
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I finally managed to get away after the human vacuum cleaner got another titful of milk. Seeing as she’s not even my kid, she seems to get quite a bit of my time, especially as the other dairy cow had gone shopping before I could escape. The way she slipped away was almost suspicious. I know I am anyway, if there was a god, I’d suspect he’d had an off day when he created humans, we really are of no use to anything except ourselves. Even carnivores can’t really eat most of us as we contain too many poisonous chemicals like dioxins.
I got to town about half past two and was surprised to see the lunacy that is Christmas shopping hadn’t abated very much, perhaps people were hoping for even more reductions on goods? I’d looked up the name of a tackle shop, which I believe is the correct term for a shop which sells piscatorial equipment. Thankfully, most of the mayhem was back towards the town centre and Gun wharf, so I parked the car virtually outside–eventually. Thank goodness for parking sensors, even I can do it then–I just have to remember that the continuous tone precedes that of metal crunching and glass breaking.
I shut the car door and peeped the lock entering the shop a moment later. I’d seen someone looking out the window at me as I parked the car and the look exchanged by him and an old man who was presumably a customer. It soon became obvious that they had me down as a bimbo–which with regard to things piscine is possible not far wrong.
“How can I help you, me dear?” said the oldish chap behind the counter.
“I’d like your advice, if I may.”
“But of course, fire away.”
I thought I’d play up to them before I come clean. Hopefully, they’ll enjoy the jest. “My husband goes fly fishing, or so he says, how anyone can catch flies with a fishing rod baffles me.”
“Uh no, darlin’, the flies are bait for fish,” offered the ancient mariner who was propping up the counter.
“Oh, that sounds better–tee hee,” I gave this silly high pitched giggle and watched them both roll their eyes. “Oh I am a silly-billy.” The elderly one who looked like Popeye’s grandfather walked around behind me, presumably having a good look at the denim stretched over my derriere. “So what sort of zips do they use for the flies? Presumably, nylon ones as metal ones would rust.”
“Zips, darlin’?”
“Yes, oh I see they use buttons.”
“Buttons?” he scratched his head his face wearing an expression of, ‘we’ve got a right one ’ere’.
“Yes, you said flies–surely, they’re not press studs?”
“Flies as in blue bottles.”
“Oh,” I tittered and somehow managed to blush as well. “Silly me.”
“Is he looking to catch salmon or trout?”
“No, fish.”
“Salmon and trout are fish, darlin’.”
“Oh yes, of course they are.” The stage missed out on a real talent.
“Well?”
“Yes, they are fish,” I agreed.
“Yes, but which does he catch?”
“How would I know, I buy most of our fish from a fishmonger.”
“It would help if we knew where he went fishing.”
“Scotland.”
“You’re sure about that?” he asked just in case I’d confused it with a similar sounding country like Venezuela.
“Oh yes, we have a castle up there.”
“Castle?”
“Yes, draughty old place.”
The shopkeeper looked out of the window at my Jaguar, I was obviously an escaped lunatic, but possibly a wealthy one. “Is that your car?”
“The Jag, yes, hubby gave it to me for my birthday, I just love the colour.” It’s white.
“Oh yes, very nice.
“Well, I crashed the Porsche and the Merc, so far so good in this one.”
“How long have you had it?” asked the customer.
“Since yesterday.”
“Drive careful on the way home, then.”
“Oh I will, it’s never my fault. I mean what a silly place to park a car.”
“What was?”
“The car I hit.”
“Where was it parked?”
“In a car park, I mean...”
They were both thoroughly enjoying the show I was putting on for them. I noticed the time. It was three o’clock, I had to wrap this up a bit more quickly. My phone rang. I checked it, it was Simon. “Yes, darling?”
“Can you get some antacid, I mean if you’re doing the cooking–you know, to be prepared and all that.”
“Charming. I’ll see if I have time, at the moment I’m trying to negotiate how much discount I can get if I sleep with the shopkeeper.”
“Don’t do it for less than ten per cent, how much you spending?”
“About two pounds, why?”
“Nothin’, see you later.”
“My husband,” I giggled and realised they’d seen through my act.
“So, d’you want anything or are you just winding us up?”
“Yes, I want this.” I handed him a list of things and his eyes widened.
“If you buy all this I’ll sleep with you for nothing,” said the shopkeeper as picked things off shelves and out of drawers. Tom had helped me compile it, as he fished himself–or used to.
“I think I’ve enough on my plate without a divorce, thank you.”
The bill was over two hundred pounds and I handed him my debit card which he then put in the reader. “Dr Watts, is it?”
“Yes.”
“What, medical doctor?”
“Nope, I’m a biologist–but not freshwater. Had enough of that as an undergrad analysing desmids, diatoms and protozoa.”
“Important for fry to feed on.”
“Absolutely, but I prefer the larger consumers.”
“So the bit about the castle was nonsense?”
“Actually, no, that was the only thing that was true.”
“You own a castle in Scotland?”
“The family does, and a stretch of the river, plus an estate.”
“Pays well, does it, biology?”
“Not especially, I don’t have the opportunities that biochemists and bio-engineers have regarding patents. They can earn fortunes.”
“I’ll bet, so what do you do in biology–teach schoolkids?”
“Sort of, large schoolkids only we call them undergraduates and hope they’ll grow up by the third year–one or two do.”
“The university?”
“Yes, I teach ecology.”
“Good for you, people like you have helped clean up the rivers and protect environments.”
“I didn’t do it all on my own you know.”
“I don’t care, darlin’, it all helps.”
I left there with a spring in my step.
The rest of my shopping was like being caught up going the wrong way in the retreat from Dunkirk. I did get everything including Simon’s ant-acid tablets, hope he likes the new make, Cyanide or something like it.
This car had cruise control. In Portsmouth, crawl control might have been more use, I’m sure I saw the same woodlouse pass me three times. It gave me time to examine my list, I had everything on it including something for Tom, the girls including the older ones too, and for Stella and her brood.
All I had to do now was sort what we were having for dinner and cook it. I thought something like bacon and eggs with loads of toast or sautéed spuds. I had a case of tinned tomatoes from Lidl’s, which I thought were absolutely super, so I’d sacrifice a couple or more of those as well.
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Comments
well played, Cathy
I had turkey and bacon butties after Christmas, and can recommend the mix.
PS, by the time anyone looks over this - Happy New Year, may it bring all that you hope for.
Teri Ann
"Reach for the sun."
Crawl Control
That is an invention I would love to buy. Connect that to the parking sensors then you really reduce accidents. And save a few tired drivers from road rage.
PS I loved the winding the shop keeps up.
Huggles
Michele
With those with open eyes the world reads like a book
New Years Eve Dinner
The spousal unit and I are staying in this evening, so we're making something a little special for dinner. Picked up a live and feisty 1.1 Kg Metacarcinus magister, a lovely specimen which, after cooking in some crab boil, should make a nice center dish in our feast for two. Couldn't get near the wine store sideways this afternoon to pick up our usual bubbly, so we're going to have to toast the New Year and wash down dinner with some more plebeian fare, a local microbrew IPA for me, and hard cider for her.
Some rice, steamed greens, and sauteed mushrooms should fill out the rest of the meal. I'll be lighting up the stove in about an hour.
Fun times in the Tackle Shop
fun and family. Hmm 8 and a half hours till the new year here , though I guess its just about 25 minutes away in UK have a safe and sane New Year, Or we can just go Totally Bonkers
Goddess Bless you
Love Desiree
good act but
glad the shopkeepers had a good sense of humor. Hmmmm... fishing is expensive. How much could Cathy have bought at the fishmonger for 200 pounds?
Fly fishing
is very expensive, a good split cane rod can cost hundreds if not thousands. Yet sea fishing from the shore can be very cheap once you have a rod and reel etc. I used to coarse fish - rivers, lakes and canals - used to catch more trees than fish. I did try fly fishing, hooked the back of my neck--sorta put me off.
Oh and the cost of fishing a Scottish salmon river, is astronomical, the permits are hugely expensive but it's seen as the ultimate in the sport.
Angharad
Perhaps fishing the river is less expensive
when it's on your estate :-)
There were some fly fisherman ...
... who fished in the reservoir where we raced dinghies. They were supposed to keep to the edges when we were sailing but one pair sat in their little boat at the first windward mark one morning concentrating on drowning worms or flies or whatever. They were somewhat surprised when about a dozen dinghies bore down on them from 2 directions accompanied by lots of spray and shouting. I think we spoiled their day :)
I haven't fished since I was a youngster when we made our own rods from canes and bought the cheapest lines, reels hooks and floats we could find. We never bothered with licences to fish the cut for roach or perch though we were supposed to. I think they turned a blind eye, hoping for new recruits to the pastime. Never caught much and bought a motor bike as soon as I was old enough.
Robi
Shopping good.
Fishing? Not so good. Fish comes in frozen portions doesn't it. Two minutes by the freezer section in Aldi's is inginitely better than a whole bloody day standing on some god-forsaken, cold, wet, muddy river bank with midges sucking yer blood.
We've spent 10,000 years trying to get civilised. Going 'fishing' for live fish is a backward step. Give me a gift voucher for New Look or Next every time!!!
Fishing? Laugh a minute? NOT!!!
Reading chapters of bike? Fun? Yes!
Bevs.
xx
The Safeway fish pond
The only fishing I do is in the market.
A :)
Thank You Angharad
For this last epidode particularly.
Am I winning you over to Woodlice ? In the last few episodes you have mentioned them twice, but Dormice not once even.
That Cathy saw a woodlouse from her Jag, is possible. I remember driving my daughers along a country lane and seeing one crossing the road and stopping for it. They learned to love them too, especially when one of the Armadellidium species that had rolled up into a ball when picked up and held in the hand would after a wjile unwrap and start to crawl in the hand and tickle them. Alas, after a job I had where I stared down a microscope and dissected nematode worms and made them jump out of their skins to collect the ant-antibodies they made to defend themselves from the antibodies that animals made to protect themselves from the worms, every day for about 2 years, I messed up my eyesight so much that when I gaze at the stars now I see pairs of streaks, not points of light, and the earth has 2 moons, that travel one over the other. What with that and my side effects of swallowing radioiodine, I really have sacrificed a lot to Science. I hope they iove me some recognition before I die, waiting until afterwards like poor Dr Turing had to would be grossly unfair.
Dr Catherine Watts ought to get at least an MBE for all her work too. What a wonderful family she is raising. AEAFOAB is a Phenomenal Account that inspires and amuses and excites so many folk - we all love you, and wish you a happy 2014.
Thank you for being there!
Briar
My daughter...
My daughter does that kinda thing shopping for electronics... Except more so - as she's quite the expert on tablets, but is also a blonde with "large tracks of land" as she puts it. LOL It was funny watching her last week... The poor boy.
But, back to the story. Wow - shopping for all those folks in just one day. Amazing. I was lucky to have things for everyone in my family (thank you very much, Amazon and Stauer!) :-)
Fun episode, thanks.
Annette
Fishing .... Mmmm
i know its a sport enjoyed by millions, Sadly though it seems to have passed me by, The thought of standing in a fast flowing river trying to catch a fish which you then throw back makes me long for a nice sunny day watching Cricket,Yes i know its not everyones cup of tea either, But at least i stay dry...
Kirri