Swan Lake

A glorious day at last, and I have decided to make the most of it by going fishing, work can wait !
Fishing is an excellent way to start the week and really puts everything else into perspective. Firstly you are at one with nature, a part of nature, and you realise your transitory and insignificant position in the scheme of things. Secondly you realise how artificial our modern day world with all its stresses is, and that outside our cars and offices with their computers, telephones & deadlines is a real world that progresses at a more sedate speed. And thirdly there is always someone much uglier than you sitting around the opposite edge of the pool with his fat and trashy wife. Fishing should be a recognised form of therapy.

Personally I'm never bothered how much I catch, as long as its enough to feed a man for a day the time has not been wasted. I'm actually allergic to fish, and you wouldn't want to eat most of the standard fish anyway, but its the principle of self sufficiency that counts, and if ever I get a blank with the rods, its waders on and out with the shotgun !

As the Smart bumps down the muddy tracks winding its way between fallen trees and burnt out ford escorts, I wind the window down, pull out my WWII luger pistol and take a few potshots at the passing wildlife. A bunch of reeds beside the road explodes and the luger leaves a 9mm hole in the head of a rather surprised duck. Excellent - thats dinner sorted already.

As I sit by the bank wreathed in a private cloud of pipe smoke, a swan slides silently into view from behind some bullrushes and I am reminded immediately of Wagner's opera Lohengrin. I close my eyes as the gorgeous music from the prelude to act 3 swells up in my mind, my right hand subconsciously conducting with a polaris float. The swan's foot catches the line and the rod begins to bend ominously, but I am oblivious as by now Ortrud has rushed into the bridal chamber to confront Elsa and Lohengrin has been betrayed. With a neat kick the swan pulls the ledger rod into the lake snapping the quiver tip as it does so and knocking my thermos of coffee over.

A loud crack echoes suddenly across the lake. Gottfried drifts for a few feet more his right wing flapping feebly in the air before slowly rolling over on his left side and sinking beneath the surface. For once Lohengrin is avenged....