Friday
was busy and work couldn’t pass quickly enough.
After a lightning quick turnaround I was alone at the Marsh fishing with
two rods by 1900. I knew where I fancied
fishing and set up so quickly that it was only when I sat down that I realised
I hadn’t even bothered to look for signs of fish. My swim had a large bed of lily pads within
easy distance and I’d cast both rods to the edge of this. One was fake pop up corn fished over about
ten pouches of pellets, the other a heli/snowman rig with a PVA bag of crushed
boilies. Before long groups of bubbles
began to erupt around the pads, there were certainly fish about; I was in with
a shout.
So far
the day had stayed dry but rumbles of thunder had me quickly popping up the
shelter, grim clouds seemed to be passing away to the east, someone was getting
a soaking but I was lucky, so far. The
storm clouds seemed to pass either side of the ring of tall trees that circle
this old place but my luck couldn’t hold, could it? The wind was freshening and blowing from the
South west, the opposite to what the forecast had told me. There were definitely fish in the swim, a
large Tench rolled over the pellets. I
was definitely in with a shout!
One of
the good things about getting older is seeing younger members of the family
grow up. My nephews are getting older and
it’s good getting to know them as adults.
One of them pooped down for a brew, a chat and a laugh. Unfortunately he brought the rain with him
but it wasn’t too bad. Still fish
bubbled and occasionally rolled in the area, I began getting liners too. Things were looking good.
The
nephew left and as it got quickly dark I packed up the boilie rod. The swim was alive with bubbling and still
Tench rolled, surely I would get a chance?
With most of the gear packed up I stood in the dark giving it five more
minutes which turned into half an hour as every time I thought about winding in
another patch of bubbles appeared or another fish rolled. At 2210 I realised I’d forgotten my torch and
I really should pack up. If only I’d had
more time! If I’d have been able to stay
all night I just know I would have caught!
Saturday
was spent at work, enough said. Sunday
morning saw a nice long lay in then Shelley and I took a midday day drive into
another world. For me to go to London
there has to be a damn good reason and there was, but more about that
later. We had a hotel near Wembley,
chosen because it was cheap not because of the location. At home a five minute
walk takes us into the beautiful Suffolk countryside; fields, lakes and woods;
Here we walked through concrete, derelict businesses and litter, with the North
Circular road on one side and a septic looking canal on the other. After an average meal at the hotel we
crashed, Monday would be busy.
After
another lazy start to the day we got the tube into the city, Kensington to be
precise which is another world again.
Yes it’s concrete and steel once more but this part of town has money,
nothing run down or derelict here. People
watching revealed thousands of tourists along with wealthy looking people who
seemed more at home. After fuelling up
with a nice Lamb Rogan we visited the Natural History Museum, my first ever
visit here. The dinosaur exhibition is
brilliant but my overall impression of the place was mixed. On the one hand it’s fascinating but on the
other it’s overwhelming; hot, crowded and noisy. It’s just too big. We left sooner than planned and found
ourselves in the V&A which although less interesting to me was a much
calmer, more relaxed experience. We even
found some paintings of the Suffolk countryside by Mr Constable.
Our main
reason for braving the capital was to see our favourite band in the world,
“Eels” play at the Royal Albert Hall.
With a little time to kill we sat on a bench near the Albert memorial
and tried to while away the minutes. We’d
seen Eels three times on the two previous tours and they’d been fabulous each
time. This was our first visit to the
RAH though and it looked impressive even from the outside. An annoying shower saw us head for shelter
early. Our tickets were standing, way up
at the very highest point of the hall and we found our entrance and started
queuing.
With ten
minutes to go someone opened the door and offered all of the handful queuing
free ticket upgrades!! There were a few
seats unsold to the side of the stage and we eagerly swapped ours! We went in, got a beer then wandered around,
grinning with that “can’t believe our luck” feeling. We entered the hall and “Jesus Christ!” what
a place! Seats were to the right hand
side of the stage but only two rods back.
The view was different but brilliant.
Lights dimmed and… the support… I
can’t remember what they were called and I have no wish to find out.
Then
came the Eels, could tonight possibly match the brilliant emotional nights
we’ve seen before? Yes they bloody well
could! Every Eels tour is different. We’ve seen “Tremendous Dynamite” a blues
brothers R&B show with a horn section then last year was “Wonderful
Glorious”, just the five regular band members playing a hard rock and roll
show. This year was the regular five again
playing a mostly acoustic set. We heard
many songs both old and new that we hadn’t seen performed live before and I can
only remember 2 ½ songs that featured on last year’s tour. Three tours, three totally different
sets. All of the band members can play
several instruments and we were blown away by seeing them reveal skills we
didn’t know they had. There were many
different arrangements of familiar tunes, all of them worked. The set started slowly with what “Mr E”
described as “sweet bummer rock” then built in tempo and swept the audience
along. Standout tunes tonight; “It’s a
mother-fucker”, “Last stop this town”, “Parallels” and “I like the way this is
going”. “E” hugged the crowd, the band
played a long encore then finally “Mr E” took over the massive pipe organ. The sound was brilliant, the atmosphere fantastic
and the hall was splendid. However they
decide to play Eels are the best live band I’ve seen in thirty years of gigging
and the RAH was the perfect venue for this set.
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