The well trodden path

The path is a treacherous winding fisherman's path - lightly carved into this ancient Neolithic landscape. It is high and oversees the dark expanse of water below it at one moment and it takes a turn the next so you are inches from the water where one slip would see you fall into eight feet of freezing inky blackness.  

They say it is good to experience places you love in all the seasons and therefore experience their moods both good and bad. I have done so here for a large chunk of my life, I could walk its banks blindfolded and find my way around, but it still catches me out - that is why I always return. 

How I come to be sitting by a remote carp pool of antiquity in freezing rain at the tail end of the coarse fishing season is a question I am asking myself as I stare longingly at my orange tipped float.

A whim trip - away from the outside world for a few days with all its baggage left behind is good for the contemplative anglers soul.

The rivers are bank full, so if I am to idle my time anywhere then I can think of no better place than here at the Wizard's Cauldron.

For once I am pleased my battered canvas Efgeeco brolly is with me along with a large flask of tea. I am also fortunate that "you know who" from down the lane is away elsewhere. It is challenging enough getting here anyway without that old bastard putting an enormous spanner in the works for the last few hundred yards of my journey......not this time. 

A carpet of curried maggots is on the silty leaf strewn bed and the soundtrack of rook, raven and buzzard add to the general gloom around me. I sit in years of accumulated leaf litter, sheltered in this hollow as the storm brews ever stronger and louder............I watch my float and wait.