The Cellandine shuffle

I adore this time of year. It gathers pace. Blink and you miss things. The trout season started the other week and I am now getting twitchy. I usually take a little break before I cast a fly line, but I cannot wait any longer. My time will come this week. It is likely to be my local West Dorset streams and I will come to the Stour Valley a week or so later.

The swallows are here in growing numbers, the dace are thinking of spawning - large gathers of the silver lovelies are on the sparkling shallows doing the early spawning shuffle. Just thinking about it. They leave the group to sip at a fly and then get back to it. 

The church you see here is one of my favourite Stour Valley spots - nestled in a fold of nowhere its flint walls reflect in the pure chalk waters of the trout stream you can hear as you while away some time in the churchyard. This I do regularly whilst eating my lunch. The dace do a spawning shuffle as I do a cellandine shuffle. It is a special place. Much has happened here in days gone by and more is to come, but at this moment in time I could be the only person alive as I hear nothing other than the babble of the stream.