um…I dont have a category for this – Page 4

Coffee and quotes

My hiking buddy said I would burn my eyebrows off with this thing. I bought it anyway. Turns out he wasn’t far off the mark. There was this little incident last year, you see. But enough about that. It’s a fantastic little thing, and it requires finess and skill to make it really hum. Not like one of those little gas cannister things that you just switch on and light. You would have to read Pirsig to understand. This photo was taken in that little sheltered spot under the Nchi shi bushes at Highmoor. It is the perfect spot to

23 October 2017

Coffee and quotes

“The whole thing about fly fishing is that it’s supposed to be fun. If you have more fun not catching fish on a dry fly than catching fish on a nymph, then fish a dry fly” Gary LaFontaine, from Paul Arnold’s book “Wisdom of the Guides” (and that is Al Troth on the cover by the way) There is a story to this hut! LINK. I eventually got someone to do one for me !

1 September 2017

Coffee and quotes

The coffee is a cappuccino, made with “Nonmara” beans, from the Coffee Merchant. “Non- “not” and Mara – “bitter” = not bitter! A multi continent blend that is roasted medium/dark. An intense espresso experience, great body and is vibrant and snappy, without any bitter after-taste” The quote is from “A Fisherman’s diary”, published in 1969 “True anglers fish for sport, not for a medal, or mess of pottage, but they ought not to be ignorant of the peaks and summits of their attainments, whether directly solicited or not.” Oliver Kite Read more about Oliver Kite here

21 August 2017

What do you say

This blog, as well as various magazine articles, are filled with images of one of my greatest friends. He is also the subject of several blog posts here. One of those blog posts was a plain black slide. It was posted on the day that my friend was diagnosed with cancer, and I put it there without explanation, because….. well because what do you say? Last Wednesday we took my friend Roy fishing. But not before he stopped in for coffee and found about 40 fishing buddies there to give him a hug and a warm handshake. Just 4 days

15 August 2017

You really have to watch yourself

I read somewhere recently that the character trait in which one favours nostalgia, is in direct contrast to to the trait in which one seeks new adventure. Put another way: If you spend your time in fond reminiscence, you are less likely to be trying new fly patterns, and new tippet rigs and heading out to new fishing destinations. It had me thinking. I have to watch myself! I am a nostalgic. By that very definition, I am at risk of being an old fart. So to comfort myself I stay abreast with things and keep my mind open to

1 July 2017

Photo of the moment (81)

8 June 2017

A buddy lost

After the drama of family and grandchildren, stepping forward one after the other to drop a white lily onto the coffin below, the old guy in the tweed fedora stepped forward to the grave’s edge. He had stepped slowly forward when attentions were diverted. When the mourners had pulled their eyes away, and were looking through the bare branches of the graveyard trees at the happy sky beyond. As they were all swallowing hard and waiting for the lumps in throats to mercifully subside. That was when he stepped to the edge of the raw earth. His movements were slow

31 May 2017

Photo of the moment (78)

25 April 2017

Sir!

It was during a Rhodes trip a few years ago, that I learnt of the death of Tim Wright. Tim was an outdoorsman, an educator, and a gentleman. He was also a flyfisherman. I had the good fortune of benefitting from the fact that he taught and mentored both of my sons at junior school. Tim was one of those guys, like my old friend Win Whitear, who punished schoolboys with what modern rules might decree as “cruel and unusual punishment”….(things like making them carry a rock, for rocking on their chair, or famously once throwing all a boy’s books

9 March 2017

Books and thievery

It was a very disappointed thief who broke down my patio door in the middle of the night with an axe, in search of a flat screen TV. All he got was an angry Great Dane and a sea of books. I only wish we had managed to give him some fast flying lead too….the bastard! But let me put the angry thoughts of retribution aside for a moment and focus on his disappointment, and my delight: Books. I hadn’t realised it, but books, and more specifically flyfishing books, have been in my blood for a long time. I remembered

28 February 2017