Living better

I had a whole day in the fresh air yesterday. I don't fish many days a year, but on Friday spent a day on the Ettrick. Fishing conditions were not great with low water and bright sunshine, but the countryside looked fantastic in the warm autumn sunshine and, were it not for the fact that I am instilled with a sense of fishing duty ("You'll catch nothing without your fly I the water"), I would have been happy sleeping under a tree. I went with a friend and client, we took a lot of food (6 pies in 6 hours), a bottle of red and a few pounds for beer. We stopped at the pub for an hour in the afternoon (too bright to fish we told ourselves) and chatted idly with a fishing party from Yorkshire. Were it not for the fact that I seem to have bent the undercarriage of my car driving across a field (I should have known better fishing, like golf, being a walking, carrying game) it would have been a near perfect day.

Tomorrow I am going to Kelso Races, another favourite day out, again in the fresh air, although I fear in the rain. If I am feeling really determined to live better I will golf first - Goswick at 7.00, Parents for coffee, Kelso at 12.00. Its tight but do-able schedule.