OK, OK, let's get Wednesday out of the way, then. After several warmer days, I was seduced by reports of fish coming out at Willows. I arrived to the sight of two topping fish which settled my swim choice, and heard  of further catches that morning which elevated my anticipation so high that for a while, I wasn't bothered that I'd forgotten my seat and had 4-hours ahead of me sat on a plastic bag on a hard damp bank. By the time the buttock-ache really started kicking in, I'd had no bites on swim-fed bread flake or a zig-rig pinged around the lake. Developing upper leg cramp brought no fishy action, nor did it when spiking knee pain took over and ended in a pulled calf. Between the twinges, I managed 11 small blank-bustin' roach in an hour on the float, but that was that, and I limped back to the car as my circulation slowly returned. 

Today then, lesson learned; no lake for me as I drove the country track to Speen in harsh rain; the first in weeks. It continued through my first hour, but eased as I had a decent bite on the legered bread flake, pinged out towards some overhangs. In came my nemesis... a chub! And at 3lb 10 it was embarrassingly a p.b. We clearly felt the same. It's lack of a real fight despite the number of snags it could have dived for was just shame.

No more bites despite numerous swim changes, I made off for my favourite weir swim. Here the wind dried me out, but took most vestiges of body warmth with it. And the fish.  My one bite in an hour brought a beautiful gudgeon, but that was it. Not even a trout, though I did hook an ancient and somehow sunken tennis ball, which I first feared was a hand grenade when it surfaced. Oh, and a fat labrador stopped, stuck its snout into my bag and made off with my loaf of bread. Two minutes later, the apologetic owner returned and handed me a pooh-bag containing the few flobbered scraps she had been able to recover from her filching fido's jaws. 

The last hour was spent at Parliament Draft where the westerly wind whipped the surface throughout. I expected no bites at all and that's just what I got.

Funny old day.