Catching Fish Without Hook, Line or Sinker

I'm ready for my close-up now...

Dropping your camera into the River Thames isn't usually recommended, but I actually did it on purpose. It was attached to our garden rake so it wouldn't float away. I'm not daft.

This was back in July, during the heatwave; the backwater at the bottom of our garden was crystal-clear, and from the footbridge across to the island I'd seen fish languishing in the shallow water, so I decided to immerse my waterproof sports camera in video mode to see if I could catch anything - at least digitally.

I clamped it to the rake both for safety and ease of manipulation and lowered it into the river at our mooring, making sure it was pointing towards a gap in the weeds, which had been growing visibly in the warm waters of summer. I then went back into the basement to continue breaking up the concrete floor, but that's another story. The point is I forgot about the camera for an hour or so, but later retrieved it and recovered the micro SD card for transfer to the PC. 

By way of explanation, I'm not a wildlife documentary-maker, not even much of a nature rambler, but we'd bought a run-down riverside property at Sunbury-on-Thames primarily because it was a) on the river and b) it had its own mooring. Oh, and c) we could afford it - just - with the help of a mortgage broker. In fact we told all our friends the house was called Mortgage-on-Thames.

The wildlife was an added and unexpected bonus. We quickly discovered there's no shortage on our backwater - ducks, swans, geese, grebes, coots and kingfishers are regulars, but what lay beneath? The fish I'd seen from the bridge looked big and were dark grey, but what were they, and what else was there? I hoped the unblinking eye of the underwater camera would reveal all. I was not disappointed.

Watching the footage back on the PC in real time proved not only rewarding, but strangely calming. Tired from my toil in the basement breaking up the concrete floor, I sat in front of the screen and watched the bright green underwater weeds dance gracefully back and forth as the sluggish water flowed by. Every now and then a mysterious dark shape went past on the surface, but always in the distance. 

Closer to the camera I saw interesting floating things - amoeba-like objects, bright green blobs of vegetation, and bubbles rising from the bed of the river, like jewels backlit by the bright summer sun. And then a large grey fish poked its head in from right of screen, its orange eye seeming to look directly at me. It swam past the lens followed by another similar fish. They turned, and with a swish of their tails dashed out of shot.

During the next hour I saw small shoals of darting silvery fish with orange-tipped fins, a ghost-fish of almost transparent grey, and other smaller fish. I was mesmerised.

Over the next couple of weeks the Rake-Cam was put to work often, and each time I looked forward to seeing what I'd caught in camera. It wasn't just fish; I laughed out loud as a grebe passed directly across the field of view doing a sort of underwater breaststroke (except without arms), and twice got up close and personal with a swan as it not only fed from the weeds in front of the camera but actually pecked at the camera housing to see if it was edible. This was the week of Swan Upping. I guessed the creature was displaying swan-upmanship.

I edited some of the footage and put it on You Tube, partly to share the pictures but also in the hope some knowledgeable fishing folk might be able to identify the species; so far no luck. I think the fish with the orange-tipped fins are perch, and the large grey ones are perhaps catfish judging by the barbels. In the end, it doesn't matter to me what they are, I was just delighted to find so much going on underwater, and right on our doorstep - or moorstep, if you will.

Perhaps best of all was going fishing without a licence, or a rod, and not having to sit on a stool for hours on end. No worms were harmed.

With the glorious summer now already a memory the Thames has turned murky again as the autumnal rains wash stuff into the river and the water is more disturbed. The Rake-Cam has been disassembled, and the rake is back to doing its job of clearing the lawn of leaves. Its film industry career is on hold. The camera is tucked away in a drawer. The fish, I suspect, are all still there - as I will be again next summer.

A Grand Design Space Renovation Argument

There’s an argument going on at our place. Not out loud; it’s not like the neighbour’s screaming at us for having trimmed a wee bit too much of her japonica which was hanging over on our side. No, this argument is much quieter, in fact silent, but no less a major heavyweight bout.

Mortgage-on-Thames

Having recently bought in Sunbury-on-Thames – or ‘Mortgage-on-Thames’ as we now call it – we have once again (of necessity) become property renovators. Liz and I have done this at least twice before, so we’re no strangers when it comes to peeling off old wallpaper, jemmying away rotten timbers, or in fact ripping down whole walls. Sometimes we do it just for fun, so you might want to be a bit cautious before inviting us round to your place; if we arrive with a bottle of Chardonnay and a crowbar you know you’re in trouble.

It will come as no surprise therefore to learn that over the years we have become avid followers of Kevin McCloud, George Clarke, Sarah Beeny et al, as we have watched them observe, guide, fret, advise and sometimes scoff at people’s various restoration, facelift, or complete demolition-and-rebuild projects on TV.

We’ve become immune to the drama; cue Kevin, walking towards camera, away from mud-clogged building site with stranded digger in the background: ‘The thing is, will their budget cope with this winter of discontent? Can Bob and Sally survive not only the stresses of the ever-delayed project, but the challenge of living with each other in a tent at the bottom of their soggy garden while their building project becomes more and more stuck in a sea of mud, ennui and overdue credit card payments?’ 

Probably, but we have another four commercial breaks and similar pieces-of-rhetoric-to-camera until we find out.

Sarah Beeny is positively funereal in her pre-break summaries, her voice lowering to that of a minister presiding over the eulogies and final words before the coffin is committed, probably to a muddy hole in the ground due to the worst winter since ever. The editor even adds a blue-grey tinge to the images of the property pre-reno work, along with sad violin music FX, just so we get the message that this project was death personified until SB came along.

That’s okay, there’s a lot we like about the programmes too, not least of which is having a wager on whether the wife in each Grand Designs episode will get pregnant during the building project (she does, always), and whether the same will happen between George’s first and final visits to his Amazing Spaces properties (she usually does too). We have a side-bet on whether the presenters are to blame. Sarah Beeny seems to be pregnant herself in every episode of her property programmes, but since neither Kevin nor George feature we can hardly hold them accountable.

No, what irks us the most is how Kevin endlessly talks about how the grand design in question needs to maintain ‘a dialogue’ with the landscape in which it sits, and how ‘the narrative’ of the house and grounds needs to be well-planned. The ceiling needs to ‘engage’ with the walls, while the roof should ‘embrace’ the distant horizon.

The garden incommunicado

Well I can tell you now that our property is having a blazing row, not just with the landscape but within itself. For example, the garden is definitely not speaking to the house. There is no dialogue between them, unless it’s the house saying, ‘You bastard! Look at you! Overgrown, unkempt, the scruffiest in the neighbourhood. What about me?!’

Actually the house is no better (as the garden will quickly tell you); the walls have turned their faded yellow stucco backs on the local landscape, most likely because they’re too embarrassed to engage in any discourse. It would be short-lived anyway. ‘Yellow? Dirty old yellowy stucco? You cannot be serious!’ says the landscape.

Nothing to see here, move along...

Inside, the décor has reached a stony silence with contemporary norms, the bright pink walls of the lounge and dark green of the dining room having nothing to say to today’s paint charts, especially magnolia, Britain’s biggest selling interior hue.

The roof tiles, spaced like rotting teeth in a sugar-loving octogenarian who has never visited a dentist in his life, do maintain a Theresa May-like conversation with everything below, a sort-of Brexit attitude of, ‘We’re definitely leaving, bit by bit, but we still expect to have protection from water ingress, and we’d like some guarantee of ongoing commitment to friendly upkeep of relationships, if not actual tiles’. Strong and stable, that’s what the roof wants to be.

The shed in tendrilly engagement

The garden path hates the lawn, the sage bush and adjacent rose have fallen out, while the only engagement to be seen is where the ivy has got the garden shed well and truly in its tendrilly clutches, and even that’s an unwelcome Weinstein moment. The shed is likely to fail its audition and be blacklisted. (What, too soon?) (Yep – Ed. #ShedsMatterToo)

At the river’s edge there’s a tree stump making a bid to escape across the water, while the nearby flagpole is saying nothing, there being a lack of vexillologists in the family at present.

All-in-all it’s an enormous spat, and Kevin would have his scripting skills cut out to find any meaningful dialogue anywhere on the property.

So it’s been interesting this week meeting with a couple of architects as we talk through our ideas for Mortgage-on-Thames, and we now keenly await their responses. Given the obvious conflict, we see them as quasi property marriage guidance counsellors, whose job it is to make sure that meaningful dialogue takes place between the house and Sunbury, the building and the garden, and the property in general with the neighbourhood.

Liz and I did briefly discuss inviting Kevin or George round to cover our renovation project for their TV programmes, but then dismissed the idea. I mean, we have a new mortgage; we certainly can’t afford another child.


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A Few Feet of Snow

It was the footprint that did it. Not that there weren't many footprints in the snow - there were: boots, shoes, dogs' paws; but this footprint on the pavement was different. It was just that: the imprint of a naked foot. In the snow.

My attention had already been attracted by the multitude of wildlife imprints in the white stuff back in the garden - the three-toed bamboo-like footprints of the coots from the river, smaller birds' prints, and a curious collection of tiny paw shapes that were either from a rat, a vole, or our garden equivalent of a mini-Yeti. Oh, and two tiny tiny boot prints from, presumably, a garden gnome which had set off through Storm Emma from somewhere else in the neighbourhood.

But this naked footprint down the road had me stumped. It wasn't alone - there was clear evidence that whoever it belonged to did actually have two feet, both unshod, and had gone for a stroll through the snow recently, despite the temperature being minus two.

They could of course have been from someone out for a jog wearing barefoot trainers. I'm no Sherlock Holmes, but I think I can safely deduce that these imprints weren't made by someone running. There were no scuff marks, no signs of quickened pace or intense motion. These, my dear Watson, were made by someone not in a hurry, not escaping a crime scene, nor desperate for a fag and determinedly striding to the local shop. These footprints were made (pauses for dramatic effect) by someone... out for a stroll.

Which begs the question, why wear barefoot trainers? Why not actual trainers, or better still, boots with thick woolen socks? No, I am convinced these were made by actual naked feet. Maybe in Sunbury-on-Thames there is a Sunbury equivalent of the fire walkers, whose membership aims to withstand the excruciating pain of, not fire, but ice and snow. These footprints could signal a rite of passage by some local youth, who is one day destined to become the tribal leader. Running Bear. Or in this case maybe Walking Bare.

Which brings me to another hypothesis: that the footprints were made by a local naturist, possibly of Scandiwegian heritage, immune to snow and freezing temperatures and keen to show defiance (among other bits) to Mother Nature, and the rest of the general neighbourhood.

Only once have I ever gone barefoot in snow, and that was after leaping out of a 39-degree Celsius hot tub to take a couple of photos. For the few seconds I was out - starkers I might add, apologies to the neighbours (again) - it was actually invigorating, enjoyable, though getting back into the tub was doubly exhilarating.

Three feet of snow

These footprints however were on a pavement, alongside the Thames, with houses bordering the other side of the road. They suggested a stroll of some distance, so whoever they belonged to must have been well hard. (Unlike me out of the hot tub, as my wife pointed out).

My main worry was that they belonged to some poor soul with Alzheimer's who had forgotten to get dressed to go down to the shop. That would be extremely sad. Or that they were the footprints of a sleepwalker, oblivious to the freezing cold, who woke up this morning wondering why there was snow on the carpet beside their bed, and why their toes had turned black from frostbite.

Anyway, due to ongoing snow flurries and Storm Emma, the prints weren't easy to follow and didn't lead anywhere conclusive. Nor could I backtrack them to their origin, so I am left bewildered. Still, it's brought a whole new dimension to Snowmaggedon and The Beast from the East. 

And as Sherlock himself might observe, 'The game's afoot!'