Summer's end in the Fens

Wherever you look, combines toil. The air's thick with harvest dust in the big bayou. And the drains and rivers look better than they have for years, running high with a tinge of colour and a healthy growth of weed, instead of covered with azolla and giving off that stagnant smell of water that's been standing too long in the sun.

I have a feeling about this season. A feeling things are going to happen. A feeling that the tide might just turn our way for once, after a clutch of slow winters. Perhaps it's because everywhere looks so good, so full of life, so near perfect as summer draws to a close.

I'd go back tonight if I didn't have work to do and things to write. I'd head out to the bridge where I saw a pike that can't have been much under mid-twenties, tucked tight to a concrete pillar waiting for its lunch. I made a deal I'd catch it, there and then.

If I'd had any sense, I'd have taken a lure rod with me to a morning appointment and fished my way back home. I wonder where that fish will be in a few weeks' time, when work goes on the back burner and fishing finally comes first.

What a start she'd make to my season if I've got a rod in my hand instead of a notebook the next time we cross paths. We can but wonder, those of us who spend our winters chasing dreams.