My Mate the Trout

While gold panning in Sutherland I spent some time developing a hole in one particular river to get down to bedrock. As I was only going out twice a week, I spent well over a month in this one pool, gradually pumping out the gravel while using a crowbar to lever out the larger rocks.

After a few days I noticed a small trout darting around, keeping his distance. Well, wouldn’t you know it, this little trout eventually got used to me and began to swim around my legs and we became quite friendly. It even got to the point where he would come up to my finger and have a little nose. He’s my mate now and comes over to see me as soon as I step into the water. I’ve made his home a little deeper for him and while I’ve been working I’ve been churning up the odd worm for him here and there from the hardpack gravel.

I managed to get a picture of him using my mobile phone camera. You can see him quite clearly in the third picture.

A New Book

The haze has finally cleared and I now know what my next book is all about. Shall I call it The Troughs of Animal Farm? Perhaps not. But I do have a nice title lined up. I’m going to give the world such a kick in the balls.

To give you a clue, it’s based on the research I did for One World, that anti-terrorism novel of mine which the ladies seem to enjoy. I read over 90 books researching that thing, as well as the thousands upon thousands of pages of downloaded information from the web. This is going to be interesting!

Latest Highland Wear

1. pop out the eyepieces of a pair of safety glasses.
2. put on the glasses.
3. pull a midgie net over your head.
4. make the midgie net comfortable and pop the eyepieces back in.
5. cut carefully around the eyepieces with a sharp stanley knife to remove the trapped midgie net.

This new piece of Highland kit was field tested this weekend at Kildonan and proved 100% effective at keeping clouds of midges at bay. And not only that but you can see what you’re doing and can carry on working! A nice pair of gloves completes the body armour.

Don’t believe me? Just ask a few others who were there who didn’t fare so well against the little brutes! Oh, and I got some gold too.