27 February 2022 News/Editorial
As we head into meteorological spring, it would be logical to hope that the storms and tempests of the last two weeks give way to something calmer and drier, allowing some access to the river. The birds were singing this morning as I took my dogs for their early walk, the sun was rising, no wind, it was calm, God was in his heaven and all was right with the world.
Except, of course, it wasn’t, not if you are European and certainly not if you are Ukrainian. When your wife’s mother was Polish and came from the (then very fluid) Polish/Ukrainian border, it all becomes much closer to home.
The fact that we have been unable to fish, and even this coming week has more rain in some of its forecasts, is of little consequence in the great scheme of things. I imagine those who had booked to go to the wonderful northern Russian salmon rivers this summer, will not be able to go, even if they still want to. I have no idea how the financial consequences will play out, but if it were me, I would give Mr Putin’s Russia a miss, unless and until he is gone for good. Not that, one supposes, he cares one jot, one way or the other.
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My father would have been 102 on Tuesday, 1st March.
When he was young, it was another world in many ways, but most assuredly in terms of Tweed spring fishing. In 1937, age 17, he caught 97 salmon to his own rod in the month of April, in the spring school holidays, all the more remarkable because he was competing with some equally keen fishing siblings.
That he did not get to 100 still irked him many years later. He had to spend two precious (otherwise fishing) days in London “because my sister Rachel got married” at the end of the holidays, so denying him his “ton”.
These things matter.
With any luck, next week there might even be some fishing news to report here, 85 years later.
Au revoir.