Today is sister Susan’s wedding day to her long-time love Ross. I hope they have a wonderful day of celebration and a lifetime of happiness. I wish I could be there to celebrate with them, but must settle for sending them my love and best wishes from Worcester.

I had a couple of fairly quiet days – went with Colin to return some of the flooring things that weren’t needed – took doggies for nice long walks.

It looked fairly clear out this morning and wasn’t cold, so I went for a ride around 11:00 – north along the canal towards Dunhampstead again. Just before Tibberton I came across a fisherman, and as I rounded the bend I saw a bunch more.

I stopped and talked with him for a bit – there’s a fishing derby going on and it’s supposed to be for juniors, but only one younger fellow showed up. They fish until around 2:00 when a bell will ring and then they’ll all weigh what they’ve caught and the person with the heaviest catch wins. The fish are kept alive in net baskets in the water so get put back in the canal when the derby ends. He had his bait in small containers beside him – two kinds of maggots and some regular earth worms, and some bread.

He told me that the orange maggots were from blow-flies and the pink ones were from regular flies (they dye them pink). They hang dead chickens up in a barn or shed and the flies lay their eggs, then when the eggs hatch into maggots the maggots fall onto the floor and they collect them for fish bait.

I rode to Dunhampstead where I left the canal and crossed over on the road to the north side. The sky had become more and more overcast and the wind had picked up , but I rode further than the last time, continuing on until almost Hadzor, then circled west/south back to the canal. I took a smaller side road that crossed the canal north of Tibberton and headed south along it again.

When I got back to the fishers I stopped and talked a bit with the youngest one – he was so nice and polite. There were supposed to be several other young ones there but no one else had showed up. They come every week and next week is the last but I told him I won’t be here as I’m leaving on Friday to head back to Italy to catch my plane home – he thought it was quite impressive that I’ve come all the way from Canada and have been travelling for almost six months now.

I stopped at the Lyppard Grange pub for a pint – it was the most crowded I’ve ever seen it. There was a football match on – Liverpool vs Manchester United – fairly serious around here.

Went home and then took doggies for a walk up to the orchard. After leaving the orchard we took a footpath that turned out to be the ‘scenic’ way home going past a community garden. Shortly after the garden we turned right and ended up in a residential maze, but kept going in the right general direction, eventually ending up back on a path that I recognized.

Had a nice dinner of pasta and watched a Liam Neeson movie I hadn’t seen before – quiet evening.

• Uncategorized