I have always struggled to understand the whole world of fishing. I know some people do it for a living and I admire them, out in all weathers, risking life and limb. However, why a normal person would want to give up their spare time to stand by a river watching a float bob up and down is beyond me. Apparently there is great skill involved in landing the fish, especially when it puts up a fight ( personally I’ve had pastry put up more of a fight than the tiny specimens I’ve seen on the end of lines)

Anyway, in a moment of madness several years ago I agreed to accompany my husband and two children to the canal. They would fish, I would write inspired by the beauty of my surroundings; my husband made it sound so idyllic how could I say no.

It was a lovely sunny day, a gentle breeze made ripples across the water. I sat back in my chair with notebook and pen in hand, my mind wandered, what should I write, a gripping thriller perhaps, which kept the reader guessing to the very end, or maybe a romance that brought a tear to the eye. My thoughts were interrupted by a disturbance. My son had managed to entangle himself with his fishing line at the precise moment my daughter got her hook, complete with maggot, fixed firmly to her tee shirt. My husband opted to help my son, leaving me to cope with the maggot problem. I had never touched a maggot, and had no desire to do so, but the more I tried to free it, without touching it, the more it got tangled on the mesh on the tee-shirt, but hubby to the rescue and all was well once more.

As I relaxed, my eyes were drawn to a field, set back from the canal. The long grass suddenly parted and a cute little black and tan dog ran out, he ran towards me, tail wagging as if he had found a long lost friend. A smile crept across my face as I bent down and ran my fingers through his shaggy coat.

“Don’t touch him,” his master shouted, “He’s been rolling in cow dung”

Too late, I looked down at my soiled hands, and then back at the owner, I half expected an apology, but all I got was a loud tut and a look that said serves you right.

As the dog and master faded into the distance, I delved into the bottomless pit that was my bag, being a mother of several years I had of course brought everything with me to deal with any problem, we had enough food to last at least a month and enough cleaning material to sanitise the four of us and the whole of the nearby village.

So feeling sufficiently sterile, I suggested some lunch. As we sat and eat our warm sandwiches (this was pre cool box days) and drank thermos flask flavoured tea, and fought wildly with the flies trying to gatecrash our picnic, I naively thought at least the day could only get better.

My husband suggested moving to another spot, they hadn’t caught any fish, a shaded spot would perhaps be better. We gathered our belongings and strolled along the canals edge; I had taken my shoes off earlier and thought it would be nice to walk barefoot along the grassy bank. We hadn’t been walking long, when my husband found the perfect spot. I found something else, that lovely little dog had left a present on the floor, I won’t go into too much detail but squelching between the toes springs to mind, if only I had put my shoes on, or if the man had cleaned up after his dog.

But since neither of these things had happened, I was left with the problem of how to clean my foot. I decided, rather foolishly with hindsight, to dangle my foot in the canal. The bank was quite steep, so my husband held my hand whilst I balanced with one foot in the water. The gentle breeze turned into a sudden gust of wind, it got hold of my floaty skirt and blew it firmly over my head. My arms flapped about wildly as I tried to return my skirt to a respectable level. Had fate been kind to me that day, it would have left it there for a few more minutes, but no, my skirt dropped just in time for me to come face to face with a canal cruise boat full of cheering, clapping people. I tried to raise a smile, but in those days I was easily embarrassed, I retreated to the safety of the car.

I didn’t write a best seller that day; instead, I wrote about the days events whilst sitting in a red-hot car with the windows shut. I couldn’t open them, the local wasp community had decided they liked my company and wanted to join me. As I watched them bang against the windscreen, buzzing wildly with temper, I wondered if one day I would look back and laugh…