Gala Days

[piscatus absentis]

Do you still have Gala days in your part of Scotland?  It?s a day for the weans and it?s a tradition, something to look forward to.  Aye, right.  The weans - a walk round the town, into the park for their bags, a shot on the shows,  (a pound for two minutes!  In my days it was half an hour for a empty ginger bottle) then they?re sick and packed off with their auld auntie to baby-sit them.  Then the adults can get laid into the food and drink and have a good rammy to finish it off.   Let?s tell the truth.  And for a troot-catcher - well just read on.

The chippit faced bitch over the fence who never looks the road I walk on and who wouldn?t give me the time of day starts moaning to my managing director about the size and the price of fish in Tesco; she doesn?t know if she can afford a barbecue this year for all her relatives and in-laws that she likes to try to impress.  And the M.D. falls for it every time and tells her not to worry because her man will get her a bagful of big fresh troot.  And the wifie up the street (Mrs. Thing I call her) just happens to fly down on her broomstick and gets the same promise.  She?s having problems with her man just now but if I were her man I?d be having no problems with her and would be living happily and comfortably in Saughton or the Bar L.

And I come home, full of the joys and quite jocose, from a great fishing trip and am told what I have to do and feel a grey sky falling on me.  It?s a bad time of the year for fishing; there?s not many fish left in the loch; I?ve sprained my casting arm; it?s too dry; it?s too wet - forget the excuses - I?m doomed and damned and my season is starting to gurgle down the cludgie - force majeure it?s called.  If  I murdered her could I be sure there would be no bail.

And so, out to the loch where I?ve been having a great time with troot fighting to take anything I float past them.  No more.  Potty wallopers with their umbrellas and loungers and cookers and maggots and power-bait are everywhere.  Right, wander around a loch that was full of rising fish during the past month and see nothing.  Go through the box and try every fly and every lure that was ever invented and touch nothing.  Puncture my waders, have ten fankles, lose a fly box and crack the reel when I?m changing spools.  Believe me, life doesn?t get any more miserable than this; piece and coffee finished, dinner time past, heid nipping and stomach rumbling.  There?s only one possibility left.

Back to the potty wallopers and open negotiations.  Thirty bloody pounds for four fish stinking of powerbait and full of maggots and the same to go through again tomorrow for Mrs. Thing.  I wonder if Morrisons have bigger fish than Tescos or should I sod the cost of petrol and drive to Sainsburys.

Home to be told that we are (where did the bloody we come from) going to have a barbecue as well.  And all the bloody ignorant, loud-mouthed in/outlaws who I can?t stand are invited.  How much money do I have in my pocket to run up to the butchers and buy half a hundredweight of best sirloin and fillet steak (fish is for the poor folk).  Nothing I tell her but she says not to worry, I left my cash-card lying this morning and just in case I?m a bit short she drew some cash from the money I was keeping for a new reel.

Gala days - you can keep them.  The next collector who waves a tin under my nose and says it?s for the weans will have the tin inserted in a rear orifice with a size 11 boot so far up that they?ll be coughing coppers.   Chippit Face and Mrs. Thing can have their coven meeting with eye of bat and toe of newt if they can find some sucker to supply them.   Me?  I?m going fishing - Outer Mongolia might be far enough.   

[johnsd]

Good story P.S.cheers John :lol: :lol:

[haresear]

 :lol: :lol: :lol:

From a fellow Grump.

Alex