Yipee……. it’s my favourite day of the year. Start of the new school term, summer is over for everyone except me, or that’s the way it seems. In the past I have wanted to stand at the edge of the M5 and A30 just to watch the stressed looks of the teachers as they drive (usually a very expensive, flash car) back to school after their ridiculously long holiday. (They actually get paid for all the 6 weeks). Still they will be finished by 3.15! No more kids on bikes and mums trying to encourage them to enjoy the environment. How selfish of me and how great this feeling of having it back all to myself!  Here is the Kingfisher I promised, not a young baby but the original, territory holding female who is in a very severe post juvenile moult, what a mess she is in. I’ll tell you more after my return from a “Dipper” outing which I am just about to leave for. Seems as though the butcher of Bulgaria did a great job on my tooth… no pain just blessed relief!!!!!!!!

Well here I am back after an outing to look for Dipper. Earlier on I had mentioned about everyone being back to school……. well I forgot those privileged souls that are destined to rule….. the public school classes. There I was sitting under my full camouflage gear, net and all, and I watched a fisherman “bimble” in my direction, occasionally he would flick his fly in to the River but with no real purpose. Of course, there wasn’t going to be any birds around now, especially Dipper who are easily disturbed. But I didn’t know what to do for the best, get up and move on or just wait and see what happened? Well, it turned out the “fisherman” was a teenage lad about 15. He was sporting a Panama style hat and had an accent to match. When I spoke to him after emerging from the netting which he was just about to fall in to, it gave him quite a fright. I was impressed with his manners and demeanour. Glad to see that the upper classes are still maintaining their standards. In the end, there were 3 fishermen in all, spaced out along the river so there obviously was not going to be any chance of a Dipper, so that was that! Oh, and why am I so certain of this lads heritage? Well, fly fishing on the River Teign is extremely expensive and strictly the preserve of the privileged few ( and the hat was a bit of a give-away as well).