Out Early,

to the fishing park,

 tackle up and first cast of the day,

 Diana decided on a ice cream,

 Nick and Maureen were also with us,

 looking to the right us us the weather had taken a turn for the worse,

 in the front of us,

 and to the right it looked very overcast, but the good news was that in the distance,

 the angler there was having some good luck,

 I was then into the first fish of the day,

 'I caught that one!',

 then the second that Nick helped me land,

 another keeper,

 so quickly unhooked and into the net,

 by the time that happened the first one had arrived, cooked in garlic,

 things then went a bit quiet, but on the other side of the lake this bird appeared,

 the front and rear third of it was jet black with the middle third of it a rich chestnut brown, but it also had a huge tail,

 more clouds were moving in,

 and then it rained,

 luckily not too much, but it had certainly gotten a lot colder,

 the bird, a Greater Coucal or Crow Pheasant, (Centropus sinensis), made it's appearance again,

 it was quite a hansom looking bird, at the end of play I had caught one more fish, unfortunately one that is full of bones which makes it not very nice to eat, so back he went, the final score 3 - 0 to me,

if you want to spend a day by the lake it is off of Soi Nub Plan Wan, (spelt as it sounds), turn into the Soi from Sumkivitt, over the railway crossing and continue for a couple of miles, the road starts to go downhill, near the bottom of it you will see the road the fishing park is on the right hand side, follow that for a while, it twists and turns a bit and the fishing park is on the left next to a soccer ground, there are rods and tackle for hire and bait to buy, plus a fridge full of beer!,

 we then went to Nick and Maureen's home where after a starter of spring rolls, Nick had prepared one of his delicious curries, followed by cheese and biscuits and ice cream,

then to the serious part of the evening, Monopoly, you guessed it, the clue is in the picture, I won! the games we play usually take an hour, seldom more than two hours, the reason the games are short is that we slightly change the rules in two ways, firstly when playing if Nick lands on say the Strand which is red, no one else can buy the other two 'red' properties if they land on them, only Nick can buy the remaining Fleet Street and Trafalgar Square, 


the second rule change is that you can still receive rents and payments whilst you are in jail, these two changes make for a very quick and interesting game, after saying our thanks and farewells to Nick and Maureen we made our way home, feet up we watched 3 episodes of The Chase, then for us we were off to bed.