So, 12 months ago today I was writing about a life falling apart around my ears. Through 2007 I've met some of the most amazing people, learnt to laugh and have fun, quit a job, found a new one, failed to sell my house, figured out a few of my Crohn's triggers and even managed to spend some time on the rivers in between all that.

I can safely say that 2007 has been a long roller-coaster. Stealing a line from the band snow patrol and misappropriating it for my own use, I'm hoping that in 2008 my life can become the traffic jam instead of the car crash.

The year however has drawn to a close and although not quite as pleased to see it go as I was last year, I'm definitely looking forward to 2008.













In an attempt to bust peoples broadband connections I'm going to add a quick snapshot of the year that was 2007...



























































happy new year!

So the world's gone all-a-crazy on some capitalism infused shopping high, town is looking like more like a scene from the film 300 than a Wiltshire market town. Avoiding the cold induced frostbite that is pike fishing in this weather and neatly side stepping the stay-at-home-and-watch-strictly-come-dancing torpor I did the decent thing and went for a walk.

Frozen leaves and crispy, frost coated grass crunching underfoot (sounds like an american breakfast cereal, just add in sugar, colourings and chocolate) as I walk, my spirits are soon soothed as I watch the old heron prowling the shallows, the squirrels sorting out their last bits and pieces before winter proper kicks in and send the pheasants spiraling skywards from the brush. I spent a good 15 minutes on the bridge of the main hatch pool in Wilton watching the pink pike running the race upstream, leaping, rolling, tirelessly striving forwards; Looking for all the world like a scrum in Debenhams. Perhaps the natural world and the human world aren't so different after all? We just respond to different callings. The urge to make those ancient spawning grounds and get on doing the do, Vs the urge to buy novelty boxer shorts, christmas santa hats and cheap tat. It really is the most wonderful time of the year...





In the words of Mr MacGowan:

They've got cars big as bars
They've got rivers of gold
But the wind goes right through you
It's no place for the old
When you first took my hand
On a cold Christmas Eve
You promised me
Broadway was waiting for me

You were handsome
You were pretty
Queen of New York City
When the band finished playing
They howled out for more
Sinatra was swinging,
All the drunks they were singing
We kissed on a corner
Then danced through the night

The boys of the NYPD choir
Were singing "Galway Bay"
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas day

You're a bum
You're a punk
You're an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy Christmas your arse
I pray God it's our last

I could have been someone
Well so could anyone
You took my dreams from me
When I first found you
I kept them with me babe
I put them with my own
Can't make it all alone
I've built my dreams around you

A number of our local chalk streams are, in reality, a fairly static environment. Weed grows in mostly the same spots year after year, the dab chicks are in the same hidey holes, the fish lie in the same swims. Sure there is some movement around, a new snag forms, a scour hole appears with some fresh shiney gravel but in the main things you learn one season will mostly still be in place the year after.

Hard won lessons on the Nadder however are somewhat more transient. By September you feel that you have a measure of the river, you know where to chuck the fly, you know just how the current will drag in certain situations. You know that if you approach from just here that you can get a line in and the backcast is clear. The truth is however that the knowledge may as well be scribbled on the river bed in chalk, just waiting for that first spate of the autumn. Walking the Nadder today it became very clear, very quickly, that come March I'm going to be starting from scratch. The river is close to the bank tops, running a muddy chocolate brown colour and our silver tourists are moving their way up through. Murky dark silhouettes the only clue to their presence in the tumultuous torrent that the river has become.

No photo today I'm afraid, I just wanted to drop down that thought before it dissapeared...

Oh and thanks to Karine Polwart for the title.