Waiting and wishing and hoping

THIS week witnesses the re-opening of our coarse-fishing season and also marks a month since the uplifting of angling’s general lock-down in England—although, up here in Caledonia, Miss Sturgeon kept us doing cold turkey for a while longer. At least now I can pack gear into the Landy once again and no longer feel like a glove on a railing.

Having effectively self-isolated in the glen most of the year already, finishing the manuscript of a longish book, I was feeling emotionally threadbare. The rest of our family was sequestered elsewhere and, although my remoteness was footling on the scale of hardshipand a Cormac McCarthy novel.