The Aitch's get posh..

Ages ago I asked my old mate Pedro to make me a house sign and a weather vane. He's a top quality blacksmith and sure enough the other weekend he popped round with the lovely Sally to drop them off. Due to work, fishing and general laziness, I've only just got to put them up and I would need a hand due to the weight and quality of the pieces. I was going to ask Genocide but there would be the need to use rotating machinery (a drill), sharp and heavy objects and I thought I might get him into trouble with his social worker or breach his probation or something so Nobby popped round and between us we managed to get them up. The hardest bit was setting North on the weather vane. I magnetised a needle and floated it on water then roughly measured the angle against my garage wall and copied the angle to the vane. It's not perfect but it gives me more than a good idea which way the wind's blowing.

That was the last horse shoe he had in, apparently not much call for shoeing horses these days. Well pleased with it and I can't recommend his work highly enough.

The main thing for me is that Mrs Aitch is pleased with them, I put the house name up on the back of the shed, all I need to do now is touch up the bolts with a bit of hammerite and I'm done.

Horses that look the dogs! Now at least anybody that can read can find us!

It's a family business and has been on the go for years, Pedro looks old enough to remember Noah when he was a shipwright, either way they clearly know what they're doing. If anybody reading wants more details of Pedro's top quality workmanship at a reasonable price, you can check out his stuff here:

http://www.blythofhoningham.co.uk/index.html

I doubt I'll get fishing this week despite their being shed loads of fish all round the coast, I'm in on days from Wednesday and nights tonight so it only really leaves Monday night. It should be quite good though the tide is late, the wind's gone to nothing today and the forecast has it going easterly tomorrow, ideally tonight would be the time to go. I've seen it hundreds of times but it never ceases to amaze me how quickly the sea can kick up and quieten down, there's just a lazy roll on now, 48 hours ago we were worried about flooding.

The signs are still there for a good winter, though now I'm starting to think the little 'uns might be a problem. I can see the few better fish there are about not getting caught as the 1-1.5lb fish will be on the bait first, still better that problem than to be plagued with 2oz pin whiting. Reports from Kent right up to the north Norfolk shingle have the same stamp of fish turning up on most beaches, personally I've never seen so many this early, and reports of 20 odd fish are common. There's a cod closure on the under 10m fleet in the southern north sea too which will hopefully help them, we'll see over the coming months.