Ground Control to MrJohn

Is there anybody out there? Over.

Like an astronaut lost for years in deep space, after so long adrift I have finally managed to transmit a brief message back to earth and the lovely global community of Blipfoto. This is my triptych tale of Yorkshire flying saucers, fly fishing and cycling races:

It all started on Friday night as I almost entered an interstellar hibernation state on the painfully slow transit to Jupiter experienced in the film Ad Astra shown at our Knutsford Curzon cinema. Sitting alongside Mrs B and J, it was not exactly “to the stars” in my all-time film lexicon, but more of a “Space Oddity”.

With this perhaps in my mind on Saturday, whilst out fly fishing on the River Wharfe at Bolton Abbey on a father-daughter bonding day with my lovely J, we spotted something in the river floating in a most peculiar way: A vision of Saturn instantly popped into my head, as we stared into the water from the bank whilst sharing a packed lunch.

No not Saturns Rings as it turned out, but some plastic river jetsam in the form of a lost ‘Astonishing Flying Ring’ called an Aerobie Pro. According to marketing hype it “...is the best, most incredible flying ring in the history of the universe...” Blimey, and there’s me thinking it was just a frisbie. (Turns out it is officially the world's furthest thrown object as certified by the Guiness Book of World Records at 1,257 feet / 383 metres).

Me and J had a lovely sunny day fishing together today. Jointly, we only caught and released one fish but it was by far my best day out fishing all year. The end of the trout fly season comes at the end of this month, so this day may well be my last one out trout fishing this year.

More so perhaps with the cycle race coming past Bolton Abbey of the UCI 2019 Road World Championships looming next week. I understand September 26th sees the Mens Junior Road Race snake through. I only know this because for the first-time-ever a passing road cyclist stopped to talk to me whilst I was getting kitted-up for fly fishing. Never the twain shall meet normally between us different leisure ‘tribes’ inhabiting the Dales landscape, but it was really nice to chat and share our experiences and perspective. Turns out he was Ian S Walton a Barcelona-based professional cycling photographer preparing for the races by documenting his own cycling road trip up to Hawes that day. He took my portrait before we parted ways, so who knows maybe a first fisherman will feature in his cycling portfolio and magazine commission.