On Beauty

There’s not been a lot of “life” in this flyfisherlady’s posts recently. A modicum of blustery fly fishing and not enough fly tying (16 more patterns to go!) has been this flavour of the last couple of months.

I have a horrible feeling that anyone reading this might think that all I do with myself is eat less (one dress size down, yay!) and hunch in the strongly illuminated semi darkness surrounded by dead animals and hooks.  Worryingly, this seems to be the case. I need a boyfriend before I start trying to build cane rods.  Actually, the season starts soon, so scratch that plan.

 I worry, that in my career so far I have dedicated myself to beauty; preserving and presenting art to others for its own sake.  This worship of the beautiful is potentially all a bit Oscar Wilde and I worry at times whether this makes me a pretentious git.

Last week I was involved in something brilliant.  All of Leeds Museums and Galleries has pulled together to put on a display there called “Blue Museum” at the Bexley Oncology Wing at St James’s hospital.  It’s a series of objects, photographs and art works, celebrating the colour blue in all its forms. Glam frocks and bright blue bees, dinky tins and Egyptian beads all form part of the display. It had all been organised by my rather brilliant colleagues, I just turned up at the last minute as an extra pair of hands. Nonetheless it’s probably the most important exhibition I have ever been involved in. The huge Atrium is the heart of the oncology wing. Doctors, nurses, cleaners stride through there. Patients and their families’ friends and carers all wait nearby.

A moment’s thought makes you realise that some of the worst moments of people’s lives are played out in that space. They wait for test results, wait to go in for treatment, wait for the outcomes of operations.  A potential static Hell lived out on leather couches.  The staff at the hospital too are part of it. There are victories here and there but let’s be frank about it, there is nothing very nice about cancer.

What the Blue Museum and other concerts and exhibitions in the Atrium achieve is a little bit of time and a little bit of space away from all this horror. You could argue that exhibitions here are not an essential NHS spend and a waste of money. However, like time spent on the riverbank these quiet moments of peace and idle distraction are pretty priceless. Think about how a fleeting glance of the lovely flanks of a plump trout can lift the soul.

I’ve never had such an enthusiastic and interested audience for an exhibition before and I’ve never seen so many smiles at a display.  The whole display will be covered in detail shortly  in the brilliant Secret Lives of Objects Blog.

Much in the same way that Charles Rangeley- Wilson claimed that catching a wild trout in London was “God at his best. The breath of a river.”  Twenty minutes laughing whilst laying out a display case with a very ill man reminded me that there was a point to this difficult world. It’s not found in big ideas, big societies or grandiose gestures. It’s found in things that are essentially simple; a well hooked fly, sunset glinting on a stream.  Peace in idle distraction. I think that this is what Keats was on about when he got soppy over an old vase. In short, the good in the world might be most easily found in beauty. So, if I have dedicated my life to that so far, it can’t have all been a waste. 

Meanwhile. I introduce my attempt at a Spent Willow, it's actually the first Edwards I've actually enjoyed tying.

On Little Victories

On Acheivement.

I finished my Salmon fly a couple of weeks ago and well, it’s a scruffy old thing but honestly It’s probably one of things I am most proud of.

Classic salmon tying is probably about as dramatic as you can get hunched by a vice under the burn of an overhead lamp.  I spent over an hour manipulating little shreds of feather making them marry into an acceptable stripey form.  It’s an odd thing, when you think about it forcing peacock and turkey bits together to make an attractive marriage. I felt like I was fighting nature as I was doing it. Then oddly began thinking of genetics and eugenics and arranged marriages in Afghanistan and all whilst trying to make a stripey wing.  I clearly listen to far too much Radio 4.

Anyway, the next stage in the process is to add a weight to your thread so it will pull your feathers down.  You can’t see any of this, the feathers are obsured by your fingers which are gripping them  for dear life. Two wraps and you drop the weight.  Then you sigh and wait.  Summoning up the courage to move your hand to reveal perfection. Or a mess.   My fly is a bit slovenly housewife rather than yummy mummy. 

Fishing is all about these agonising little moments.  You cast upstream, watch your fly drift, glance at a fish flick it’s fins, will it look? Will it bolt? Or will it gobble. If it gobbles then the agony really begins. Your rod connects and it’s girl versus fish. You feel it shaking its head, sensing every moment of struggle. You look at the rod bending as you feel your tippet strain.  You guide it out of weeds, you ease it upwards as it bores downwards.  It’s weakening, then a paniced fumble in your pocket for your forceps, or your lanyard is caught in your glasses, then your glasses fall off. Your creel catches in your hair. You screech as the only way out of this mess was to sacrifice a chunk of hair.  Then the net then won’t come out of your belt loop. It’s freed with a jerk then the wretched thing gets caught in nettles. You rescue the net, burning your hands in the nettles. The fish flaps as you flail. The heart pounds and the brow wrinkles. Then you calm down, to calm the fish down to ease out the hook.  To coo and caress it back to freedom.  You sort your line out, dry your fly then do it all over again.

Looking at it this way, fly fishing is a bit of a nightmare. Fly tying more so. Why do we inflict crisis after crisis on ourselves? Or maybe it’s just me that experiences total turbulence each time I catch a fish.  Do I do it because of survivor’s euphoria? Or is it because each fish caught, each fly tied is a little victory? A small acheivement that makes sense of and brings a fleeting sense of order to a chaotic world.


Other little victories: The kind folk at Fishtec mentioned me as something worth reading. http://www.fishtec.co.uk/blog/more-fishing-blogs-to-be-reckoned-with/

I tied an Ollie Edwards cut wing dun. Shed loads more flies to tie. I am up against it.

Extremities

I’ve been a very good girl this week. I’ve kept being decarbohydrated  and I’ve managed to tie one more Oliver Edwards. It’s a Klinkhammer Extreme. My version looks rather dull and run of the mill but thinking about it, how extreme can a fly be? It’s hardly going to stage a fascist rally or dissolve into anarchy. Perhaps if my wing post were bright pink like Oliver Edward’s it would help.  Still, it’s about as radical as a Surrey teenager piercing their navel.

Fly Dressers Guild was brilliant this week.  Fourteen of us have made a start on tying a classic style married wing salmon fly. If you don’t know what one is I recommend you look at anything tied by Paul Little. Apparently he takes nearly a day to tie a fly. I believe it. It took me two hours to do the body. I am quite pleased with my rear end, though the front is rather less convincing.Tying these flies demand perfection and exacting standards.  To avoid fraying the silk floss, hulking men from Yorkshire will wear small and slinky silk gloves when they tie these flies.  How extremely ridiculous.

Half Way There

I went fishing this Saturday at the small Stillwater Kilnsey Park.  The temperature stayed at nought or there abouts. The day was peppered by blizzards and a howling gale was ever present.  My hat blew off, my line blew everywhere, my rod blew away.  It was quite inclement and I was only kept warm/alive when I was lent a very swanky jacket with particularly good, deep pockets.  It was a Grey’s GRXI XTREME.

I also learnt a thing or two about fishing still waters which, as a child of the chalk I can be quite snobby about.  The men I fished with were highly dedicated and focussed. It takes a certain amount of bloody mindedness to fish solely for size or number.  On that kind of water, pleasurable angling becomes sport fishing.  For me the difference between the insouciant, languid river fishing I like to do and the extreme sport of still water angling is like the difference between eating a large, rich, indulgent meal, and participating in a food contest.