Being off work for most of August has been very, very nice indeed, although apparently there is a limit to how much relaxation the human body can cope with before it starts to resemble a sack of potatoes that has been left in the sun.
I discovered this when I walked into the office after the bank holiday, still carrying the general demeanour of a man who had recently been rescued from a flotation device, only for a work colleague to look at me and say, “Mick, welcome back, you look tired.” Well, thank you very much, that’s exactly the sort of warm welcome you want after spending several weeks convincing yourself that doing absolutely nothing before midday is a perfectly legitimate lifestyle choice.
There was, however, a very good reason for looking tired because August had been rather full, despite the fact that technically I had been doing very little that could be described as work. We started after a week in Devon with the Canaries, which, as regular readers will know, have become something of a second home to us, although thankfully without the mortgage, council tax or bloke from next door asking me to move my car.
After visiting various holiday resorts over the years, we keep coming back because the Canaries give us pretty much everything we require from a holiday, namely sun, sea and sangria, preferably in quantities that would make a sensible person question their life choices.
The kids still absolutely love a beach holiday, particularly when there is a decent pool involved, because apparently the presence of an ocean stretching to the horizon isn't quite enough water for today's youth. This particular trip involved the Gold level accommodation, which came with a separate pool away from the main pools, meaning that for once we could actually hear ourselves think, although admittedly after a few days of all-inclusive drinks I’m not sure there was much thinking going on anyway.
We got to know loads of the other Gold members surprisingly well, to the point where first names were being exchanged and people were greeting each other like we were members of some exclusive Mediterranean retirement village rather than a collection of sunburnt British tourists fighting over the last decent lounger.
The staff were superb as well, which is always dangerous because you very quickly start developing emotional attachments to people whose job it is to bring you drinks. The Gold restaurant was particularly good, with Maria the Spanish chef producing all manner of culinary delights that made the prospect of returning to the kitchen at home seem frankly barbaric.
By the end of the ten days we were genuinely sad to leave the island, although my liver had begun writing strongly worded letters to management and my waistline had apparently joined a union.
Ten days of all-inclusive living is one of those things that sounds fantastic when you book it and slightly less fantastic when your body is asked for feedback afterwards.
My liver, in particular, would like to make it absolutely clear that it never agreed to participate in the “world’s biggest Godfathers” initiative and would now like several weeks to recover from the administrative burden.
There is something wonderfully irresponsible about walking to a bar, ordering a drink, forgetting you have already had three, and then ordering another because technically you are still on holiday and therefore normal rules no longer apply.
Things became even more dangerous when, a few days into the holiday, we noticed that there was an unoccupied room above reception.
Now naturally, rather than leaving well alone like sensible people, an inquiry was made regarding the possibility of an upgrade, because apparently once you have experienced a Gold bracelet you immediately develop the negotiating skills of a property developer.
A few quid later and a conversation with the manager had resulted in us moving into a huge two bedroom room with the biggest balcony I have ever stayed in, which was roughly the size of a small British housing estate and came with the added bonus of being large enough to accommodate several chairs and tables, a Bali bed and my rapidly expanding holiday belly.
Some of the nightly entertainment was directly opposite the room, which meant that if the kids weren't particularly interested in venturing out, the wife and I could retire to the Bali bed and enjoy the atmosphere from our own private grandstand. This sounded sophisticated until you realise that “enjoying the atmosphere” generally involved another drink from the bar and me shouting occasionally about how good the singer was.
There is something strangely satisfying about sitting on a massive balcony in warm evening air, listening to live music, watching everyone else enjoying themselves and slowly convincing yourself that this is actually what retirement is going to be like.
Fishing, meanwhile, had rather taken a back seat, which is unusual for me but probably healthy for everyone concerned. The plan had been to fish a scratching rig with bait and hopefully connect with something a little more substantial than the usual holiday micro-species, but the practicalities of fishing a busy resort turned out to be somewhat different from the fantasy I had constructed in my head.
I was trying to fish before the masses descended for snorkelling, paddle boarding and kayaking, which meant being out ridiculously early, and after losing several lots of gear I decided that perhaps the sea was trying to tell me something.
The sea was basically saying, “Pack it in, Mick, you've had enough.” So the serious scratching campaign was quietly abandoned and I returned to float fishing for the smaller species, which at least had the advantage of being considerably less expensive and requiring considerably less effort.
A couple more species were added to the tally from Lanzarote, where bread fished on small hooks seemed to be the answer, proving once again that sometimes the most sophisticated fishing technique available is essentially sticking a bit of your sandwich on a hook. I did hook and lose two bream, which was particularly frustrating because they were clearly considerably more interested in my bait than the smaller fish were.
Unfortunately, my chosen tackle consisted of a Temu multi-piece carp rod and a size 16 treble hook, which, when written down like that, should probably have been enough to alert me that this wasn't exactly the setup recommended by the International Association of People Who Know What They Are Doing. The bream appeared to disagree with my tackle selection and both managed to escape, presumably swimming away afterwards and telling their mates about the idiot with the bargain-bin carp rod.
The damsel fish would arrive first for the floating bread, behaving like they hadn't eaten for six weeks despite the fact that there were probably hundreds of tourists dropping food into the water every five minutes. Then, once the bread had been attacked sufficiently, the bream would appear and smash the remaining pieces to bits, which was great entertainment but less impressive from a catch-per-bite perspective.
I experimented with hook sizes, presentation and various other things, eventually discovering that if you use a bigger hook the bites simply stop happening, which is exactly the sort of scientific breakthrough that fishing blogs are built upon.
Slow-sinking pieces of Isome worms worked surprisingly well too, although I suspect the fish regarded the whole thing as some sort of elaborate Japanese buffet rather than fishing tackle. The best entertainment came when a swimmer was just about to get into the water beside my feet and a puffer fish decided to demonstrate one of nature's more ridiculous party tricks.
One second it was a perfectly ordinary-looking little fish and the next it had transformed into Mr Creosote, inflating itself into a bizarre aquatic football while the swimmer stared at it as though I'd personally performed some sort of marine magic trick.
If you've never seen a puffer fish inflate itself, it really is something to behold, particularly when they make that rattling noise while doing it. I caught two of them and both inflated nicely before being returned safely, and thankfully both managed to expel the air without any apparent problems once they were back in the water.
There is something very satisfying about catching a fish that looks perfectly normal, watching it suddenly turn into a cartoon character, and then putting it back so it can presumably go and frighten somebody else.
Anyway, it was nice to have a proper break from fishing, although naturally the moment I got back I immediately did something that made a sensible person question whether I actually understand the concept of rest.
The day after returning from Lanzarote I flew out to Edinburgh on a delayed flight, took a coach to Glasgow and then literally dropped my bag at the hotel before heading straight out to a gig.
Because apparently ten days lying around in the sun had left me desperate for seven hours of loud progressive house music in a sweaty room full of people just as old as me.
The venue was a small place called the Box Hub, and Australian progressive house DJs Anthony Pappa, Jamie Stevens and Kasie Taylor were there for what turned into seven hours of absolute musical carnage.
It was one of the best gigs I've been to in years, with a brilliant crowd, a sweaty and intimate atmosphere and bass frequencies that could probably be detected by fishermen several miles down the Clyde.
Despite being, as I prefer to describe it, an old git, the raving feet have clearly never left and within minutes I was behaving like somebody had accidentally released me from a care home.
Anthony Pappa has been a hero of mine for years, so getting to meet him was a real highlight.
What made it even better was that he was incredibly friendly, which is always nice because you spend years building up an image of somebody in your head and then occasionally discover that they are actually a miserable sod who looks at you as though you have asked them to personally rebuild the M25. Thankfully Anthony was nothing like that and meeting him made an already excellent night even better.
The music was absolutely immense, the sort of bass that you could hear from a mile away and possibly use to locate shoals of fish if you happened to have the right kind of sonar.
Seven hours of dancing after ten days of all-inclusive eating and drinking may not be the recommended recovery programme for a middle-aged man, but apparently my body had decided that moderation was for people who hadn't booked annual leave. By the end I had danced my socks off, although technically I was still wearing them, and several internal organs were considering whether they had grounds for constructive dismissal.
The following morning was less glamorous. There is a particular type of silence that arrives after seven hours of progressive house, several drinks and very little sleep, and it is the sort of silence where you can hear your own bloodstream asking why you've done this. After a lazy morning I eventually checked out of the hotel at midday and headed off in search of food, because apparently the correct response to burning thousands of calories dancing is to replace every single one of them immediately.
This brought me to Iron Duke, where I knew that September was going to be a month of abstinence, or at least that was the theory, so I decided to stuff myself stupid while I still had the opportunity. The service was excellent, the food was top drawer and the owner and chef even came over for a chat, which was a lovely touch and made me feel slightly less like a bloke who had turned up solely to see how much food could be fitted into one human being. I left feeling considerably better, although the concept of abstinence suddenly seemed like a particularly unreasonable idea.
And then, just like that, August was over. The holiday tan is beginning to fade, the liver has requested compassionate leave, the dancing feet have finally stopped twitching and my body is still trying to work out why I thought a seven-hour rave immediately after a family holiday constituted sensible behaviour.
But despite all that, I wouldn't change any of it, because sometimes you have to make the most of the time you've got, whether that's sitting beside a pool with a drink in your hand, watching a puffer fish inflate itself into Mr Creosote, or dancing until your knees start sending formal complaints to your brain. The best thing, though, is that I have returned at exactly the right time for the rivers.
The rain has finally arrived and given them a much-needed boost, turning those low summer levels into something that looks considerably more promising, and after several weeks of sunshine I'm actually quite excited to see some proper moving water again.
September might involve less sangria, fewer balconies, considerably fewer DJs and absolutely no all-inclusive cocktails, but if the rivers continue to rise then there is every chance I'll be replacing the holiday hangover with a fishing-induced one, which, as regular readers will appreciate, is really just another form of poor decision-making with a rod attached.
