There comes a moment on a frost-nipped January evening when a man must weigh the consequences of his actions against the potential for an absolute screamer of a dream. This is not a decision taken lightly. History is littered with men who made the wrong call men who reached for a banana instead of a Stilton and paid for it with eight hours of beige unconsciousness.
For those not versed in the darker disciplines of Gorgonzolaphantasmagoria and Gyrationalisms, it is common knowledge in these parts that the British Cheese Board’s 2005 study is less of a myth and more of a field guide. While the scientists prattle on about tryptophan and tyramine those delightful amino acids that supposedly stabilise sleep while simultaneously kicking open the saloon doors of the brain’s “wacky” department I prefer to think of cheese as aviation fuel for the subconscious.
Cheddar gives you a gentle biplane ride over your childhood. Brie offers a mildly confusing ferry crossing involving a former PE teacher. But blue cheese? past its best Blue cheese, hands you a parachute, shoves you out of a balloon at 30,000 feet, and shouts “Good luck!”
I opened the fridge with the reverence of a monk unveiling a relic. There it sat: the leftover Christmas Gorgonzola. Veined like a topographic map of a river I’ve yet to fish, sweating faintly, smelling strongly of ambition, old socks, and unresolved arguments. This was not a cheese to be trifled with. This was a cheese that had opinions.
I weighed out exactly 20 grams the scientifically prescribed dose for a psychedelic passport to the subconscious. Any more and you risk waking up fluent in Esperanto. Any less and you just dream about missing the bus. Down it went, chased with a sip of water and the vague sense that I had just signed a contract without reading the small print.
Sleep came quickly. Alarmingly quickly since starting Dry January, which is highly unusual for me.
My slumber was instantly invaded by a dream of startling, retina-polishing clarity. I was back on the bank, but the Avon had transformed into a vast, slow-moving sea of liquid marmalade.
Not the cheap stuff either proper, chunky, artisanal marmalade with bits in. The current glugged ominously.
I wasn’t alone.
A troop of vegetarian crocodiles wearing monocles were rowing a Victorian bathtub across the crease. They were dressed in tweed waistcoats and arguing heatedly about the ethics of organic kale, whether chickpeas had ruined modern cuisine, and if a size 6 hook was “a bit mainstream, darling.” One of them had a clipboard. That felt significant.
Behind me, a kingfisher in a hi-vis jacket blew a whistle and told me my rod licence was out of date.
In the middle of this madness, a fifteen-pound barbel a real Barbara of a fish, broad across the shoulders and radiating quiet authority surfaced, cleared its throat politely, and asked me for a light. I patted my pockets, apologised, and explained I’d given up smoking in 2009. It nodded, disappointed but understanding.
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Then the bite came.
I struck like a man possessed, only to realise I was holding a stick of celery for a rod and using a piece of Red Leicester as a float. The reel was a hamster. The hamster was furious. Line peeled off, the crocodiles applauded, and someone began playing a harpsichord version of the Match of the Day theme.
There was no nightmare to be found no sense of dread, no sweaty panic just a profound, almost philosophical whimsy. The kind that leaves you wondering whether you’ve unlocked hidden layers of the human psyche or accidentally inhaled an entire volume of Lewis Carroll.
I awoke to the shriek of the alarm, my head fuzzy but my resolve ironclad. The ceiling looked disappointingly solid. No marmalade. No crocodiles. Just the lingering aroma of Gorgonzola and destiny. The cheese had delivered on every front: a night of vivid, lucid madness that far surpassed what I expected, no acid to be seen here. My spirit had been lightly tenderised. Somewhere, deep in the folds of my brain, a monocled crocodile was still judging my groundbait choice.
If you fancy your own odyssey, I recommend a pilgrimage to Cobbs Farm for their Gorgonzola (the best lucid dreams I've ever had on cheese), or at the very least a daring late-night raid on the fridge. Measure carefully. Respect the cheese. And whatever you do, if a barbel asks you for a light be polite.
They remember these things....!!!
Anyway to the fishing !! Storm Goretti promised a blockbuster showing, but here in Bard’s country it barely made the trailers.
The snow that blasted in late evening looked promising enough, but by morning the so-called red warning, up-to-six-inches drama had fizzled out into something resembling a melted white slush puppy.
Sam had built a snowman around 8.00pm when it was coming down heavy for a while, but that was all but gone when I drove him to the bus stop in the morning where mild overnight temperatures had quite an affect.
I’d half-hoped for a proper winter curtain of white perfect conditions for a snow-chub mission but instead it looked like someone had dusted icing sugar over a damp sponge.
Working from home Friday meant I kept one eye on the laptop and the other on river levels, and by mid-morning the Warwickshire Avon was looking surprisingly fishable.
The Stour, Alne and Arrow had rushed up as expected proper chocolate-brown torrents after the pre-snow rain I'd imagine but the Avon held just enough composure to tempt me out.
Only snag: Ben’s school was closed, and the Wife was off doing lunchtime cover elsewhere, so any fishing would have to wait until reinforcements returned. I also had a small recovery mission to tick off. I’d left a pair of gloves on the syndicate stretch from the weekend, and syndicate member Dave had kindly retrieved them and perched them on a post like a lost-property scarecrow.
Seeing as I needed to pick them up anyway, I figured it would be rude not to bring a rod and see if any chub were in a cooperative mood. The plan was simple: a quick smash-and-grab session. Bait a handful of likely swims, give each twenty minutes, and if nothing materialised, call it a day. No faffing, no lingering, no overthinking just in, out, and home before anyone realised I’d snuck off. Cheesepaste on the hook and pungent garlic and cheese flavoured bread.
The river was doing its best impression of a Costa drive-thru special—turd-brown, frothy, and absolutely not what any sane fish would choose to live in. Unless of course the fish have developed a taste for angry cappuccino water, which knowing chub, wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest.
Still, armed with cheesepaste potent enough to fumigate a small barn, I bravely lobbed it into the only two slacks available both of which looked marginally less violent than the main flow but still had that “don’t bother, mate” vibe. And bother I did. Twice. Result? Not so much as a tremble on the tip. Even the resident minnows must’ve been on strike.
Packed up with cold fingers, a blank, and the comforting knowledge that at least the river got to enjoy my cheesepaste even if the chub didn’t. They’re probably still laughing about it under a fallen tree somewhere.
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