Miles of Aisles

Easter Sunday in the Kirk. Outside, it is a cool, spring day with fresh green leaves on the birches and rowans, though the bracken is still brown and there's snow on the tops. We sing "In pastures green, he leadeth me, the quiet waters by".

Now the sermon has started and the congregation lapses into fifteen minutes of reverie. I'm guessing that the children are mostly thinking of Easter eggs; I know mine is. Others have toys along to play with ; mostly tractors and dollies, but I also see Power Rangers and Daleks. Grown-ups focus on their kids mostly, but some stare at the minister as though they are listening. Most of the men are farmers and, if they are smiling and nodding, it is because this is a growing day and the sun is drying away the last of the winter floods and puddles. Theirs are the "pastures green", but the "quiet waters" are for me.

The sun streams through stained glass onto the terra-cotta tiles of the nave, turning the aisle into a sun-dappled, peat-stained highland burn. I should be wading up the aisle with a fly rod, but I'm too self conscious for that. I make a tentative cast up and across from my pew, but the current quickly drags the fly past me towards the door. I would do better to change my fly to a wet and cast downstream, but that would involve facing the wrong way.

Only ten minutes to go and no sign of a fish. I need to concentrate. Last week I caught a brace of salmon in the first five minutes, but the river was bigger and browner then and it flowed the other way. This hill-burn requires tricky casts upstream so I'm using a wee 7 foot rod to work under the trees. There are no pools, just a long slick of a glide coming down past me on the left. I try throwing a snaky line so the fly will have a few seconds to sit under the far bank. It works straight away and I hand-line the fish back towards the net.

Just then I feel a sharp dig in the ribs. My wife has spotted what I'm doing. She tells me my right hand has been casting for at least ten minutes and that I just started making circular movements with my left.

"Was it a big one?"

"Big enough," I say, "but it got off at the net".

"That's a shame" she says, without much conviction. "Move over. You hold the little guy for a bit; it's my turn now".