Reasons to be cheerful...

Do you ever have one of those days when you are simply very happy?  Euphoric? When you have that "It feels good to be alive!" feeling? 

Yesterday was a day like that for your faithful correspondent.

Out with the dog, by the water, the Drake in full swing, the river alive, the fish to be seen feeding everywhere, the sun shining in between summer showers, flies in abundance, wild trout in abundance, wild flowers in abundance, it was simply perfect and after several days of being forcibly held from it, being there was extra special.

Some nice trout were caught and gently returned.  Here are some samples:

There was more to it than that though.  There were many other lovely things making the day so enjoyable.  The total was greater than the sum of the parts.  Certainly these were among the parts in this happy calculation:

These are the flowers of Sweet Rocket (Hesperis matronalis).  As you can see they come in the regular mauve-ish pink and also in the less common white. 

There were many, many reasons to be cheerful yesterday, certainly one of them is impossible to show you...  The flowers of Sweet Rocket make a most exquisite scent and on a humid afternoon the air is heavy with it.  That smell, if not the trigger for the feelings of euphoria, was certainly an all pervading component in "the sum of the parts".

Falling asleep that night, the last thing passing through the mind on its way to sleep was not dancing Mayfly Spinners, nor was it rising trout, nor curved and creaking cane.  In fact it was not a vision at all.  No, it was the heavy scent of Sweet Rocket and I recommend a good sniff at it whenever you get chance!




Regular Rod