The Whiteadder is normally the gentlest of rivers but there are times in dark early Winter afternoons, after about two inches of rain upstream, when it appears menacing as it rushes towards the Tweed. It was certainly, yesterday, much too wet for visiting fishermen to venture near the bank, never mind stand in the river and the self catering establishment aka Hutton Mill was deserted -no 4x4s nor Barbour jackets in evidence. And it seems that the new house beside the Mill, billed as a Gillie's or Baillie's abode is also deserted and with little evidence of human life-such as furniture within it. Perhaps the gloom of the Whiteadder gorge, sunless on the south bank from November until March, has driven the inhabitants to hibernate elsewhere.

And out of the gorge it was all bright and sunny with Douglas the Dun Bull still enjoying his harem seemingly unaware of the blue/black clouds heading his way from the north.

We shall miss all this in the-small-house-in-Duns.But at least the long winter still stretches in front of us until specie changes hands and the Whiteadder if not the Rubicon can finally and irrevocably be crossed.

Labels: Fishing, Hutton, Whiteadder

  ¶ 7:44 PM