My plans for a final overnight session on St James’ lakes before moving to France have been well and truly torpedoed. I was planning to fish thursday night because the conditions looked perfect: strong south westerlies, dipping air pressure and warm temperatures.

However, waking on Thursday morning, I was greeted by a broken gas boiler that would require an engineer to fix. Of course, having waited all day the engineer turned up just as darkness was falling, and to top it off, was unable to fix the boiler.

Things went from bad to worse, as I began to feel decidedly flu-ey during the evening, scuppering any chances of a day session today. So as I lay here in bed under a duvet and my new Trakker bedchair cover…I’m pissed off and ever so slightly chilly!

Farewell St James’, you have done a fine job of re-igniting my Carping passion.

Stumble it!