Keado’s Weblog

A week of holidays has come and gone & where it went, who knows. You have these great plans that when the kids are holiday you are going to “do this and do that” and the inevitable happens that you don’t. After spending most of Tues fishing with K, there was some work to be done. You wouldn’t have notices but just spent the last 10 min trying to remember what we did last week. Wed was grocery shopping with K while JD was with Kim – horse riding was cancelled so just a normal working afternoon with 100 street children running riot. Thu was also a full working day strange as that may seem. I was due to head into the office but with Kim down & out, I worked at home [thanks Microsoft]. Fri was a family flyer delivery morning. It’s great training and we all had our roles. We deliver a local newspaper fortnightly to around 500+ houses and I use as my training run for the day. K joined in the running while Kim seconded in the Landy with JD folding them. Pretty hard but great fun – backpack on with 100 spares, 50 in hand and off I run – house to house into postboxes. K did a fair amount of running as well and worked real hard, no complaints and just motivated to train & work hard. JD on the other hand had enough by house #20, but he maintained until the end. We took under 2 hours to finish the delivery which is pretty good going. We have a map all highlighted with the streets and the second time on this route, so getting to know it pretty well. Many boxes have various message on them “no advertising material” “no circulars” “no newspapers” “only postal letters” – so it isn’t just run and throw plus some have the strangest boxes – small slots, round, downpipes, boxes with lids and others.

Sat morning K wanted to fish again so we went off to Arkels Bay but the easterly wind was blowing which meant there was nothing to block the rocks – so we headed off to the wharf which is pretty sheltered. One chap there but he left early and another joined much later, so we pretty much had the wharf to ourselves. Not too much action as it was really low tide and took ages for the water to come in. True to form K caught three little sprats and I caught a trevally – my first – We had no clue what it was – had an idea but had to confirm with another local fisherman. We got home and filleted it for dinner – surprised to see the size & quality of the steaks that I got off. Spent the afternoon at the Albany looking for a new fishing rod for JD. Recession, what recession – that place was like Fourways on a Sat morning. No parking, busy, stress – we both said now we know why we don’t go there often. Chilled the rest of Sat. For dinner, took the fish fillets, soaked them in a batter of flour & egg and then coated with bread crumbs and pan fried. No lies, my best ever! The fish was white and much better than snapper – absolutely awesome. I’m going to have to find out why this fish isn’t targeted and some use for bait? For the record it was about 35cm and 1.2kg’s. This morning we got prepared and off to the fishing contest at Hobbs Wharf, the new part of the marina. Normally there is no fishing allowed in the marina but they made an exception on the new part to market the local “market”. Kids fishing contest so take kids fishing rods, right? Well, guess I thought wrong. Dad’s arrived with gear that I would dream of having on the rocks. There must have been 120+ people all fishing along the pier. They did say that they had been placing some birley pellets to encourage the sprats to come in and K caught two pretty quick. Little tricky fishing as we were almost shoulder to shoulder. I put a 3 hook piece onto JD’s new rod with bigger hooks as someone caught a baby snapper – and there’s always one bigger around. It was JD, K and myself as Kim was heading in to the office with Groblers to do some work. After 3 min JD arrived from the jumping castle to ask if we were finished? Same time his line went and he fought in a nice snapper – 26cm – 1cm too small to be legal! Didn’t interest him too much and off he went. Kim brought me some bait on her way out and we convinced JD to play at the factory with friends rather than stay – he wasn’t sure but was off pretty quick. It took a while to teach K the difference between sprat fishing with small hooks to fishing with larger hooks. After much convincing, speeches, jumping up and down, she was convinced and 10min before the close time of 12pm, her line went. These are kids rods & reels and good fun when a nice fish is on. She fought hard to bring it in and as it surfaced, we could see it was “legal”, above 27cm. She even had a little gallery behind to applaud. Got him up and between getting the fish off, measuring him, untangling another guys line with ours, wrapping the fish in a cloth so I didn’t get spiked- K held him and she was off to register her catch. In the end, 2cm smaller than the winner but only 3 legal snapper caught. She didn’t mind not winning but so proud to be part of the contest – she did win a spot prize of a carrier bag from the local fishing shop. Apparently it’s her new school bag when they return. JD & K back mid afternoon – she slept, I worked and kids played – one week down, one to go.