I wasn't expecting this!

My morning walk (05.30hrs) across to Pyson's Road was a rather non-descript journey. It was damp and dark, that's it! A lone Robin sang its melancholy lament, under the illumination of a street lamp, and a couple of Blackbirds were already searching for breakfast - using the same light source. The rigours of my factory routine ensured that I saw very little daylight between 06.00 & 14.00 hrs - not an issue, it goes with the territory. My walk home, however, was in bright sunshine and under blue skies - yet I was still taken aback when I almost trod on a Peacock butterfly. Obviously an individual that had been displaced from a winter roost site (probably in a stack of pallets?) I picked up and took it home, releasing it in one of our sheds where, hopefully, it will find adequate shelter for the coming winter period.

I photographed it in a derelict hanging basket - complete with buddleia shoots!
This is my first butterfly sighting since a Red Admiral on 15th November 2013.
My latest record, however, is also of a Red Admiral at Dungeness RSPB - 18th Dec 1997

My birds were quickly fed and watered before Bev and I set off to see Debbie, Emily and Harry - just across town. Emily and I took a walk down to Dragoncarp and the sweetshop, well that's what grand parents are for - isn't it? The guys in Dragoncarp gave me a "double hook" that had been brought in by an elderly angler. I have never seen anything quite like it. The hook is from an era when pike fishing was purely for the pot or trophy room - either way, the fish was destined to die.

 

The coin is a 10p - this hook being a shocking size designed purely for a single purpose.
I have found a few images of similar hooks, generally with pike flies attached.
As a hook for dead baiting? I fear that the best unhooking technique, in the world, would struggle to remove this
creation from a pikes' stomach - simply hideous.

This, barbaric, example of our angling history is exactly why the Pike Anglers Club of GB exists. Benno telling me of a "large" pike being beaten to death by a carp angler who didn't want to touch it (without a weapon, that is) - the incident allegedly taking place at Iden Lock. Shame I wasn't there to witness the event - it would have made quite a post - a skinny hippy sticking a carp rod up someone's arse!
However, what this says more than anything else is that everyone places importance in different places. The carp angler - pike are unimportant; a disposable commodity? Me - pike are very important (being a native species - so unlike the carp which was introduced by the Romans) and it is the carp angler, and his priorities, that are of little value to angling/me! It didn't happen and the reality would have been that the geezer was a monster and I wouldn't have made any agressive remarks within earshot! Still; it's nice to dream on about what it would be like if you were master of your own destiny - sadly, for most of us, we'll never know.