OK, so what's new?

Well, I'm no longer a working stiff - I'm now a financially independent man of leisure...

And I have to say - I think the lifestyle rather suits me.

I'd been in the saddle with a large UK government department for over 40 years. It was enough - I've done my bit for Queen and country, I reckon. And frankly, I felt deeply unappreciated: in the private sector, people doing (a far, far easier version of) my job - Data Protection Subject Matter Expert/DPO) - earn something like three or four times my salary - so when I realised that early retirement (while there's still plenty of tread on my tires) was a viable option for me, I jumped at it.

Wouldn't you?

So, precisely two weeks ago, on 8 April 2019, I became a 58 year old (early, and not at all pensionery) pensioner.

Now here's the thing. For much of my life I've been a keen angler (coarse/carp/pike fishing) but I'd fallen out of the habit for years.

(Local angling club politics and "personalities" saw to that. There may yet be a lengthy and detailed post - or posts - on the subject, depending on whether I'm "allowed" to rejoin the club in question: a club which I co-founded and ran for many years, to far greater success than it currently enjoys. We'll know soon enough...)

The urge never goes away - once an angler, always an angler, I suppose - and now that my time's my own again, I'll be wetting a line whenever mood takes and opportunity presents.

Specifically, I'm going to trip around the country and (hotel availability notwithstanding) spend time - a week here, a week there - checking out places I've either never fished before; or have always wanted to spend more time at.

I can't wait.

My first such trip (late May 2019) is a week at Carlton Miniott outside of Thirsk for Woodland Lakes; I'm doing another week in Durham in July for Aldin Lakes.

At each of these venues I'm going to give pellet waggler fishing a go (even though it's pretty much how I've fished commercial fisheries for the last twenty-odd years, before it had a name!) - and I'm thinking about a week in September in Norwich, for River Wensum Pike.

And - maybe - I'll be casting a bait at the fish in a couple of the waters of the club I allude to above. I hope so - I literally dug one of the fucking things out from the corner of a flooded field, which was as good as it got for coarse anglers up here 40 or so years ago.

I imagine that none of this sounds like a big deal logistically, but imagine trying to do it solely by public transport - that's where the challenge is for me, and I'll be writing about how I'm going about it without shoving a six foot rod holdall in people's faces...