Martyn Green
Coordinator,
Baywater Anglers
“And don’t you go shaking your head at me! You know I’ll be careful. It’s not as if I am a baby lobster after all.”
There are some sounds, and even gestures, which convey more meaning than a carefully prepared speech. Prunella, for example, merely sniffed, but that sniff called into question his sanity, his age, his understanding, his ability to look after himself and added the fact that she knew that he was going to ignore her advice. It also implied that she knew better, was much wiser and that he needed her to look after him.
It was a masterly sniff! Even Lenny grinned at the range of its devastating subtlety.
“I am going to have some breakfast and then I’ll be off. Can you see to it please?” A second sniff followed, tickling Lenny’s ever present sense of humour. “I was wondering about scallops.” He looked as angelic as possible, but his housekeeper had already departed. “Oh well, I guess I could make my own breakfast after all!”
After breakfast Lenny set off with only a nod to Prunella, well aware that she would be annoyed with him for several days to come. Well, that was only to be expected.
The first part of his journey took him to the shallow end of the pool, where the wall was less than a metre deep. Then he waited, crouched in the shadows at the base of the wall, for the tide to come in.
Its first indication was a trickle of cold water that abruptly entered the pool. This was followed by another, then another, till the seaweed all around was swaying back and forth with each gently breaking wave. Soon the wall was submerged at its top as well as both sides.
This was the moment that Lenny had been waiting for, when it was safe for him to leave. With a silent wave behind, just in case Prunella had followed him this far (which was quite like her, after all) he shinned up the wall and dropped into the colder water behind.
The next few hours passed uneventfully, though he had to hide a couple of times from the great lumbering strides of the humans enjoying the water off the beach. Then, finally, the terrain around him changed, dropping off into deeper water where the tiny rocks off the sand gave way to great boulders rearing high above the ocean floor.
This was the time to be careful. He scuttled under cover as a great shadow drifted lazily above him, a seal idly investigating the likelihood of lunch. A frightened pollack broke for cover, but his action only drew him to the notice of the seal. Both disappeared quickly from view.
Lenny drew a great sigh of relief, then paused, shaking, as a pair of huge eyes suddenly fixed him in their glare. He started to raise his claws, then sagged with relief as the great, sinewy form of a large conger emerged from his hiding place, passing over Lenny’s quaking form in the manner of a jumbo jet that dwarfs the microlite at the side of the runway.
