October

It's been another glorious day and I've been for a swim. I'm all over this Indian summer. Still, sunny days and misty nights.

I have upped my exercise quota to try and shift the last few inches of fat. Rather than just swim, I have been cycling and swimming. Then cycling back home.

Yesterday, I rode nine miles to Millisle and swam out to a rocky outcrop about half a mile offshore. A seal came up to observe me, gradually inching closer & closer through the water until he was about fifteen feet away.

I saw a giant rat newly killed on the dual carriageway at Groomsport.

I often see flatfish hiding on the sandy bed, proabably brer flounder or turbot, but they scoot off before I can catch them. Maybe I should carry a spear.

I've met a few big eating crabs but when I chase them, they chase me back!

There must be plenty of fish out there, because there were huge amounts of gannets on a boat expedition I went on, out by the Copeland Islands last week. There were many of seals out there too.

I swam with four or five seals last week, I don't particularly care for the way they stare at me with those glassy eyes when they pop their heads above the water.

A strange thing I have have noticed about seals, terns, gannets and other such fish-hunting wildlife :- they come in close to land when the breeze is moderately strong; offshore rather than onshore; and the sky is bright. Go down to the sea at Groomsport on such a day and there are seals 10 foot from shore. But hardly anyone but me knows they're there, because few people open their eyes to what's happening around them.

Due to the fishing quotas, all our local trawlers are raiding the mussel beds instead of chasing fish.

I am almost certain there is a pair of hen harriers round here. I've never seen hen harriers before, but I can't think what else they might be. Big fat white arse on them. Too stocky to be a buzzard, and no wedge tail. Swoops low at dusk over ploughed fields, sits in the field too. Must be a Hen Harrier, eh?

There's no point me ringing the RSPB again. It'll be like the time I saw the poor ravens mobbed by hundreds of rooks & jackdaws. They won't believe me.

Today, I cycled about six miles to Helen's Bay to swim. On my return, I was cycling along Bangor seafront when I had to slow down for a young man swaying all over the coastal path. He was eating something out of a Tesco carrier bag.

"Here mate come and have some of this popcorn!" he drunkenly beseeched me. I declined, but he tried to press me into acceptance. "Popcorn fuckin popcorn argargharh come on!"

I rode away.