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Welcome to the Fitzmartyn Portal

If you're looking for the Online Store for Fitzmartyn Saltwater Flies then yes you've reached the right place, but I'm rebuilding the site so things will be offline for a while. If you're wanting Seagull Rigs then sorry but I'm far too busy with other projects to make rigs anymore. My apologies for the chaos. If you need something really urgently then please email me and I'll see what I can do to help - but no rig requests please.

In the meantime this site has replaced most of my other blogs so all my weird rants and ravings can be found here, plus an opportunity for you to have a poke around in my head to see what my music and literacy tastes are - but hang on tight because it's a bit of a wild and bumpy ride!

P.S. Charivari is an old custom of making a noisy, discordant mock serenade as a form of social coercion.
I use the word to mean making my voice heard, hopefully to improve things - and even if it doesn't, I feel better for airing my opinion Smile

My Best Friend

I want to tell you about my best friend. Many of you will probably have met him as he was a regular at the "Coffee Pot" held in St. Mary's Church, Winterborne Stickland on Monday mornings. For those of you who don't visit the "Coffee Pot" I am talking about my dog, Levi.

We first met when I was visiting the RSPCA Rescue Centre at Bawtry in South Yorkshire. One part of the Centre was sadly nicknamed "Death Row" as this was the area that dogs who had failed to be re-homed were reaching the end of their six month life extension.

Levi had originally been seized by the RSPCA following a cruelty investigation in Leeds and after a three month stay there had been moved to Bawtry in an attempt to make him more adoptable. He had problems... He was a big, strong Labrador/Rottweiler Cross and had never been socialized, trained or had any other company – human or canine! People had tried to adopt him but all had ultimately declined when they couldn't cope with him.

When I first saw him he was dejectedly sitting in the corner of his cage. I stopped to say hello and he immediately came across to me, tail wagging, and pressed hard against the bars so that I could reach through and stroke him. After taking him for a walk I found out why nobody had adopted him before... He was strong! He had no idea how to walk on a lead and knew no words of command. Also he was really, really friendly and wanted to jump up and lick me all the time. Anyone smaller than me would have been crushed by him.We were instantly bonded. I didn't want to go home and leave him, and he didn't want to leave me.

The two weeks we had to wait to adopt him were agony but finally we could take him home. That's when the fun started...

Did it rain on St Swithin’s Day?

There’s a tradition that if it rains on St Swithin’s Day (15^th July) then it will rain for the next forty days, and there’s also the converse tradition that if it’s fine then the next forty days will also be fine.

This is very much an “old wife’s tale” and records actually show that if it does rain on the 15^th July then the next forty days are likely drier than average! In fact there’s never been a forty day recorded period of rain between July 15^th and August 24^th…

One Man and His Dog

Quite a good photo of Levi and me stood doing nothing as usual, in the yard at Longmead. In my defense I was walking down the yard when I was pounced on by a camera-wielding Cate who demanded that we pose for a photo Very Happy

A Hard Day on the Planet

Phew! It was a hard day on the Planet yesterday. A dash to Shaftesbury for a session at Hope 2 Cycle, an even faster dash back home to take Sue (she-who-must-be-obeyed) for her medical appointment. Sad

Expecting a leisurely evening with the possibility of a cast or two on the River Piddle to get a nice Trout for supper I instead had to deal with the "Imperious Curse" cast upon me by my agent demanding a 2000 word 'filler' article of (in her own words) "Quirky rural stuff. You know, that weird stuff you write when I'm not there to tell you what sells" She loves me really; fills me full of confidence Wink

When did Hallow’een become “Trick or Treat”

When I was a kid we had Halloween, the night when the barrier between the world of the living and the world of the dead was at it’s thinnest. The night that witches flew and spirits walked, the night for staying home behind closed curtains and telling ghost stories by candle light.

A Thing of Purpose

I used to have a friend with a barn full of what she called “things of purpose” – those items that you have no immediate use for but you can’t bear to throw away because they may be useful some day. Sadly that friend is no more but her saying lives on in my own shed as now I too have a good collection of “things of purpose”.

I Owe Dorset Police An Apology

Earlier this week I went on a “Driver Awareness Course” as a substitute for simply being given a fixed penalty fine and 3 points on my licence. Originally I thought it was yet another way for the police to top up their coffers by charging £40 on top of the fixed penalty for the optional course… I was wrong!

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