Thereby hangs a tale…

… or, this is what it’s all about: Penn is a tetraplegic. He loves to go fishing but hasn’t had anyone to fish with for ages… Ian is disabled himself, but still walking wounded (at the moment). Ian is a keen angler and lives in the Torbay area of Devon. Penn also lives down there. Penn joined the Reels on Wheels Forum, looking for a Buddy to go fishing with. Ian had also joined and volunteered to go fishing with Penn… here’s what happened:

[Taken from the Buddy Stories section on the ROW Forum]

This is what it’s all about

---

I contacted Penn after he put in a post requiring a buddy in the Torbay area, to be honest I was a little worried about it once I knew Penns condition, I didn’t know what to expect, the first outing was a little tense on my part, I didn’t want to fuss around him but I also wanted Penn to ask me for things if he needed them, I think we both kept quiet on that first time, we’ve been fishing together several times now & have become good friends, Penn now asks for things & I offer things & we get on great, sometimes I wish he wasn’t so polite, when Penn wants something he’ll always start or end in “if you wouldn’t mind” I really don’t mind.Penn is amazing & must be an inspiration to many people, for those of you that don’t know Penn have a look at his website http://www.tetraplegicliving.comThis is how a days fishing goes, I turn up about 2 hours before Penn to make sure we’re on the peg we want, Penn will turn up at around midday & I’ll go over to the car park (yes Penn drives) to meet him, You should see his vehicle, it’s a mercedes minibus, Penn pushes a button & the rear doors swing open, press another button & the ramp comes down level with the floor of the vehicle, Penn reverses his chair on to the ramp & the push of a button & he’s at ground level, anyway back to the story, I grab Penns fishing tackle, bait & lunch bag & off we go to the peg, Penn decides where he wants to fish & how he wants to fish & I set the rod up for him, I strap the rod to Penns right arm & we’re fishing, I make Penn cups of coffee & give him his tablets at 3:00-3:30 & pass him his food when he needs it, I’ll throw some bait in now & then but apart from that we just fish & chat, when Penn has had enough I pack his gear away & take it back to his vehicle, there’s nothing to it, anyone can be a buddy, the other thing is you’re not just helping someone you’re gaining a friend & fishing companion. Thanks Penn for being my buddy, cheers mate.Ian[Here's what Penn had to say...]

Thanks Ian, that is written really nicely. This is definitely a real success. I’ve advertised for people before to go fishing and after were a couple of sessions, it hasn’t gone anywhere. I think me and Ian will be fishing for many years to come, hopefully. I have to laugh, after 21 years in a wheelchair I still forget to take my tablets, it is amazing that just after a few sessions, Ian is standing next to me at three o’clock on the dot with my tablets and a cup of coffee and I haven’t even reminded him.

Anyway, we’ve had some really good sessions, me watching him catch fish. Doesn’t bother me, just getting out is the whole point of it. And gaining a new friend is the most important thing in my opinion. We have a laugh, we sometimes sit there and don’t say anything to each other, normally when I’m asleep actually, I’m sure Ian would agree that we don’t feel that we have to be making small talk all the time.

Anyway, looking forward to a few more sessions hopefully this year with Ian. Probably won’t go much during the winter unless it’s a really mild day. But next year, look out, I’ll be on the ball.

Anyway Ian, I really appreciate all your help. You make it really easy, no fussing which is what makes life easier for me. I’ve got every confidence in setting up my rigs and whatnot. Not only did he offer his help, he also offered part of the dinner as well.

Thanks mate

[And thank you both for sharing your experiences].

The Buddy stories make my heart sing and it’s worth all the stress involved with doing all the work behind the scenes to raise awareness of Reels on Wheels and what it means to anglers – able bodied and disabled alike. I’m going to crow about each and every success we have because these days, it’s great to read something positive, isn’t it?

Calling Lady Anglers!!

Hello Ladies!

This is an open invitation asking any other anglers’ wives to come along and submit a guest post to me, for publication on my blog. There must be a few of you out there who have something to say/write, so why not do it here, on an already established blog.

I want to hear your views on anything fishing-related, including how you feel about your hubby’s hobby – whether it’s positive or negative; whether you fish or not; whether you’d secretly like to learn or have a go at fishing; anything you’d like to say…

So come on, leave me a comment, send me an email: admin@reels-on-wheels.org  Get in touch and have your say!

Sharing the passion!

I thought I’d post a couple of photos from Tuesday’s fun fishing so you can see Sophie – the journalist – with Nick, present as he landed his first fish for the camera!!

And while she was chatting to me… I caught this one!

Personally, I think it’s a better-looking fish than Nick’s – but that’s just my personal opinion – hehehe! And of course, I had to take a pic of him landing the next one, from his wheelchair.

We had such a great time and although it threatened to rain, that didn’t happen till we were alone again. We decided to pack up a bit earlier than usual because we’d achieved what we wanted to AND caught some lovely fish. It was a really nice way to relax and unwind and made a pleasant change for me.

Now to get hold of Gary, who’s going to teach me to fly-fish!

On another mission…

Yep, he is. He’s now waiting to be contacted by another carp angler about fishing as a partnership at the Wales Carp Masters Tournament at the end of July. They’ll be fishing a non-stop 48-hour heat (for carp only), the winners of which go through to the WCM Final – purse £10,000.00. That’s a lot of money. But you should  see the size of the carp! Nick hasn’t fished for carp up to 50lbs for many years… I bet he has fun!

I’ve made my Topper for the competition at Aunty’s – finished it last night. It was quite easy in the end, although I made a bit of a booboo with the stamped image – it didn’t come out right using distress ink, so I reverted to trusty old Stazon and placing the image without an acrylic block – just my fingers. Came out fine. A bit of highlighting with the white gel pen and a dab or two of glossy accents.

And there’s a link to my Altered Art blog in the side-bar now that I’ve begun to post over there. I created it to prevent anglers who come over here from getting fed up with a crafty blog, when this is my space to blog about R-O-W and us, not crafting!!

Widgets and blondes!

When I first started blogging, over a year ago, I hadn’t discovered WordPress. After having my fair share of spammers and hack-attacks, I decided to use a different blogging platform. Blogger was a no-no, as they were changing over to Beta and the downtime was unacceptable, so I looked to WordPress.

I have found it very easy to use, change, adapt – in short, it’s pretty much blonde-proof.

Then I tried to put a Donate button on the disabled angler’s blog… WP didn’t like the encrypted button coding at all – no way Jose! Fair enough, so I had to resort to WP FAQs. Whoever wrote them is a genius and a real ‘people-person’. I’ve successfully uploaded, linked and saved all the info to my text widgets in the sidebar and we now have Donate buttons coming out of our ears.

I’ve just created a new blog for me and my altered art as this one is as much about fishing and family as anything else and I don’t want ordinary anglers to be put off by loads of blurb about my altered stuff, the pics and descriptions of how I do my “thang“! LOL – it’s a bit girly I think!

Will link to it when there’s something worth looking at on there.

As the weather’s so crap here, we won’t be going fishing today, just PR-ing and keeping track of the cap orders which are flying in at the moment. Catch you again! TTFN

Woohoo!

What good day I’ve had!! Posted 3 lots of leaflets off to anglers, posted a surprise package to a friend, had a demo of the ultimate travelling fly rod set-up and then managed to Paypal enable all the items on the Reels on Wheels Shop!! Yay! Thank you Freewebs for uploading everything so quickly and making it all blonde-friendly!

So, there’s a Donate button on the front of the shop, the cards, caps and keyrings can be ordered online and I even have time to go and craft for a while. It must be the first time in a few weeks that I haven’t felt harassed or too busy to get away from the PC and just do something for me… what a relief!

The caps look like this, by the way:

Neat, aren’t they? We have had 22 posts from anglers who’d like to buy one, so we’ve ordered the first 50 and hopefully they’ll be delivered before Nick leaves home to go and fish the South Cerney National Angling Festival. Fingers crossed!

If you want to Donate to Reels on Wheels because you think it’s a good cause, but don’t want to purchase anything, please use the Donate buton on the website or the front page of the ROW Shop. Thanks for your support!

Charity begins at home…

I had altered an old box which I bought at the car boot one Sunday for the Altered Art Competition on Auntys Forum. I didn’t expect to win as there was some stiff competition and my good friend Crissi won with a beautifully altered frame. It houses the most gorgeous photo of her grandad and she was indeed a worthy winner. WTG Crissi.

However, after the dragonfly box was finished, I decided to put it up for sale (even though I do love it!) and donate the proceeds to Reels on Wheels. Well today, it went to a very good friend who bought it for her daughter’s birthday present and I couldn’t be happier – £10.00 to Reels on Wheels. Yay!! Even I’m doing my bit to raise monies – and don’t it feel good?!

I also received a lovely surprise in the post today and 9 beautiful fishing-themed cards from my fabulous friend, Sheila Oliver.

Gorgeous, aren’t they? Just like these…

Thank you so much, Sheila. We love them!

A day’s fishing at last!

Yep, he took me fishing today!! We went to our local Club water – at Gammaton (near Bideford). It wasn’t a particularly warm day, grey and overcast, to be precise. The wind was pretty strong and quite chilly, so I wore a couple of T-shirts, my Angler’s Paradise Hoodie and my winter fleece gilet over black n white camo-pants and a cap! Untrendy, far from cool, but totally practical for fishing.

We had set up by 9.30am and I was float fishing close to two lily pads, hoping for a decent carp or one of the few tench that are in the lake. I sat there with a cup of tea and some food for ages, just hoping for a bite. Nothing – not a touch nor a knock. I’m no specimen hunter and when I go fishing, I couldn’t care less how big they are, as long as I catch fish.

By 12, I was getting bored. Stuart popped down to say hello and told me to use pellet as hookbait and feed little and often! Have you ever tried getting a rubber band round a pellet with half inch long nails? It ain’t easy, let me tell you. But I persevered and fished inbetween the lily pads in about 2 feet of water for the best part of an hour and still nothing. Even my pheromones had deserted me…

So Nick took pity on me and checked my depthing (it was fine!) and gave me the remainder of his groundbait to chuck in around my float. It smelled yummy enough to eat, but you should see the colour of my hands! I’m not really that blonde, I just give that impression so everyone is always surprised when I do catch and indeed, land my own fish! Hahaha!

I had given up on the pellet and put some luncheon meat on, continuing to feed around the float when all of a sudden I got knock, knock, dip and struck into a feisty little tench! Yay!! It wasn’t big, but considering it was the only fish I had, and the fact that there are only 11 of them in the entire lake, I was made up!

So, I didn’t blank and have wet my rod this year, thank heavens. Next time we go there, I shall fish the pole as he’s promised to fit me some Hydro-elastic to the top section, which will enable me to deal with anything of a decent size without too much trouble.

I think Nick’s glad that I did catch a fish or I would’ve moaned for the best part of a week, but glad that I didn’t catch more or bigger than he did – he had a lovely bream about an hour after we set up. So we’re evens at Bideford and I have to improve as there’s Ladies’ Honour at stake in a forthcoming match between the men and the women at BAC. In other words, Nick and Stuart have challenged Di and me to a match!! I have no idea what the stakes are… but our pheromones must be in full flow and fighting fit that day!!

Breakfast, lunch and dinner too!

He’s back home … and has been on BBCTV this morning – which I missed – at lunchtime and again this evening!! I went into town this morning to pay some more monies into the bank accounts and bumped into a mate at the Bakery. She asked me if that was Nick on the telly this morning and I felt almost cheated because I’d missed it!!

So, himself having phoned to say that he was on his way home (after 40 hours of nonstop fishing!), I decided to take a chance and record ‘Spotlight’ at lunchtime and in the evening. I saw DH on the telly!! Yay! If you want to see the clip, click HERE. Then look for Disabled Angler Nets Interest…

We’ve been altering dominoes on Auntys Forum and it’s something I’ve never done before, but I do so love to re-invent stuff and change the way it looks, so I joined in. What fun! I haven’t had my partner’s domino yet, but she loved mine, so I’m looking forward to the postie coming tomorrow morning… here’s another one I made over the last couple of days. I need to drill a keyring hole through it and then it can come to market with me!! Even I like this one… it might never make it to market, actually!!

It’s been a while…

… since I’ve posted, but that’s half term for you!! Luckily, DD’s been pretty much occupied, so things haven’t been too bad. On Tuesday we had an ‘official visit’ from TDC, to check we’re not secret billionaires and that Nick’s really a wheelchair user! Never mind, these things have to be dealt with and it all went smoothly.

On Wednesday, we had to be in for a delivery of some super baits for the man to use on his 24 hour visit to Town Parks. I know how much he’s looking forward to returning now the fish have stopped making babies and are hungry again!

Me, I’ve been busy rewriting the ROW Mission statement and preparing for Friday’s meeting with the guys at Freebird Design – more ideas and brainstorming about the whole Buddy System and Reels on Wheels. Plus, I’ve spent quite a bit of time on the phone with the accountant, dealing with the Company accounts which are due at this time of year.

However, I did manage an Elsie Flannigan LO in the new rave format – which I dislike – and I’ve been making mini-cards too! Completed 5 altogether: A Thank you card, a Happy Father’s Day card and 3 more fishing cards in a new style for me. I’m quite happy with all of them (perfectionist that I am!!) and I like the watercolour pencils a lot.

Here’s a peek at the fishing cards which will go into the ROW shop for £1.50 each.

The bottom one reads “Tight Lines!”, embossed in black. It’s clearer in R/L!! They were all made using the Tandastamps Fishing set that I bought for this purpose and you can tell how good the quality of the images is from the photos, can’t you? I’ve just bought another sheet and I’m looking forward to using them with my Luna Magick images – should make a lovely combination (fingers crossed!!).

That’s all for today… have a good night all!