A little more Fen Gothic

     I've decided to lift the mood of lockdown with a bit of Fen Gothic from last winter, I'm not M R James and I'm not a writer by any means but the strangely haunting Fenland landscape where we now live has turned up some odd, no strange, really strange encounters and experiences. When we moved into the area I had to go out and make contacts to get permissions to pursue my fishing obsession and I had arrived in an area that is criss-crossed by waterways: dykes, drains and large and small and rivers.
      After a while and once I began to establish a network of contacts I found I was able to shoot and fish on tracts of land that only saw the farmers and contractors at work. In turn they've passed me on to other contacts who are also allowing me to fish or they supply more intelligence about suitable venues. For these kind people if you take your rubbish home, pick-up other rubbish, generally be invisible and give them a bottle of wine in thanks a working relationship is rapidly established.
      The permission that is the subject of this tale is isolated and in fog you could easily become disorientated and lost, particularly as dusk is falling on a damp, dank and gloomy mid-winter's afternoon or evening.

      Now, you'll have to picture the scene here so turn the lights out and let your imagination run riot and please bear with me.
      Not that long after we moved to West Norfolk I was pike fishing late on a freezing and misty winter's afternoon out on an empty fen but fortunately I was very close to my car parked on a dead-end drove that was off another drove. Fog was beginning to form and just to add to the atmosphere a full moon had grudgingly appeared above the foggy horizon. The nearest farmhouse was about a mile away and all was deathly quiet apart from the drip of water and the gentle but almost silent rustling of the reeds. Some would say perfect Bible John weather

      Then out of nowhere it seemed, a figure appeared about five or six feet away from me just watching me fishing. Respect to the fisherman I thought but after about five or six minutes of uncomfortable silence he said, 'you know there's aliens out here, they use the power lines on them pylons to recharge their batteries so they can cross the vast tracts and cold, inhospitable emptiness of space'.
      Now there's an opener, and a closer, to a conversation.
      He finally asked me if I'd caught anything and I must admit that at that point I was feeling decidedly uncomfortable and had lost interest in the pike fishing, anyway it was nearly dark. I said I'd caught one pike and was about to pack up because it was getting dark and then when I turned around after winding the two rods in and sorting some other gear out he was gone.
      There was nobody on the bank of the drain anywhere in sight and I never saw or heard an alien space craft. But then you wouldn't, would you?
      Beam me up Scotty.
      Oh, and there'll be another Fen Gothic and an even more chilling instalment coming soon.