For international readers: How to postpone a fishing day.
In the year 2025:
SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook, Signal, Snap Chat etc.: „Hej, Alter, hab‘ Regenradar geguckt. Lass canceln für morgen. LG“
In the year 1838:
Signs of rain
Forty reasons for not accepting the invitation of a friend to make an excursion with him.
By the late Dr. Jenner
1 „The hollow winds begin to blow;
2 The clouds look black, the glass is low;
3 The soot falls down, the spaniels sleep,
4 And spider from their cobweb peep.
5 Last night the sun went pale to bed,
6 The moon in haloes hid her head;
7 The boding Shepherd heaves a sigh,
8 For see a rainbow spans the sky:
9 The walls are damp, the ditches smell.
10 Closed is the pink-eyed pimpernell.
11 Hark how the chairs and tables crack,
12 Old Bettys joints are on the rack;
13 Loud quack the duck, the peacocks cry;
14 The distant hills are seeming nigh.
15 How restless are the snorting swine,
16 The busy flies disturb the kine;
17 Low o’er grass the swallow wings;
18 The cricket, too, how sharp he sings;
19 Puss on the hearth, with velvet paws,
20 Sits wiping o’er her wisker’d jaws.
21 Thro‘ clear stream the fishes rise,
22 And nimbly catch th‘ incautious flies.
23 The glow worms, numerous and bright,
24 Illumed the dewy well last night.
25 At dusk the squalid toad was seen,
26 Hopping and crawling o’er the green;
27 The whirling wind the dust obeys,
28 And in the rapid eddy plays;
29 The frog has changed his yellow vest,
30 And in a russet coat is drest.
31 Though June, the air is cold and still,
32 The mellow black-bird’s voice is shrill.
33 My dog, so alter’d in his taste,
34 Quits mutton-bones on grass to feast;
35 And see yon rooks, how odd their flight,
36 They imitate the gliding kite,
37 And seem precipitate to fall,
38 As if they felt the piercing ball.
39 ‚Twill surely rain, I see, with sorrow,
40 Our jaunt must be put off to-morrow.“
The Art of Angling, Charles Bowlker, London 1839
In einem von Udo Hildebrandt geschenkten Buch gefunden von Ingo Karwath