View from Room 8 at The Crown & Castle, Orford, Suffolk

Finally, a rainbow at dusk!

The ‘real’ view from Room 8

It's my birthday today and to celebrate this at the end of last week my wife Fiona organised a surprise overnight's stay in Suffolk, with a fly-fishing session en route. Forgive the poor quality of the shot taken in very low light, but we had arrived at about 1pm and on an overcast January afternoon, the light doesn't last for long. Numb fingers and chilled toes are the downside of a winter's birthday and soon took a grip. Dark at 5pm, I had a couple of takes in the afternoon, but the fish got off. Come dusk, however, when I had about 5 minutes left of light, I dropped a weighted cat's whisker into a deep area of the lake and counted it down to the bottom to be rewarded with a strong pull and this lovely 2.5lb hard-fighting rainbow which took a good 5 minutes to get in. Then it was off to The Trinity restaurant at The Crown and Castle in Orford, Suffolk for a hot bath, a cool pint of Greene King ‘IPA’ and a bottle of ‘Hop’ ale and a hearty meal of Potted Brown Shrimps followed, appropriately, by Fish Pie.

© Peter Gander

Fortunately, The Crown & Castle operate a relaxed departure time the morning after your stay, so I had the opportunity to paint this scene from our window looking out over the estuary at Orford on a drizzly misty morning before we left. 6B pencil and watercolour on 300gsm Grain Fin NOT paper.