It was a male only trip which was ideal as there was only a small bucket to pee in and we were to be at seat for 8 hours. During which time three of us, myself included, had multiple sickness off the side of the boat - the first man of illness was Alex Brown who won the prize for the worst smelling sick I've ever experienced. Second up was myself, although I wasn't sure if it was the boat's rocking motion or a few Hoegaarden's the night before which had done me in, finally it was my good friend Howard (father of one) Alistair Mitchell who "clearly hadn't learnt to be sick as a child" (quote from fellow fishing novice). Once we had all got it out of our system and the skipper had decided to take us to less choppy waters we began to focus on the job - and fish for the BBQ was the desired outcome. Sadly everything we caught was too small to eat with an exception of a whiting (sic) which fisherman Alex decided was to be taken home and prepared for his good lady.
After some food and a few ales we hit the road back to Colchester (DGL minus a flask and a bum bag which were lost somewhere on the coast). Fisherman Thomas Charles Whitman aka Thomas Jenson Whitman was my assigned driver back for the final leg of my journey. Amusingly he had an evening appointment which he wasn't quite on form for following a day of fishing.
After a bath and some photo-editing I prepared for a London bound evening trip. Fisherman Howard Alistair Mitchell was to join me and we boarded the 21:03 train to London. It wasn't very busy, we had a good table seat and had a bottle of the golden wheat beer, some say the drink of the Gods, aka Hoegaarden. We had a long chat with a female ticket inspector about life/the trains/etc concluding with a question from me asking about the final return train to Colchester. I was quoted 12:46am. With this in mind I wrapped early from my East London event and was at Liverpool St at 12:30am, keen on the idea of a hot apple pie and a Sunday newspaper for the return journey. Sadly there was no smooth way home as the last train had in fact been 12:18am. The station staff were as helpful as they could have been but it was I in the end who had to get a 00:55 train to Shenfield and then a £90 taxi from there to get back. Otherwise it would have been another sleep over in the doorway of a shop which wasn't a healthy option. I have written to NX East Anglia and on the basis of being given inaccurate information expect a refund of the cost of my taxi. Fingers crossed.
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