The leviathon of Central park...

Today I decided that I would leave the kitchen fitter and his lad on their own for a while, so that I could nip to the shops and get two things.
Thing number one, was to visit the cycle shop on S****** Rd and get a pump for my bike (that I haven't used in ages), so that I could put air in the tyres and actually get some use out of the bike that just sits in my hall gathering dust. Surprise, surprise, the shop is long gone. I knew the shop was on that road and roughly how far along, so it's now either a charity shop or the headquarters of the local conservative party. Very little sets them apart as they're both deserving of our pity and charity.
Thing number two, this was to go to Subway and get lunch. A six inch veggie pate on wheat bread with cheese, loads of chillies and some chilli ketchup.
"Sorry no veggie pate today."
CRAP! I'll have tuna instead, but with onions instead of chillies and with 1000 island dressing, hold the chilli ketchup.
"Sorry no wheat bread."
Buggeration!! Oh just put the filling in anything then.
The things I have to put up with just trying to get lunch.

So, returning home thru' the lovely park in the bright sunshine, past the football(soccer) and cricket pitches, I head towards the small lake, you may remember some pictures of geese a while back. I see a couple blokes sitting at the waters edge but several meters(yards) apart, both surrounded by their fishing gear and each with a line into the water. I find myself thinking of the past all of a sudden, not something I'm prone to(forwards not backwards). The memories that stir are of me as a young lad, a lad out with his mum on a similar sort of day, I'm about 5 or 6 years old and I have a little net on a bamboo cane in one hand and an old jam jar in the other with some lake water in it. Yours truly was hunting for sticklebacks and tadpoles and I remember that I wasn't very lucky with regards to catching anything, but that didn't matter, it was the hunt that was the fun part, things in jam jars usually die young so I would probably have been told to put them back in the lake by mum prior to us going home anyway.
It was while I was back in the past and my body was on autopilot navigating it's way alongside the lake on the footpath that another part of me was thinking idly to itself, it was thinking or rather asking a question,
"I wonder how deep the lake is? It can't be that deep, can't see the council looking after a deep water lake in the middle of a town"
I was brought back to reality and the present rather sharpish, a nasty way to arrive for either, but both! What surprised me was the biggest fish I've seen that wasn't either in the open sea and dashing ahead of the prow, or gutted and cleaned in the fish market. It leaped out of the murky water to a height of at least 4 foot from the surface and then again this time a bit lower.
I just stood there rooted to the spot with my jaw on the floor, looking at the expanding ripples that indicated where the leviathan had slipped beneath the surface of the lake. On the opposite bank one of the fishermen was laughing his head off, he obviously knew such fish lived in the lake (otherwise why would he spend his days with a line in the water) and took great delight in seeing someone in shock and no doubt logging it for discussion with his fishing pals in the pub one night.
So that big fish answered two questions that sometimes cross my mind while I cut through the park, they are;
Q1. How deep is the lake?
A1. Deeper than it looks, at least 4 foot to allow such a big fish to lump so high.

Q2. Why do these blokes sit around this lake all day in all weathers with a line in the water, surely there's naught but sticklebacks and frog spawn in there?
A2. BLOODY GREAT BIG FISH!!!!

TTFN