Water under the bridge

From the lodge, it was a short walk along a mud and gravel path down to the riverbank. The temperature outside was pretty mild for the time of year all things considered, Old Frank observed, but those clouds look threatening. He pulled his rainhat further down over his brow, swept his index finger over his moustache, and pulled the wooden door shut behind him. As he did, he sent his rods clattering over onto the floor, and down the track, into the nettles beyond.
‘God shit it.’
Old Frank grunted from his diaphragm as he blundered down the path, after his equipment. As he reached his hand into the nettles to retrieve his rods, he held his face away from the plants, looking up to the sky as his fingers explored the undergrowth. He curled his fist around the cold, smooth plastic, and pulled out the bundle of rods.
‘Got you.’
Pausing to catch his breath, Old Frank looked down to where the riverbank curved below him.
‘Yep. As good as it gets.’
In a nearby willow tree, a bird responded: ‘Scooree, Scooree.’
A smile dispersed under the length of that moustache, and slowly, Old Frank made his way down the path.

Once he got down to the river, to his usual spot, he carefully placed his rods down and opened up his tackle box. His pink eyes swept the surface of the water, as his brain performed the necessary calculations that had become almost subliminal by now. He reached into his box, and retrieved the necessary weight, bait, float and hook to land a good one.
As he cast his first line in with a satisfying plop, Old Frank afforded himself a look around the valley: first downriver, then upriver, then across to the opposite bank, then back up behind him to his own lodge. He could hear the family next-door opening their sliding doors, and clattering out onto the balcony noisily. They were shouting to each other about breakfast, about their sleep, about their day.
Old Frank scowled, and then slumped into his camping chair. Last year, when he had come to the lodge, he had been the only one here. The adjacent holiday apartments were a new thing; an unwelcome blight on the previously unspoilt landscape. It wasn’t that Old Frank didn’t like children – he did. He was always polite to the family. Told them where to shop, where to take a walk. It’s just that this used to be his place, and now he had to share it.
He returned his focus to the flow of the river. Sticks and leaves floated past his gaze, then on downstream. ‘Ignore them Frank,’ he told himself, ‘this is your time. Private time. Time to reflect.’
The orange float danced on the moving currents, and Old Frank tried to think back to the time that he was a young man shouting to his kids over breakfast, but the memories wouldn’t come: too long ago, too long ago. His thoughts tuned out. The float bobbed. In the willow tree, the bird reminded him: ‘Scooree, scooree.’