RIP David (Dai) Davies 37

A week ago today we lost a good friend David (Dai) Davies 37 I first met Dai back in March this year as he was one of the Managers at VW that interviewed me for my new job position. 

Dai and I hit it off from the word go and our joint passion for fishing, similar music tastes and general sense of humour made for some great laughs in the short time we knew each other. 

Dai was a very kind, loving man with a huge knowledge and passion for his job within the automotive industry he had been involved in since leaving school. 

Dai joined Mon Motors VW in Merthyr at the tender age of 17 and worked his way up the ladder throughout the business to become Parts Manager. He was way more than just a parts guy though! 

Dai had mastered all the company roles including servicing dept and knew cars like the back of his hands. 

Dai trained me up quickly within the parts department and within just a short space of weeks I was up and running on my own. His knowledge and memory blew me away. He had the ability to pick up on the smallest of mistakes and rectify them in seconds. What took myself and others an hour, he would achieve in 10 minutes flat. 

What set him aside though was his great sense of humour.....often very dry but always highly amusing. Dai shared my love for fishing, especially that of Carp fishing. When I started he had a small but growing knowledge of the sport but wanted to learn mush more and improve his captures. 

We spent many hours discussing fishing amongst quieter times in work and even shared some quality time on the bank together too. 

I enjoyed watching his angling skill grow in the short time we knew each other and I looked forward to spending time out with him again. As you'll have read in previous posts, I took an internal transfer from VW to work for Audi six weeks ago and it was Dai who signed off on my transfer. I am forever in his debt for his knowledge, kindness and friendship. Without these I would not be in my current position and with the knowledge I now carry forward into my latest job chapter. Dais passing leaves a huge hole in all our hearts and minds. Especially his lovely wife Angharrad. I know everyone at VW is in a huge state of shock and grief.....I feel for you all and send my deepest condolences. RIP 

Big changes!

 As the title suggests, there have been big changes in our household again in the last fortnight. I had requested an in company transfer from VW to Audi back in early September and finally got the nod a fortnight back to start. 

It was fantastic news as the commute is far easier each day and my son Tom already works there meaning we can car share, saving precious pounds on fuel! 

So far it's been nothing short of brilliant and I'm really enjoying the new challenges and the much larger more electrified atmosphere! The cars are also fantastic! 

We have some utterly divine machines coming through each day, some just make your mouth water! Everything from R8 Spiders to RS6 and RS eTron GT's! Which at present are one of my favourite cars on the road! I'm working with a really lovely bunch of people and despite many outcomes being the same I'm having to relearn my job to do it the 'Audi' way which is fantastic and challenging at the same time. I get a little time out on the road each day delivering stock to our other garages in Chepstow and Bristol which also breaks the day up nicely too.

Anyway, enough about cars....Fishing has been a little trickier of late in part to the weather being so up and down. Last weekend Simon invited me for a day up the Wye on a guest session on his club ticket. We had an early 5am start and were fishing by 7am. 

The water looked spot on for a full on days action but by the end we were feeling a little hard done by as it fished rather sporadic. We tried numerous swims with the faster, shallow sections fishing better than all other spots. Simon had a nice barbel around 7lbs and a few small chub and 2lb barbel. I had a good session bagging around 25 small chub to 4lbs and 2 small barbel of around 2-3lbs. We really had to work for the bites though and struggled to hold the fish in the swim for any length of time.

This weekend I was stuck to near home as the wife had the car and I had to use the van which is very fuel hungry. I ventured down to my local urban water for a few hours and dropped straight onto the fish with carp coming from just seconds after dropping the bait in with the baiting pole. Unfortunately none of the ones I was after but 17 commons and mirrors found the net in just 6 hours fishing.

Today was a similar affair with warm sun and a clear sky. I changed swims today and had 5 hours in one of my favourite spots. Again it was action from the off with 9 finding the spreader block today including a fat old bream as well. Great sport and plenty of bends in the rods.We booked our ferry crossing tonight for a return work party trip to Nicks beautiful Carp Hunters Lake in France in November. 

It'll be similar to our last trip over in March where we got lots done around the venue ready for the first clients of the season. Just this time it'll be tidying up for the winter period and repairing any damaged fences or swims etc. 

I'm also hoping to start getting a few trips in to Llangorse soon after the big old pike! It still feels to mild yet though. I'll give it a few weeks to start chilling off I bit I think.