The Eagle, the Trout and Flo                                                                      20 Feb 2008

I am not superstitious, but when fish start falling from the sky I reassess my position.

It was about 06.30 in the morning, and I was finishing the last few strokes of my shave when I heard the phone ring. I knew it would be Flo, probably asking where the hell I was. We were harvesting the Perdeblokke and the picking team had come in early. The stakes were high.

‘Ad, you’ll never guess what just happened to me’ said the excited voice on the other side. ‘You saw the Rooikat take an Egyptian Goose in mid-flight?’ I said wishfully. ‘A Fish Eagle dropped a trout almost on my head! I was driving through the vineyard when this thing sommer fell out of the sky! I thought it was a falling branch at first then I saw it lying there on the ground about six meters ahead of me. The eagle made a few turns and flew off.’

‘A sign from above?’ I chuckled. ‘Jussie man, we’re blessed’ he said ‘this is going to be a special day.’

It is only a 15 minute drive to work from where I live, so by the time I arrived Flo had had time to recompose himself. We were all pretty jittery inspecting the kissies of grapes as they came out of the vine rows. Not an ounce of rot and super flavours, was the general consensus.

Flo presented the doubly unlucky fish from his bakkie. It looked like something Jamie Oliver had prepared with a full-body rub, only it wasn’t coriander and black pepper but granules of decomposed Table Mountain granite that had adhered on impact. ‘We’re going to have to wash that off before we braai it’ said Lowell. Then he was off to the local bakery to get the croissants.

We keep dry vine cuttings handy for moments like this, so with not too much effort we managed to produce a nice bed of coals on which to braai the butterflied trout, drizzled in lemon juice and a bit of salt. Now I wonder which wine would go really well with that?

Adam Mason