Until that day, I didn’t know that Vilmo was an alcoholic. No clues, except maybe, his nostrils were very often a cadmium red. But there’s nothing wrong with that.

It was when we were parking near a field of carrots on the route to Bessas and he took the picnic basket from the trunk of our white 1973 “IMPALA” (property of the Mouching), that his addiction to the god of Bacchus became clear.

First of all, a bottle of Pastis/51 (Sirs, of the establishment Ricard, think about sending us the promised check! Publicity on the Mouching is not free!) was the first victim of our banquet. Then a marvelous bottle of white from the Loire filled our glasses accompanied, fittingly, by delicious mussels from Bouchot with a creme d’Ysigny sauce.

The following victims were 2 bottles of Chateauneuf-du-Pape (Mordoree) 2001 which was the perfect accompaniment for the “Saddle of Rabbit” with morels.

A divine flask of golden Sauterne was opened to toast the health of the “Iles Flottantes” that Vilmo had prepared to perfection. I’ll pass on the silence evoked by the centenarian Armagnac that we drank lightheartedly, the final touch to this impromptu lunch. All of this to explain that the curve at the Graviere Bridge, that we took going 87 miles an hour, had all the makings of breaking a record for the “Guiness Book”, and we could have been a Museum piece for breaking driving records … anyway that explains the 8′ plunge of our immaculate vehicle into the river.

As you might guess, we were in such an alcoholic fog that we didn’t notice anything and we had barely touched the water when Cyril pulled his fishing rod out of a sack and on the second cast got a lively Pike, that was soon joined by 2 lovely, good-sized trout who went to instantly sleep in the back seat of our car.

Voila, an event that proves, if it’s needed, that alcoholism and fly fishing are not entirely  incompatible.