Music is blaring and the sickly sweet smell of vaping wafts over to where my children have rolled up their trousers to paddle. A teenage boy dive-bombs off the bridge, into the area past the old mill where the River Tas runs deep and dark. I’m transported back to my 15-year-old self – I used to cycle here with friends to drink cider, flirt and swim.
Now, we’d rather have some peace in this otherwise beautiful spot where the river flows across the road. A labrador chases a ball, dropping down into the cool water below a huge horse chestnut tree to retrieve it. The fairy-like perfection of a banded demoiselle flits by, as if leading us away.
We follow the jewelled electric-blue damselfly downriver, over the ford and beyond, where no one goes. Here the water is less than knee height and clear, showing the gravelly bottom beneath.
A school of common minnows has gathered in the shallows, we count 27 but there are probably more. It’s spawning time – a word most children associate with zombies on Minecraft, rather than fish reproduction.
The females are muted brown, almost perfectly camouflaged, while the males have changed colour for the breeding season. His colours become stronger, the belly reddening, and white pimples are developing on his head. These odd tubercles are sloughed off after breeding; unlike teenage spots in humans, they may help with attracting a female and guide positioning during spawning.
A male jostles a female, rubbing up against her. After several hours of this excitement, she will release her eggs, which the male fertilises. Spawning happens multiple times in the summer months, and one mature female can spawn about a thousand eggs each year.
The word minnow, like minute or miniature, implies the creatures’ size – these tiddlers are only about 7cm long – but, having been removed from the Oxford Junior Dictionary in recent years, it now seems a lost word from a bygone era.
My kids are content, paddling and minnowing. In less time than I can imagine, they may be the annoying ones on the riverbank, swearing and splashing, drinking and smoking. Life, like a river, has a habit of flowing by.
