This old platitude generally holds water for me - and I’m aware there are a good few puns bubbling around - but there is a reverse side to every coin.

A few days ago, in preparation for the opening of the river season of course, I was beating my way through some shoulder-high foliage when I dropped the wading stick which I had been using as a hacking tool. With a curse, I stooped to pick it up, getting stung by nettles on my face and bare arms, stupid me. What I couldn’t bargain for, however, was the adder that emerged from nowhere and bit me forcefully on the thumb. Ouch, ouch, OUCH!

From what I know about adders (which is a lot - I used to catch them as a kid and sell them to a biology teacher at a Holt school in the 60s) this was a juvenile and as the day was just beginning, I decided to plough on, fortified by painkillers. Not the best plan I know and I’d never recommend it (get yourself to A&E if it happens to you) but I’m still alive or I wouldn’t be telling this cautionary tale, obviously.

It’s just another example of my favourite saying... danger never goes on holiday. The whole episode rather reminded me of a night 30 years ago when I was nearly stung by a scorpion in India. Bola thought I would have died in minutes. Subhan said I would have died, but after a day or two, in intense agony. Rava, the third guide, said they were joking and it would have been no worse than a bee sting. Whatever, I’m glad I didn’t have to find out who was right.

While I’m at it, and considering how the summer has started so far, I’d better mention heatstroke, another danger I personally tend to be too lighthearted about. A good while back, I took a fishing party to Spain and a very dogmatic Dutch millionaire called Leo absolutely refused to take my advice, despite all my pleadings. He sat fishing on a mid-river rock, hatless in the boiling Andalucian sun and didn’t take on any water for eight hours. Back at the hotel, he quaffed six flagons of lager and collapsed. He survived, but only after four days intensive care in hospital. There’s a lesson  for the foolhardy.

The first time I took Ratters fishing he fell in twice. It was a good job I had two sets of spare clothing in the car and by the time we finished, we had shirts, pants and socks spread along the bank at Swanton Morley like it was a Chinese laundry. That was a chilly day in June a long while back and without my foresight he’d have been perished or would have a packed up and lost his chance of a big chub.

That same year, another mate, Paul, stuck his rod rest right down a hole in the bank... that turned out to be a wasps’ nest. A hundred stinging machines went into furious action, prompting me to advise a quick look before you choose a fishing pitch. Ants aren’t much better, by the way, and creep painfully into the trousers of the unwary.

On a more serious note, perhaps, Feargal Sharkey has made the country aware of the disgraceful amount of sewage being dumped into our rivers. I’ve seen plenty of these horrors in my time and given the exponential rise in so-called wild swimming, a serious dose of poisoning can’t be far away, especially given the likelihood of heat waves.

As anyone who reads these columns with any regularity knows, I like a moan and wild swimming brings me onto my hobby horse of the summer, recreational damage.

It seems almost impossible to make the general public aware of the carnage swimming, boarding and canoeing does to our rivers in times of low water and drought. The general media won’t touch this really important environmental issue for fear of upsetting the general public - God forbid.

Intense human activity on shallow river gravels damages weed, invertebrates, spawning redds and the entire natural life of the river. No one would play football amidst the terns’ nesting colony at Blakeney Point and nor would they be allowed to. But it seems fine for water users to trash equally sensitive aquatic areas with barely a murmur of protest. So, if you have kids or friends who want to thrash rivers to foam this summer, suggest they cavort on the coast, where we have many miles of shoreline to discover. 

The bottom line? Just take good care of yourselves and enjoy our wonderful river banks in safety and, hopefully, in peace.