Pam Pickett

First Mate

email pam

Some good news at least!

EVEN with all of the doom and gloom about, and it beggars belief we’re continuing to hand over increasingly vast sums of our money to those who dropped all of us in the proverbial in the first place, I’m happy to say there is some good news.

It’s time to again turn my Solstice vase to summer (the vase my skipper refers to as an urn—he wishes!) and we can all begin to look forward to light nights and hopefully fair weather.

This sounds good to me at least as the Soar has I'm told just been seen to reach it's highest ever level, overtopping the towpath opposite my mooring!

Happily one-way only

I READ the response to Alan Tilbury’s recent email with regard to walking to Leek with some interest.

Three years ago the skipper and I moored near Quorn and being low on provisions headed for the shops.

Asking a local where those shops were I was pointed in the right direction, told ‘they’re not far’.

Remember that once upon a time summer we had when it was very hot, when the sun shone from a cloudless sky? Well it was that summer, our direction was steeply uphill and after calling at two pubs for now much needed liquid refreshment we still hadn’t reached those ‘not far’ shops!

I’m with Alan on this one, having finally reached the shops, and ‘provisioned up’ the thought of lugging all of that food back to the boat was the stuff of nightmares.

Now hot and bothered we were so happy to find a bus not only passed the shops, it also stopped close to our mooring. Distance is in my book I’m afraid only relative to the weather, and to what we have to carry!

Roving permits

LOOKING at Jim Hutchinson’s email ‘A cynical move’ whilst I agree with what he says, taking this from the top once British Waterways told our government they hoped to be self-funding, and then put forward argument to this effect it surely should have become obvious to all that it was we were to be the ‘chosen ones’ to meet the new criteria?

That British Waterways in getting ‘into bed’ with fashionable outside agencies to ask boaters what they wished for had rather more to do with our pocket books, than any concern for our welfare.

However, now that the bubble has burst I’m rather more concerned that British Waterways being required to kick into touch any idea of roving permits (that let’s face it would be totally unworkable without feet on the ground) will instead make bad worse by attempting to further earmark all available space on our canal banks for the more expensive winter permit holders only, option.

Photographs are by the author unless otherwise stated

No surprise here

TAKING into consideration British Waterways supposedly cash-strapped status I was a bit surprised to see ‘hats’ now being applied to those already controversial unnecessary wooden bollards.

On reflection however don’t those ‘hats’ serve only to highlight the total lack of respect there is for Joe Public, public monies, and in addition point to the ease with which public bodies are enabled to squander those monies?

Cyclists

ALTHOUGH there is always going to be an element of ignorance from both cyclists and walkers on our towpaths, it is so sad that those displaying such traits are the few, rather than the many.

The majority of the problems I see are down to a lack of understanding. I know when I’ve been walking on the towpath cyclists have been surprised to find I haven’t heard them coming, and to find I’m not purposely blocking their path!

All of the cyclists I’ve met, once they’ve realised they can’t always be heard coming have had no problem with giving two tings of their bell, or in the absence of a bell in dismounting as they pass.

In the name of education isn’t it time to infiltrate the ‘enemy’ and to bring the cycling clubs on board?

Selling off British Waterways land portfolio

COULD it be déjà vu here? Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Shadow Chancellor Oliver Letwin’s alleged plan to privatise a large slice of the land portfolio of the British Waterways Board one of the election arguments used by New Labour in 2005 to avoid we boaters looking to the Conservatives?

I certainly seem to recollect Robin Evans forecasting the closure of canals should this be allowed to happen, yet here we have New Labour wishing to do the self-same thing it castigated the Conservatives for, i.e. use the proceeds to reduce the national debt, plus it appears a change of tune by Robin Evans now also happy to sell that he claimed to be an absolute necessity for the welfare of our waterways!

Once we were told to beware Greeks bearing gifts, today I think we’d do rather better to beware those expensively suited individuals resident in hallowed positions bearing our family silver!

Long Horse Bridge

A PUBLIC meeting was held at Shardlow on the 10th December with regard to the plans for the re-instatement of Long Horse Bridge.

John Holmes, from Derbyshire County Council’s Countryside Service presented the plans.

Despite objections to the design and positioning of the proposed bowstring bridge now to be sited 140 metres upstream of the original bridge, John Holmes said many more people had contacted him concerned only that a replacement bridge be provided, soonest.

With one of the objections to the bridge being in respect of the cost of additional usage John Cooke of the Association of Waterways Cruising Clubs suggested horses could take an alternative route up the east bank of the Trent and cross at Cavendish Bridge, this bridge thought to offer plenty of room for a bridleway. However, John Holmes advised the county council’s policy to take bridleways off roads would preclude this.

With a landowner failing to agree to a compulsory purchase order, a one day Public Enquiry is to be held at a date to be decided in the New Year. Meanwhile, despite concerns with regard to flood levels and objections to the new bridge design requiring to be dealt with, the County Council is continuing to process its planning application for the proposed path, and a date for this is also to be set in the New Year.

With Derbyshire County Council continuing to pursue its plans and appearing to have no intention of changing to suit the objections to the new bridge design, John Cooke asks if the Public Enquiry could present an opportunity for a rethink? He also asks if any waterways associations or canal societies will wish to express an interest?