Brave Mum

Up and out early to finish delivering letters to Tebay - I then stopped at Tebay Bridge and had a wander along the Lune.
Ive done this most places I've been whilst out amd about on the campaign trail- and each waterway I've walked, be it river, beck or ghyll has shown the scars of both damage and repair following Storm Desmond - it always amazes me that it seems to have been forgotten so quickly.
I also wonder at the unsung hero's who've done so much structural recovery - several long sections of the Lune have effectively been rebuilt with huge monolithic blocks of stone and banks of boulders - most I know of done by farmers and local trades people, often simply because it needed doing and no-one else was going to help.
Everywhere flood debris still adorns the trees along the Lune - sometimes a dozen feet or more above the banks - I intend to see if I can get a team of volunteers together to organise a community clean up, between anglers, paddlers and good souls it should be possible.
I sat a while somewhere betwixt Far Garth and Raisgill Hall and watched the life of the river flow by. This is one of the UK's premier fishing rivers so it's unlikely I'll ever paddle this stretch. The dippers were too nimble for me and the warblers too flighty. The Sand Martins danced in the air faster than I could follow- but eventually this little family group emerged from the undergrowth and made a fairly audacious crossing of the fast flowing river.
Lunch in town at the much improved (recently) Brewery Arts Centre, then a cinema treat. Just how an occasional lazy Sunday should be.