The swans on their reach

After all my various work tasks had been achieved, I had a short break this afternoon enjoying odd and old music clips found on a well known online library. I did reminisce, and even broke into song, as Helena was out this afternoon at her second job of the day. I wouldn't normally inflict that on her.

I had promised to pick her up at 4pm from her job at an old industrial site which was formerly Hope Mill, before the site was flattened and the mill's pond filled in. I drove the three miles to get there arriving a few minutes early, so I took the opportunity to stop beside the bridge over the river Frome to see the swans who live on this reach. I only had a couple of minutes and the light was fading quite fast with the sun setting behind the top of the steep hillside.

I then got back into the car and started to drive the last hundred yards to meet Helena, but found that she had had the same idea of photographing the swans and had walked up to where I had parked. So I took out my camera again and we stood close to each other on our mutual blipping quest. An elderly couple walked by us and stopped for a look at the swans and chatted away to us about them.

I like this spot just twenty yards upstream of the bridge and it is interesting to see that the river is still nearly flooding. I do pity the poor residents of really flooded river plains such as the Somerset Levels, especially when they get a token visit by a government minister on a face-saving exercise, as happened to them today. The withdrawal of funding for vital services is readily seen when the river's flood, but how many other situations are there all over the country, where the effects of cutbacks to services have been hidden from our view, and where people suffer the consequences out of the public gaze. Meanwhile the government is rushing to slash controls of so called 'red tape' to allow business to get going. We may well be picking up more of the pieces of our world for a long time to come, I fear.