County Hall Steps
Luckily we are awake just shortly before the weekend rowers start. They are mostly okay, it’s just their trainers who shout or talk through loud hailers from the banks cycling up and down that are a touch annoying.
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| Cob Emporium |
Mick last night had loosened off our ropes so any passing boats, or movement inside was making us bob around a lot. He soon tightened them up, being awake should the river level change we’d be able to adjust them.
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| Trent Bridge |
A walk to find our Saturday newspaper took us through the car park at County Hall and along some streets behind. We were successful on our first attempt so carried on to look at Trent Bridge (cricket ground). All the gates were locked, no match today!
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| Flood levels |
A few more steps were needed before returning to the boat so we crossed over Trent Bridge (the bridge) to walk up the other side of the river. Along side the bridge on the West bank are flood markings carved into the stonework. The flood in 2000 was nowhere near the height of that in 1875 which was the second highest recorded. Many streets were flooded, there are numerous etchings of trains battling their way through the flood water.
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| An artists impression of 1875 floods. |
On 17 –18th March 1947 the Trent which had been rising ever higher, overtopped its banks in Nottingham. Large parts of the city and surrounding areas were flooded with 9,000 properties and nearly a hundred industrial premises were affected some to first floor height. The suburbs of Long Eaton, West Bridgford and Beeston all suffered particularly badly. Two days later, in the lower tidal reaches of the river, the peak of the flood combined with a high spring tide flooded 2,000 properties in Gainsborough. Luckily for us the river is behaving at the moment.
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| Submerged Steps |
Walking past Wilford Suspension Bridge we decided to look at the other mooring marked on our Waterway Routes map. Here there are the big steps too, these continue down into the water, so mooring on this side of the river would mean us having an 18inch gap before we got to dry land. We decided to stay put even though Oleanna looked very lonely all by herself.
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| £550,000 |
If you fancy a riverside property in Nottingham there is one just by the bridge with a lot of original features, one of which is no central heating! But the views across the river to the war memorial are great.
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| Lonely Oleanna |
We returned to the boat to find a couple taking photos of Oleanna. Izzy is doing a project on Narrowboats so we had quite a long chat through the hatch. They had visited Foxton and I suggested a few more places to visit too.
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| That way |
The afternoon was taken up with working my way through my tax return as Nottingham Forest fans walked to and froe from the City Ground in their thousands.
My earnings for the year were so small it wasn’t giving me the option to enter my self employed earnings and therefore be able to pay Class 2 NI. Reading the notes it suggested that if my earnings were likely to be higher next year then I should fill out the relevant sections, the only way to do this was to lie in the initial questions. All is now filed and my NI payment is waiting to be sent in a few days time.
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| First blossom |
Now to the title of this post. When we attended the composting toilet workshop held by Kate Saffin in Banbury before Christmas, she said that she was compiling a boaters toilet survey. This was to cover all types of toilet, how they are used and what facilities there are on the waterways, if there are gaps in services which could be rectified. Her survey has now gone live. No matter what sort of toilet you have/plan to have/ are thinking about, the survey has relevant questions. With the information collated (all anonymously) gaps in services, better solutions can be found, evidence passed on to C&RT, the EA, Avon Trust etc and hopefully improvements made. You can even vote for the best kept facilities on the network, so it’s not all about things that could be improved. The greater number of people to fill the survey in, the greater body of information to pass onto the navigation authorities. Kate puts it all a lot better in the welcome section of the survey.
Here is the link https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/BoatingLoos
0 locks, 0 miles, 5000 steps each not enough!, 2 bridges, 1 newspaper, 12 sprouts, 1st blossom, 30,000 fans, class 2 paid, 1 very uncertain cat, 1 quieter evening.
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