Above - Gote Bridge after the floods. All those stones were brought by the floodwaters. The original riverbank starts where the little bit of grass, bottom right, can be seen.
Ever since the floods in November last year, everyone living in this neck of the woods has had their lives disrupted by the closed bridges across the Derwent. Some, like the Workington North Bridge, collapsed completely, but others, like Broughton Bridge and Gote Bridge in Cockermouth, are not beyond repair. Work is now starting, dredging the river and repairing the bridges, and some of them will be opening in March and April.
Those of us who live in and around Cockermouth will be very happy indeed when Gote Bridge opens on March 24th, and it occurred to us this evening that they'll probably move the barricades ever so quietly in the dead of night. Should we let them? We think this should be cause for celebration!
Let's find out when they're planning to open the bridge, and descend upon it en masse to dance, sing, shout and cheer! ...and drive cars across it, of course.
Above - dredging the Derwent
I've created a Facebook group to help spread the word, here but you don't have to be a member of Facebook to get involved. Just tell your friends, spread the word, and let's have some fun!
I've been invited to contribute to a feature on BBC Radio Cumbria called Little Cumbria. I hope this doesn't mean the contributors are being compared to the cast of Little Britain ... surely not! Cumbrians are far too sensible for that. Aren't they?
Normally people are invited to keep a diary for a week, writing exactly 130 words per day, and these are read out during the Ian Timms show in the early evening. Steven Greaves, the producer, chatted to me on the phone, and when I mentioned that this would sit rather well with the Flickr project I'm doing, 2010 - A Year In Pictures, he suggested we combine the two. I'm still not entirely sure how they're going to provide links to my photostream on the radio, but to make things easier I'm creating a page on links on our own website. It should be easier to read out marshallmcgurk.com/flickr.htm than http://www.flickr.com/photos/allybeag/collections/72157623205933005/!
So I've to select 5 of the photos I've uploaded to the YIP project, and write 130 words about each. Well. How hard can that be? Actually, that's the hardest part. I could write several pages about each, quite easily, but only 130 words? It's a good exercise for the brain, though, and I seem to have managed it, though it feels a bit like writing War and Peace via SMS-speak.
All five of these mini-masterpieces will appear here shortly.
