A group of Japanese standing in a circle in the salt water pool under the castle. What can they be doing at six in the morning ? Two American tourists walk, carefully, around the concrete edge of the pool holding hands. At the far end they realise this may not have been the wisest thing to do. The Japanese and Americans ignore each other.
The lock gates are being repaired but problems have arisen. The supervisor informs us that everyone thought the pegs slotted into holes drilled into the bed rock. This morning they discover that one of the gates pivots on the bedrock but the other swings on a large metre square lump of Georgian iron. After two hundred years of salt water immersion the iron is 'brittle '. This may cause problems. The 'gaffer' launches into a lengthy analysis of water based corrosion. Angus wonders when it was he last head the word 'brittle' with regard to ironwork. The bridge across the harbour may have to be closed to pedestrians while they work out what to do.
A blow up plastic dam is being installed to enable the workmen to gain access to the block of Georgian iron. In order to do this they plan to drain the inner harbour.
More notices appear on lamp posts. Drivers are being asked to slow down to avoid the baby gulls that wander, innocently but aggressively, across the streets. Baby gulls do not move as quickly as speeding cars. Come to that drivers tend not to read signs sellotaped to lamp posts.
Outside the Salvation Army charity store a young gull appears. It has very fine plumage but has lost its mother and is terrified. It heads off into the relative safety of the church garden where it sets about trampling on the begonia beds.
So starts a Tuesday morning in a small quiet North Sea town where the welfare of the local gulls ( and the working of the lock gates ) are the burning issues of the day.
3 comments:
Yes, Mozart in UK shopping centres and precincts has been a recognised deterrent for a while.
I have had two George Foreman grills. The first I used regularly until it stopped working. The replacement is languishing on a shelf in the garage and I keep meaning to send it to the Charity shop - having no use for it these days. A friend used hers as a BBQ.
Any motorist detouring (unlikely) to read the sign on the lampost is likely to run over the baby gulls
No one would go swimming in our local seawater with an open wound (covered or not) and many won't even paddle on top of it - so bad is the sewage and nitrates contamination (thanks to our local water company).
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