Victor feels sorry for the two ladies

I FELT rather sorry for the way the two women were treated by the Derbyshire Police at Foremark Reservoir.

Okay, they had taken a five minutes drive, but had kept apart and the land around the reservoir has acres of space, but they were carrying cups of drinks, so were having a picnic at a visitor attraction the police maintain, so it cost them 200 quid each.

Yet this same police force allows literally hoards on the towpaths of the canals in Derbyshire, where it is often impossible to keep two metres apart, and are well documented as being a visitor attraction. But alas, not very comfortable parking by the side of towpaths!

But Derbyshire Police are known for their heavy-handed policing, even to using drones to find them and laying in wait in cars,

Very reminiscent of those two in Last of the Summer Wine! 

A visitor site—and open

Yet the owners of the reservoir, Severn Trent Water, state on its current web page:

Coronavirus (Covid-19) update. This visitor site is open for local visitors to exercise. As England has now entered a national lockdown, we are following the Government guidelines to help keep everyone safe.

So it's a visitor site that is open but the rules are that visitor attractions are closed.  It would seem each authority interprets the rules to suit itself.

I must admit...

A regular contributor tells me that original dates of stoppages are missing from the stoppage notice updates that are sent out, that I must admit I had not noticed.

Which means when those updates are received there is no way of knowing how long the stoppages have been in force.  Devilishly clever, eh?

Could be very handy

I must admit I am most impressed by that WaterNav app developed by River Canal Rescue, it giving the information of the areas you are cruising, and I hope that boaters try it out  and give the feedback that is requested, 'from the horses mouth' as it were.

How different from days of yore—when there was only the set of small guide books giving information relating to waterways and the only other way of finding such as supermarkets was in the former section in narrowboatworld!

The normal waterways guides such as Nicholson's are out of date as soon as published with pubs and restaurants closing by their hundreds, and that particular guide being more concerned with churches.

At the moment it is not in its finished state, and hope it gets regularly updated, but one worry when it was loaded onto a mobile phone—it took 613mb, that may cause concern.

Had enough

Perhaps, like myself, you have had enough of the constant moans about Canal & River Trust, but it is not going to alter, so I've decided to concentrate on other things for a change. 

Victor Swift