Wednesday, March 04, 2015

Boat trip delayed by boat trip. Plus news of an aircraft accident.

At last it looks like we have a “window” where we can go boating from this weekend, but wait, Herbie will have to wait another day because I have to go boating first.  At long last CRT is putting the finishing touches on my volunteer boat moving training.  I’ve done the RYA cert and two lots of elfin safety and all that remains is a CAATS assessment (whatever that is).  I shall find out on Saturday because three of us trainees will be moving a CRT work boat from Uxbridge to Adelaide Dock in Southall. Providing we don’t make a cock up of that and we answer some test questions at the end we’ll be “qualified”.  Hooray.  They’re sending me some CAATS reading matter in the post beforehand so I can swot up.

More volunteering – on Friday we have a meet and greet session in Brentford to welcome new volunteer towpath ranger recruits.  I might get free biscuitsSmile. Apparently there are quite a few of them because they’ve had to book a larger room.

Then on Sunday well be off in Herbie for a spin, just for a few days to blow off the cobwebs.  Maybe to Welford or Foxton.  You might have know that the river Avon (Shakespeare’s one) rises near Welford, but you might not have known that the river Welland also rises in that area (at Sibbertoft) and flows east into the Wash. I think Welford is the highest point on the GU system.  The fields sloping down to the infant Avon before you get to the Welford arm are where Percy Pilcher, the first Englishman to fly met a sticky end in 1899 when he crashed his hang glider like aircraft The Hawk.  Not a lot of people know that.

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