bloomingyeovil

Who could have thought that this last week could have ended on such a high??

The council scene played a large role in my week with activities or meetings most days, except one, that one I will come to later. The Town Council required a report from me about the NALC Conference I attended back in May, good job I made notes and got the overheads that were handed out, my memory is not what it once was, I am getting older you know, now what was I saying, I have forgotten already. Oh yes that’s right the conference, the report was received well on the whole one or two questions, which is to be expected, some people just like to hear themselves talk, and we have our share of them. One councillor ask why a topic like the localism bill would have been discussed as it was going through parliament now and to discuss it so early on was a waste of everyone’s time, but I pointed out if we are to influence how the bill will look in its final state now IS the time to talk about it, once it is on the statute books it is too late to input the views of the common people, and yes I am dead common.

The Area South Council Meeting was presided but an Area Workshop that gave members an opportunity to have their say about how the council goes forward into the future, it was a very informative event and I will await the follow up workshop to see if the officers have listened to what was said. The Meeting proper was dominated by three planning applications, how you can discuss for nearly an hour the merits of allowing a stable and ménage in the country beats me, you cannot exactly put it in town can you. These meetings are an eye opener to those who have never attended, it is worth a Wednesday afternoon just to see how the democratic decisions are made, come alone and see for yourselves.

Now then the end of week I spoke of; well my friend Tim and I left work and drove to Winchester, this was the closest we could get a hotel with a reasonable rate so we could be bright eyed and bushy tailed for the Friday’s event. We went Fly Fishing, “Hooray”. There were three of us fishing under the Wincanton banner, it was a team event, there was Me, Tim and Mark. The Avington Trout Fishery was our destination, one of the best Trout fisheries in the country, what a day we had, it started with a full English Breakfast, we fished from around 9:30 until 1pm when we were forced to stop for lunch, a very nice buffet, oh yes and BEER. We started fishing again about 2pm and fished through to 5pm. The weather was fair, dry and not to bright, short sleeved polo shirts were the order of the day for Tim and I, and there was no need for sun cream. I have to congratulate TIM as he had his bag of 4 fish before lunch, By lunch I had one and sadly Mark had none, never mind the beer helped as did the nice lunch, fortified we set of in the afternoon to try and catch some more fish, we had a professional fly fisherman there to give some tuition, his name was Peter Cottrell, he’s good, he helped my casting, I can do it properly now, I had two more fish, but sadly they both got the better of me, one thought it was a flying fish and got off in the air while jumping and the other was too big for my net, and I lost that one as a result of the small net, it had to be a double figure fish, but, we will never know, even though I caught one and lost two, it was a great day’s fishing for me as have only been fly fishing for a year. Mark our third team member had caught two in the afternoon session and he was well pleased with himself, Mark is an experienced fisherman and knows his way around a fishing rod, he has been fly fishing for years as has Tim.

Friday ended with the prize giving for the fishing, Tim picked up a third place pool prize (money) then we came to the Team trophy and guess what “WE WON IT” between us we had the heaviest team catch, it was the first time our team had won the trophy; the Wincanton staff will be chuffed to hear all about it on Monday at work, (or will they?).

The week ahead is going to be equally eventful as I will be travelling to Newquay to the South West In Bloom award ceremony, can win an award this year as we have in the past, and if we can what could it be ?? we will have to wait and see, again this is a team event, and some of the horticultural team members from SSDC will be coming as well, after all they do all the work, I think we can all agree that the Town looks great again this year and the roundabouts are something special. I will report back next weekend to let you know how we got on.