This is supposed to be my last Riverwatch for a few weeks. I say ‘supposed to be’ because my wife and I are scheduled to be flying to Hawaii to celebrate my 60th birthday on Saturday. But as I sit at home writing these notes with a week to go before ‘The Big Holiday,’ the sky is a brilliant, clear blue without a vapour trail in sight and there isn’t an aircraft to be seen in the sky. It’s worryingly quiet.
I’ve spent most of my life on, in or around the River Thames and it has never ceased to fascinate me – and occasionally I find myself pondering the question: Why?
As regular readers of this column will be aware, I’ve often expressed doubts about the Environment Agency’s decision not to replace resident lock keepers on the Thames and to rent out their empty houses to the public.
