Some workmen were at Thrupp Lake yesterday.

They were there to bang blue sticks in. I guess

they mark out where the drainage channel is to be put under the cycle track. Work was suspended by nPower, earlier in the year, because of the breeding season. But now all the birds have grown up a little, work is likely to begin on preparing to drain the lake (nPower call it dewatering). On Monday they will start work to divert the cycle path to allow a drainage channel to be built.

When I got to Tilsley park, I thought they must be expecting trouble as there were about twenty police officers near the entrance.

This man was worked up about something, and the police officers were about to caution him.

Such trouble is a regular thing at Tilsley Park, as trainee Policemen and women are confronted with actors in role play training.

The Living Waterways exhibition at the museum will be dismantled in a few days.

At the exhibition, children have been given the chance to dress up like barge people, and pretend to cook in the full size replica of a barge cabin.

Outside, the living waterways trail will not be closing. It will be open so long as there is life (plants, fishes, insects, birds etc) on the River Thames.

Flowers were laid on the war memorial. The flowers are for the anniversary of ten years since Princess Diana’s funeral . There may be complaints about whether the war memorial is the right place, and whether this is a precedent for all-comers. But it is the closest thing we have to civic high alter in the town.