A valuable trip to Durham….
June 3, 2009
Well I couldn’t get my head round the lengthof last week, just 3 days! The Bank Holiday afforded some much needed time off with fishing (see last weeks blog). Then I took Friday off to prepare for my Oxfam Trail Trekker on Saturday. “A day to prepare for a walk??!!” I hear you say, but this is no ordinary walk! The Blistering hear (literally) and 100km (or 62.5 miles in old money) is nothing to be scoffed at! It Started at Skipton, then the route took us through Gargrave, Malham, up Pen-y-Ghent, Horton on Ribblesdale, Bacup, Coniston, over the moors and back to Skipton! We completed the course in 22 hours and 21 mins. This included 5 x 15min stops for water and food but nothing more! Our time brought us in a very respectable 8th out of 166!! Funny how the competitive spirit kicks in once you realise you’re in the top 20! The day was fantastic, but the walk through the night was hell on earth and we have all vowed never again (but we did say that in 2007 when we did the same distance in 24 hours across the south downs!).
So that only left me 3 days in the “office” last week. Monday was unfortunately just that, chasing money, filling in consents, organising training, corresponding with various organisations and generally pushing paper! Unfortunately these days are required from time to time, so I try to get my head down and plough through it! Although thanks to Stephen who when I’m drowning amongst the thousands of sheets of paper pulls me out and gets me on a site visit!
Wednesday and Thursday were spent in Durham, at the University attending a training course organised by the Association of Rivers Trusts. The training equipped all those who attended withthe necessary skills to use a computer model (Called SCIMAP) to map out areas within each of our respective catchment with high erosion risk and diffuse pollution. “Woah” - what does that mean? Essentially we now have a tool that will allow us to identify areas that are likely to be causing high amounts of sediment and nutrient pollution. This means that we can now use this tool to focus our efforts in the right areas. It will cut out a huge amount of time spent on the ground trying to identify where we should work. That said once the map of areas to target is drawn up we still need to get out there and use our eyes on the ground to check if the model was right! And when we combine this withour fisheries surveys and invertebrate results we will have some data that will make our work very very effective. Many thanks to the University of Durham, and imparticularly – Stuart, Dave and Sim.
The only trouble with having been out of the office for 5 working days is that upon my return I had 52 emails – all requiring action…. so on that note I’d best get back to trawling through them!!
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52 emails? I get that many in about 1 hour at work :)
Well done on the walk, one question on the software though. Do you get it for free from the Association of Rivers Trust?
No we don’t but they are negotiating a deal with the providers!
Thats why I decided against working in the City, my last job was bad enough on average I was 52 a day!