Riff Raff Diary – March 2019

Published on: 24 Mar, 2019
Updated on: 23 Mar, 2019

Riff Raff Cottage and Weir

Riverbank tales from the local St Catherine’s lengthsman and weir keeper

by Robert Craig

The beginning of February started with a busy time for me operating weirs. I also needed to suspend navigation on my section on two occasions due to high flow rates.

It appears that March is also starting off rather wet as we experience the tail end of a storm.

Brimstone butterfly starting to emerge.

All this in contrast to the unseasonably hot weather we were treated to at the
end of February. Locally a flurry of Brimstone butterflies appeared as well as
bumblebees. Chiff chaffs have also been heard.

The warm weather meant that I had a window of opportunity to get a bit of lock
painting done before the weather broke.

I managed to get the lock gates at St
Catherine’s blacked with bitumastic and I was even able to black gloss the
jackheads (the winding gear for the paddles). This is definitely the earliest in
the year I have managed to get any painting done.

Narrow Boats heading upstream on a late October evening at St Catherine’s Lock.

A very pleasant job during February was distributing and erecting bird nesting
boxes to locations along the navigation. So far I have put boxes up in the
Colonel Grounds on the Godalming length and around Walsham Gates near
Ripley.

There are still some boxes to go up in the Papercourt lock area. I am
looking forward to returning and monitoring the boxes for new residents.

See you by the river.