Boathouse near Newby Bridge

I recently made something of an error of judgment. I was sent a survey by the radio station, Cando FM, that broadcasts my weekly show, Electronic Ears. One of the questions was "Do you feel valued by the station?"

Now, the answer to this is no. But, actually, I don't mind! They never bother me and I have the opportunity to have my show broadcast, for which I am very grateful. Very occasionally I am slightly irked that they never promote the show but if I stop and think about it, I'm genuinely not bothered.

Anyway, I decided to answer the question honestly but explained in the notes that I was simply telling them the truth and that it really was fine by me. I mean, what's the point of doing a survey if you don't provide genuine data?

You may have heard the saying "no good deed goes unpunished" and today I was taken out for lunch by the station managers. We went to The Swan Inn at Newby Bridge, and sat outside (of course) next to the River Leven while we chatted and ate.

It was a pleasant enough hour and afterwards I wandered along by the river back to my car. The River Leven comes off the foot of Windermere and had I been walking along here forty years ago on one of our annual holidays to the Lakes and seen this boathouse, I would have been excited to think that I might have found one of the locations from Arthur Ransome's 'Swallows and Amazons'.

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Reading: '(R)evolution' by Gary Numan