NOT YET!

The optimistic talk of reopening Soham railway station has dried up again and we’re only seven months past the general election. The present ‘guestimate’ from Network Rail is that it might possibly be about 2022, or not, before Soham can pay through the nose to cram onto a crowded train again.

There was a report recently that much of the rolling stock on the eastern network is over twenty years old. Sounds like true luxury to anyone who has used the “slammers” on the southern region. If Soham station is delayed many more times, and who can say it won’t be, we’ll never see these carriages, they’ll probably be in the York railway museum!

AT LAST

Jake the spaniel isn’t too taken with Christmas; by and large it means a bit more company for a few days and lots of bones he’s not allowed to gnaw. What he has noticed is that, as far as the television is concerned, the Christmas season tends to start earlier and earlier each year, fact this year it coincided with the end of bonfire fortnight.

He supposes it is deliberate on the part of the broadcasters so that the Christmas adverts can start earlier without looking too out of place. Jake is quite pleased that we have, at least and at last reached the same month as Christmas, even though the twelve days don’t start for another three weeks.

STAY

According to Councillor Schunmann via last week’s ‘Standard’ the senior planning officer and the planning manager are leaving the staff of East Cambs. I think that this is a bit of a shame and that they should be persuaded to stay, preferably in Soham.

That way they would have to live with the total mess they and their colleagues have made of our town. Exactly what a planner does will always be shrouded in mystery, a bit like alchemy in the middle ages. What is apparent is that any piece of land put forward by a large developer seems to be nodded through while small fish tend to flounder.

If these two ladies do move to Soham let’s hope they stay healthy as the health centre is bursting at the seams. The sewerage works is a bit busy, too!

THOUGHT THROUGH

When the high street was changed a few years ago we were told it would be like an Italian piazza (that’s a square, not a pie!). This involved generally narrowing the road by widening the paths. It also made more room to bolt black metal tubes to the paving stones so that all the cyclists they were encouraging had somewhere to secure their mounts.

There are some outside the Tasca and some more in front of the Co-op. The latter group are on a slope so that if you leave your bike leaning against one of them without locking it there is a good chance that it might roll into the road. There is one other black tube further along.

Just outside the tobacco-less tobacconist that jumped into the grave of the ‘Chatterbox’ the cycle rack sits so close to the planter that not even a child’s ‘balance bike’ could get between them. On the other side there still isn’t room for an adult’s bike as one of the posts that support our excellent lights is in the way.

Now one cycle rack doesn’t amount to much but its siting is a bit symptomatic of the lack of joined up thinking that tends to blight our town.

IT’S GONE!

For those people who are fascinated by the fate of the KFC cardboard beaker on Fordham Road, there is news. It’s not there any more! Well, technically it is still there, but it’s no longer a cardboard beaker. Between the path where it used to reside and the field is a grass verge.

Somehow the beaker made its way onto the grass and rather than being picked up it was chopped up into hundreds of bits when the grass was cut. Not to worry, it will, no doubt be replaced soon by cousins from the new outlet in Ely.

Talking of the proposed KFC in Ely, why the fuss? If you don’t want your children to eat fast food don’t send them to school with money. At Bottisham Village College cash is no good, everything is bought on a prepay card. If Ely College adopted a similar regime then the students wouldn’t need money. Just a thought.

LONELY

It can get a bit lonely in the of Soham homestead. We were wondering if we might get some company in November if the old practice of ‘penny for the guy’ was revived, but no. Earlier we laid in some chocolate treats for the little horrors on Hallowe’en, but none came. I suppose a visit by some carol singers is out of the question!