Our columnist also shares Jake’s Valentine’s disappointment, his thoughts on objections to affordable housing in Burrough Green and congratulates those involved with the St Andrew’s swimming pool appeal.

GUILTY

LAST week I called in at the A Tasca café in High Street for a cup of coffee and a chat.

As usual the coffee was excellent and the company was as good as ever. Unfortunately the whole exercise cost me a total of £31.20 - £1.20 for the coffee and £30 for the parking fine.

It’s my first parking fine in 48 years of driving and what must be thousands of visits to the High Street.

A couple of PCSOs had forsaken Budgens for a while and were vehemently enforcing the 30-minute parking limit.

Never having noticed the signs announcing the limit and never having been penalised before I was blissfully unaware of my transgression.

No excuse, really, the signs are there to see, about 4ft above the eye-line of a parking driver and hard against the buildings across the footpath.

Not to worry, I’ll put it down to experience and send my cheque off to Southend, I probably won’t enclose a Valentine card, though.

This should really help revive the high street, if you have to dash in and out in less than half an hour there will be no time for browsing or impulse shopping.

I wonder if the ban on parking that still appears to be in force on the Market Place on a Friday morning is going to be enforced with such enthusiasm or are my friends going to be selective in their ticketing as well as sporadic?

DISAPPOINTED

JAKE the spaniel was looking forward to this morning.

Jake looks forward to Valentine’s Day every year, but is always disappointed. He can’t see why a good looking fellow like himself shouldn’t get a whole armful of cards but he never does.

The fact that none of his canine lady friends can write or can reach a pillar box may have something to do with it, but he really thinks that it has more to do with that visit to the vet when he was just a puppy.

Not to worry, a couple of biscuits should take his mind off it!

AFFRONTED

ONCE again there are objections about proposed “affordable” housing in last week’s Standard, this time at Burrough Green.

As one who grew up in a council bungalow I could take deep offence at the implication that anyone who can’t immediately come up with the wherewithal to immediately buy their own house is an undesirable and a threat to their neighbours.

I bet we had a better community spirit than those who sit behind their net curtains fretting over the value of their shed.

So come on, Burrough Green, let’s see a bit of live and let live.

GREAT NEWS

CONGRATULATIONS to all those involved with the St Andrew’s community teaching swimming pool on having reached their target in two years.

It shows what can be done if the community focuses its efforts.

It also means that the young people of Soham will be able to learn the essential skill of survival in water, they will also have a lot of fun, too.

Last week Olympic medallist Rebecca Adlington announced that she was retiring and is going to devote her time to promoting swimming skills for primary school children.

Her aim is for them all to be able to swim by the time they progress to secondary school and when the new facility is opened in Soham it could be a real possibility in Soham.

It’s just a shame that there is nowhere in town for anyone to continue honing their skills to possibly follow in Rebecca’s wake one day.

UPDATE

THE giant pothole on the turning into Turner’s yard on the Landwade road has been repaired. Unfortunately the jagged edges of those on the speed bump on Fordham Road in Soham still remains.

Could it be that a pothole doesn’t qualify for repair until it measures about a metre across?

If so we could have a long wait and several shredded tyres to come.

FOLLOW JAKE

THIS week Jake is walking along a road that used to be a lane and is currently named after a feature of the town that no longer exists, although it did hit the headlines during the war. What is the name of the home named after a seaside resort in Pembrokeshire?

A couple of weeks ago Jake was walking along Mereside. He passed the Sweat gym and came across the Willows nursery.