SITTING surveying the Harnham Lakes, aka meadows, from the bedroom window across my submerged garden the other day, I got to thinking about all the green fields that hold water like sponges in our soggy city.

How best to protect them and enable them to continue performing their invaluable function of keeping us dry indoors?

And it occurred to me that an effective way to refute those “this is not a flood zone” arguments put forward by hungry property developers brandishing Environment Agency maps would be to capture irrefutable photographic evidence to the contrary, i.e. potential building sites, inundated.

So if you can, please do us all a favour. And let me know. We can’t rely on ‘the authorities’ to always act in our best interests. We have to look after our own communities. Images to the address below.

Actually, sitting and surveying is pretty much all I’ve been up to over the festive season, due to a broken wrist.

I know it’s not a major catastrophe in the greater scheme of things, but setting aside the satisfaction of being waited on by the rest of the family – well, mainly the long-suffering Mr Riddle - it doesn’t half make life awkward. And yes, I am typing this with one finger, left-handed! How’s that for dedication?

What happened? Well, my usual riverside dogwalking routes were so squelchy and slippery before Christmas that I decided it would be pleasanter and safer to head for higher ground. Ha, ha! With Teddy the whippet and Poppy the lurcher both tugging me along at the full length of their extending leads on what turned out to be treacherously chalky ground, I tripped over a tree root and went flying. Unfortunately, I must have stuck out my right hand to break my fall. Then came the painful task of getting both dogs back to the car and driving them home, very slowly, one-handed, down the Coombe road and through the gyratory.

A trip to A&E swiftly followed, and can I just say how impressed I was. I was in and out of there, X-rayed and in a plaster cast, within an hour. After all the horror stories one hears, of lengthy waits, ambulance queues and trolleys in corridors, it must have been my lucky day … well, up to a point!

One thing I hope to have time to do during the next few weeks of enforced idleness is keep a closer online eye on the goings-on up in Trowbridge. On a packed cabinet agenda next Tuesday, there will be items about further funding for the Porton science hub (what on earth will we do once the EU money dries up?), Wiltshire Council’s own venture into housing development (the Stone Circle group of companies, business plan discussed in secret, naturally), and the future of its depots and household recycling centres (under review, watch this space).

I know it’s marginally less interesting than watching paint dry, but the webcasts of these proceedings on wiltshire.gov.uk are all we’ve got to keep us informed.

anneriddle36@gmail.com