Time for a rest. Happy Christmas to you all.

Along with everbody else I have to say that I am sick of the rain. When it started raining in September I was very pleased (my wife Judith blames my 'rain-dance') because ground water levels as well as the river was very low. Well they are not now! The lakes are full and we are doing our best to manage them flooding over the fishing decks. The river has been a torrent for weeks and the ground absolutely sodden. I am now hoping for a cold snap.....but don't know the dance for this!!!

We have been busy. We have undertaken much of our annual tree work. Opus Tree care did a great job for us in very windy and wet conditions. Thanks Ron and team. Our plans were disrupted though, because on the very day they arrived we lost a big tree which fell into Cherry Lake. See picture above. Their first morning was spent getting this out of the lake. The fact they were here was lucky from our perspective, because it meant we got it out quickly and before it became too water-logged. It was definetly a speacialist job getting it out.

Losing this Crack Willow tree, which was to us not obviously weak, just proved to us again that you can never really tell about the conditions of trees and our policy of regularly pollarding the Crack Willows is probably the right one. The photo above does not really show the size of the tree.

We have had several reports this year of Carp being lost on Cherry Springs when the fish has run around the back of the aerator, which is located close to the bank on the left of the fishing platform. As we had a big JCB on site we have dug a 'cosy 'U shaped' indent into the bank to ensure the aerator is now 'tucked-in, and that the Carp cannot get behind it. There are some undewater 'banks' which you cannot see in the picture above which effectivly extend the 'U' into the lake. I am confident this will work. It is just as well we have done this because rather distressingly we found two dead Carp tethered to the poles keeping the aerator in position.

Unfortunately, given we also have aerators on Cherry Mere and Cherry Pool, and digging into the bank on these is not an option, we will have to come up with a different solution to stop any further tethering. Currently building some sort of 'cage' is my prefererd option, but this will be difficult anchoring it in six feet of water. Any ideas would be welcome.

We have also been repairing the fishery roads. Please don't ask me where all the gravel goes each year........a lot of it certainly disappears. We have used 40 tonnes of it this year! To be fair we have used some of it to extend the turning area between Kingfisher and Heron Lodges (see above), which should make it easier for our guests to turn around. The fishery pound has also been re-lined and gravelled.

We have also put into place a protective barrier at the back of Kingfisher Lodge. Not that we have driven off the road down a steep slope into Kingfisher Lodge.....but this should ensure we don't. We certainly would not want to rudely disturb one of our guests on the loo! See picture below. All in all we have been busy!

We hope you like this years Christmas photo which leads this update above. Pochard Lodge being viewed from the side of the Wellingtonia (Christmas) tree looks particularly festive!.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very good Christmas and a very happy, healthy 2020. We hope it is a good year for all.

In particular we would also like to say thank you to all of our past guests for visiting Cherry Lakes in the past and we look forward to seeing many of you at Cherry Lakes in 2020. Take Care.