A week of highs and lows

Well firstly Happy New Year, we hope you all enjoyed the Christmas break and are now raring to go and looking forward to a truly fabulous 2024.

For us all at White Mills thanks to Storm Gerrit, it has been a week of highs (very highs) and lows. The continuous rain over recent weeks followed by the significant downpour over New Year was truly testing. Fortunately our boats were all beautifully tethered on their individual pontoons and consequently sailed through the unfolding drama as the jetties rose with the river levels and then thankfully dropped. It was great to see the marina operating how it should do in extreme conditions.

As is typical of a family run business, as the picture unfolded we were ahead of the game and were in constant touch with the Environment Agency to ensure we were prepared. Thanks to our great team effort we certainly were. No time was wasted as we stepped into action on New Year’s Day removing all cars off site; this meant that everyone was able to sleep well knowing that if we did go into flood there would be no damage to any vehicles. Needless to say, twenty four hours later the Nene Valley was in flood and our planning had paid off, no panic no drama.

There has been a great community spirit over recent days with everyone pulling together and helping one another out. The clear up operation begins today. The main casualty this week has been the boathouse coffee shop which has not been able to open because of lack of access due to the water levels. Our lovely team had had a good break over Christmas and all of them were looking forward to returning after a well deserved rest .Hey ho - when they open the doors on Monday you can be sure they will be extremely thrilled to greet everyone.

So life on a marina is never dull, it is however good to know that we do have a marina that is fit for purpose and does what it says it should do on the tin. So with that in mind, it is onwards and upwards as we look forward to a truly remarkable year.

Happy New Year and thank you to everyone for all your kind thoughts, words and offers of help.