Richards's Rendezvous What’s in the offing?

So much is imminent, waiting on the horizon, even looming just around the corner for all of us to discover and so very much for us to do our best at getting right, hopefully just right.
There are so many issues that are furthest from our minds as mere laypeople, but an incredible amount of detail hidden or in need of fully understanding and sorting out for our politicians to decipher and work out.

I would add our brave politicians. What a job!

At this stage much, if not all of it, has been cleared up and on its way to being implemented. The starting date was moved back to July 15, about three months away, but really not that long to go to sort out all the complicated and delicate infrastructure, continually monitoring how the process is going, even having been given these extra few weeks from the original April 10 date.

It nevertheless has to must be moving at a steady and even fast pace – very carefully – but moving nonetheless. The retail sector, despite being given a little more time, still have their concerns about new developments which they have to deal with.

What is certainly much more visible to us, the general public, I would say is what is hoped and could potentially come from – the land, the sea and the air.

By that I mean, the fact our streets are limited as to what they can cope with. We don’t have an abundance of unused space to deal with.

At times, not even with what’s required at present, when there are a couple of large cruise ships in port and cross-border visitors, some people complain and may even like to see what the citizens of Croatia and nearer home – Barcelona - have been demanding, fewer tourists on their streets because they, the locals, are having difficulty in getting around in their own country.

So with a free flowing, open border what will it be like? One wonders. The publicity generated by the Treaty, is bound to attract many visitors from the area around us – citizens and tourists – and from further afield in the Iberian Peninsula who have generally been reluctant to come down because of the potential queues, bother and wasted time etc.

All that, we hear, will be no more. We’ll be inundated with thousands of bodies on our limited streets.

Already I see more groups of walking city tours in the town centre. There’s also the not unrelated question of traffic on our roads. Waterport road and other areas get very busy with many large, heavy trucks because of all the construction going on all around the Rock and I have to say, whilst on my walks, I notice most drivers are patient and just get on with it.

Add to that, cruise liner passengers, we’re told there are well over 250 liners expected this year.

We also understand we are going to enjoy free air space and hopefully more airline arrivals. I’m sure plans are well in hand and ongoing to make good use of our airport. It would be good and very useful to see and have arrivals from (apart from more UK cities), Madrid, Barcelona, Seville and other cities in Spain further north, maybe, Lisbon, Paris, Dublin, other European cities and from wherever else business can be drummed up enough to warrant flights from those or any other destinations.

Perhaps I’m getting slightly ahead of myself. Yes, maybe.

But there are so many imponderables out there waiting to be tried and tested. So we just don’t know how it will all turn out.

Well, very well, or extremely, very, very well, I’m sure we all would hope that to be the case. So here’s a well worn saying we have all heard uttered many times before ... Time will tell.
Let’s come down to earth now and have a look around the place and observe one more time.

The good weather is coming, spring is here and our parks will be much more in use. The fresh water dispenser at West View Park is still in a state (I first brought this up more than a year ago), and remains totally unusable. Why? If it’s not fixable, let’s get rid of it and not let it stay there, just offering the world an unsightly eyesore.

Cigarette ends go in ashtrays or stubbed out on street bin tops and disposed of in that or some other proper way (I don’t know, I have never been a smoker). They are not to be deposited in planters. Read the notices.

Our Royal Mail pillar or post/letter boxes are famous and attractive to our many visiting tourists and are constantly photographed by them. They are there for a purpose and not to be used as a poster or sign board for stickers and other bits of rubbish. Please refrain.

See you next time, in a fortnight!