DEFRA’s two mile quarantine zone around the Scottish town of Cellardyke was lifted today. All other restrictions on the movement of poultry and captive birds around the fishing village in Fife will be removed in ten days time. Try as they might DEFRA have failed to find any more whooper swans with bird flu since Cyril floated in a few weeks ago. Incidentally an instant hand sanitiser that goes by the brand name of No-Germs can be purchased at all good high street chemists for £2.99p. This handwash kills 99.8 percent of the bird flu H5NI virus in half a minute.

Excitement on River Brede Moorings this week as Roud delivered another little piece of maritime theatre. For me the drama started on Tuesday with a phone call at 2.11 pm from Peter Butler…my eyes and ears on the moorings. ‘They are taking your boat away!’ I was in East Street Antiques with Heidi at the time with my mobile phone switched off so I didn’t collect the voicemail until 3.30 pm. Time and tide wait for no man.

By the time I got to the boatyard Vemara was in the berth next to her old £500 per year mooring. That was the good news. The bad news was that to get myself aboard I had to risk life and limb crawling across a narrow rickety metal catwalk…the wooden one had collapsed a year or two ago…ten feet above the Rye mud. From there it was a simple matter to step aboard…at high tide. The tide was falling fast but was still high enough to allow me to step aboard.

However at low tide there is a vertical drop of twelve feet onto the deck. I took up my defensive position aboard and awaited the inevitable altercation. It took place an hour later at 4.30 pm. ‘You are trespassing! You are not welcome!’ from him; ‘More theatre! More illegalities!’ from me. By then it was low tide. Twelve feet above me was the bank. Nothing a ladder couldn’t handle…and where there are boats and hard standing there are ladders. But they were up there and I was down here…and the next high tide was at two o’clock in the morning. I set the alarm.

Since then I have returned to the boat late at night, collected a ladder, taken it aboard with me and then in the morning taken myself into town at seven thirty…after returning the ladder to the place it came from. It does not take long to slip into new routines. Unfortunately Murphy was on the prowl. Returning to my new berth at ten thirty on the first evening I selected my ladder from one of the boats on the hard standing and took it and myself aboard.

At seven o’clock the next morning I was awakened by an angry bellowing from above. ‘I want my ladder! And I want it NOW!’ I had chosen the only boat on the hard standing with someone aboard. ‘Didn’t you hear the television?’ Profuse apologies from me…irritated mutterings from him. ‘I owe you one!’ I said tamely as I clambered off Vemara and put his ladder back against his boat. I choose a different ladder the following evening.

I deliberated on the situation overnight and on Wednesday morning phoned the Harbour Master…rather than my solicitor. After ten minutes with R.K.McGregor…his deputy…it was agreed. Today a nice polite letter went off to Mr Roud. ‘Dear Mike. I have made arrangements with the Rye Harbour Master’s Office to move Vemara to a long-term berth on Strand Quay immediately Jackson’s have completed construction work on The Strand. The move from River Brede Moorings has been tentatively scheduled for 11 am on Thursday 27th April 2006. Please contact me if you anticipate any difficulties with this scheduling. Yours faithfully.’

My new Mooring and Harbour Fees will be £793.76p per year with electricity extra. This compares with the £650 (including electricity) being paid on Brede Moorings from 1998 to 2002 and the £750 (with electricity extra) demanded after Vemara was moved to the far end of the moorings ‘to allow work to take place on the old berth’. The good news was that the new berth was further down the Rye Harbour Road and more secluded…but the bad news was that Vemara sat higher on the mud so could only get away on the tide about one day in three.

After I discovered in August 2005 that Roud had been accepting fees from both myself and Connie’s Estate for the same berth throughout 2003 and 2004 I refused to pay any more until Vemara’s credit had been used up on mooring fees and electricity. Instead of a little humility…an apology even after being caught with his fingers in the till…Roud tried to bluff his way out by claiming that Vemara had been given ‘residential moorings’…which cost the equivalent of £1150 per year (without electricity). I would expect the Courts to take a rather dim view of such a transparent self-serving defence against the charge of Fraud. Perhaps I will pursue it. Perhaps not. We will see.

After writing about Murphy being on the prowl I thought of my extensive readership in foreign parts. Hmm! So I thought I better explain myself. Google to the rescue. I have linked Murphy to his very own website…one of 85 000 that responded to my Google “Murphy’s Law” request. However Murphy’s Law is often known as Sod’s Law so I tried that in Google too. Another 85 000 responses. Here are a few little gems. Sod's Law: if anything can go wrong, it will; O’Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law: Murphy was an optimist; The First Corollary to Sod's Law: anything that is to go wrong will do so at the worst possible moment; The Unspeakable Law: as soon as you mention something, if it's good, it goes away; if it's bad, it happens. Have a nice day!