Breaking News · By Quillan Swamp-Scribe · Monday, 28 September 2026

Rain That Ruined Everyone Else's Holiday Has Given Waddletown Its Best Water Levels in Years

The marsh at its wettest and, by most accounts, its happiest. Photograph: Quillan Swamp-Scribe, who did not bother sheltering the camera.

While the wider Midlands has spent the back half of the school holidays underwater — more than 100mm since last weekend alone, by the mainland press's own count, enough to turn favourite trails and picnic spots into what one report rather ungenerously called “a giant mud puddle” — this desk is obliged to report that Waddletown Marsh has never looked better.

The Reed Beds are swollen past the old waterline for the first time in years, Market Square pond has reclaimed a full boardwalk plank it lost to drought some seasons back, and the still-on-holiday duckling population (term does not resume until a week Tuesday) has declared the whole affair the finest thing to happen to their break yet, with an impromptu mud-sliding championship now running nightly off the Lilypad Lane bank. Further rain is forecast through the week, which the mainland weather desks describe with some gloom and which this desk describes, frankly, as an excellent forecast.

Not every resident is celebrating. Bitter-Bill reports that the damp has curled two entire reams of newsprint beyond use and left his good hat “smelling permanently of pond,” and has asked this desk to note, for the record, that a marsh being pleased with the weather is not the same as a marsh being pleasant to work in. The rest of Waddletown, ankle-deep and delighted, begs to differ.

Breaking News · By Roxy Ripple-Maker · Monday, 21 September 2026

Marsh Prepares a Heritage Day of Its Own, Right as the Schoolhouse Empties for the Holidays

The timing could not be worse, or better, depending which end of the marsh you ask. The schoolhouse on Lilypad Lane breaks up for the third-term holidays on Wednesday, and by Thursday — Heritage Day, no less — Waddletown will be entirely overrun with ducklings who have nowhere official to be.

The Founders' Committee has been huddled at the Old Willow since Friday, planning what is being cautiously called a “Heritage Waddle” down Market Square — craft stalls, a shared table of everyone's family recipes, and, if the weather holds, a short retelling of the town's founding in 1883 for any duckling small enough to still find it interesting.

Bitter-Bill has already registered his objection to “a public holiday landing in the same week as unsupervised ducklings,” and has requested, in writing, that the crossword puzzle be printed early this week so he might finish it somewhere quiet before Wednesday arrives. The rest of Waddletown, rather more optimistically, is simply hoping for good weather and a decent turnout. The Gazette will have full coverage once the dust — and several dozen small webbed feet — has settled.

Breaking News · By Duke Featherweight, Sports Desk, stopwatch in wing · Monday, 14 September 2026

Waddletown Wanderers Shrug Off Rocky Start: “We Are Not Panicking,” Insists Captain After Second Defeat

Three matches into the new season and the Waddletown Wanderers have already put this commentator's stopwatch through more starts and stops than a Comrades finish line, but the squad insists the wobbly form sheet tells only half the story.

It opened badly — a 1-0 defeat on home water in the season opener, which had certain corners of the marsh (this desk shall not name Bitter-Bill directly, but the initials rhyme with B.B.) muttering that the whole campaign was doomed before it began. The Wanderers answered in the only sensible way a duck can: by winning the next one, and winning it well, a comfortable 2-0 return fixture that had the bank three-deep with spectators. Saturday's away trip proved a step too far, though, a narrow 1-0 loss on the road that leaves the squad with one win from three.

“We are not panicking,” the captain told this desk after the final whistle, with the kind of calm this commentator associates with ducks who have never once had to file copy against a deadline. Bitter-Bill, for his part, remains unconvinced, and has already drafted a paragraph on squad selection this desk has been asked not to print. Whichever of us turns out right, the Wanderers are back on home water this coming weekend — and I shall be there, stopwatch running, whether they want me to be or not.

Breaking News · By Bitter-Bill, Editor, receipts in wing · Monday, 7 September 2026

Lantern Levy Slashed: Council Cuts Proposed Lighting Tariff from 10.5% to a Flat Five Percent After Marsh-Wide Uproar

They called it a “modest adjustment.” I called it daylight robbery conducted, appropriately, after dark — which is the only hour this council seems capable of holding a meeting. Either way, the parish has blinked.

Readers will recall this desk's reporting on the state of our overhead lighting since the Great Wind took half of it down three weeks ago. Word first came out of the parish offices that fixing it would mean a 10.5% hike to every household's lantern bill, phased in with the sort of confidence only a duck who does not pay the bill himself can muster. The marsh did not take it quietly.

I raise the following points, and I raise them with some satisfaction.

• OneBy Wednesday, a petition against the “Lantern Levy” had collected more signatures than the council chamber has chairs, several of them written in what I can only describe as an aggressive quantity of ink for a duck.
• TwoBy Friday, the council had discovered — astonishing, this — that the increase could in fact be held to a flat 5% for the remaining ten months of the year, which is precisely the number this newspaper suggested a fortnight ago, to the sound of total silence from the chamber.
• ThreeNot one member of the council has yet used the word “apology.” I am prepared to wait. I am not, however, prepared to wait quietly.

The lamp-posts along Lilypad Lane remain patched rather than properly rewired, and the Reed Beds are still dim after dusk, but the bill, at least, now matches the service. This desk will be watching the next invoice more closely than it has ever watched anything, up to and including the Boks.

Breaking News · By Duke Featherweight, Sports Desk, stopwatch in wing · Monday, 31 August 2026

Boks Level the Series in Cape Town, and This Desk Has Never Been Prouder to Hold a Stopwatch

Duke Featherweight clocks the historic finish from the water's edge, stopwatch still running. Photograph: Quillan Swamp-Scribe, who missed the final try reloading his notebook.

Stop what you're doing, Waddletown. Down at Cape Town Stadium on Saturday, the Springboks put in the kind of performance this commentator can only dream of clocking on a good day at the water's edge — 33 points to 26, series levelled at one apiece after last week's defeat in Johannesburg, and I have not stopped replaying it since.

The hosts struck inside two minutes and never really let go, leading 24-14 at half-time after the captain himself crashed over off a bench-driven scrum move the newspapers are calling the “bomb squad” — five substitutes sent on who immediately changed the shape of the match, which is a bit of strategy I intend to steal for the next round of wing-display heats. The visitors did not go quietly, clawing back with two late tries in the final fourteen minutes, but the Boks held their nerve and their line, and that is a finish worthy of a proper photo at the tape.

Word reached the Old Willow before the final whistle had properly faded, and by dusk half the marsh had gathered on the bank for an entirely unauthorised celebration, complete with tail-feather flapping and — I am reliably told, though I cannot officially confirm — Bitter-Bill allowing himself a small, private smile before remembering himself and demanding everyone quiet down.

Breaking News · By Bitter-Bill, Editor, filed from a hedge · Monday, 24 August 2026

Great Wind Fells Trees, Kills the Lights, and Scatters Last Week's Gazette

Editor Bitter-Bill is carried past the Reed Beds at considerable speed, still filing copy. Photograph: Quillan Swamp-Scribe, who was also blown over.

They laughed at me in March. They are not laughing now, because they cannot see each other.

On Saturday a wind came off the escarpment with no permit, no warning and no respect for a duck of standing. By nightfall the big folk down in eThekwini had trees lying across their roads and their overhead power lines torn clean off the poles — several whole communities left sitting in the dark, according to the mainland press, who at least got that much right. Here in Waddletown Marsh we fared no better. Market Square is a debris field. The awnings are in the shallows. And every unsold copy of last week's edition — forty-one of them, I counted — is currently distributed evenly throughout the north reed beds, where it is being read, at last, by nobody.

I raise the following points, and I raise them loudly.

• OneThe mainland reports the winds “damaged overhead power infrastructure.” Overhead. I have said for six years that hanging the lights above a marsh in a place where the wind comes down off the berg is the thinking of a species that cannot fly. Nobody listens to a duck in spectacles.
• TwoTraffic was “disrupted.” Traffic is always disrupted. Traffic in this township consists of Gideon Greenhead paddling to the dock and back, and even he managed to be disrupted, which took some doing.
• ThreeAnd this is the part that curdles the crop — on Saturday, the same day, the newspapers found room to run a piece about scientists uncovering “climate change's windy impact.” Uncovering! While the roof of this newspaper's own printing shed was still airborne! I do not require a panel of experts to inform me that it is windy. I require somebody to come and fish my roof out of the pond.

Penelope Pinfeather has asked me to add that the wind “did wonders” for her crest and that she has never looked better. This newspaper does not endorse that view.

Power to the Reed Beds is expected back “in due course,” a phrase which in my experience means Thursday, and in my longer experience means never.

Breaking News · By the Gazette Desk · Monday, 17 August 2026

Winter Roars Back: Second Cold Snap Bites Down on the Marsh

Just weeks after the marsh's first snowfall in over a decade, forecasters at the Marsh Meteorological Perch are warning residents to brace for round two. A fresh blast of cold air is moving in across the wider Midlands, with more snow forecast over the reed beds and overnight temperatures dropping to single figures — colder still down in the low-lying hollows near the old willow. Little sign of a thaw is expected before the weekend, when conditions are finally due to clear.

Bitter Bill, who had only just packed his scarf away, was heard muttering from his usual corner that he “knew it was too good to last,” while the unofficial pond-skating committee has wasted no time reconvening on the frozen edge of Market Square pond. The Marsh Council has gritted the boardwalks ahead of the cold snap and, echoing regional advisories making the rounds beyond the reeds, has asked any visiting waterfowl to submit to a quick wing-and-web check at the Lilypad Lane checkpoint before crossing into the township — a precaution locals are already calling “the world's soggiest border control.”

Roads and boardwalks remain waddle-able for now, though residents are advised to mind their footing near the Reed Beds. The Gazette will have updates as the second freeze settles in.

Breaking News · By the Gazette Desk · Monday, 10 August 2026

Snow Blankets the Midlands: Marsh Wakes to a White Waddle

Residents of Waddletown Marsh awoke this morning to find Lilypad Lane and the Reed Beds dusted in the first snowfall the township has seen in over a decade. The willow by the Gazette office is reportedly “showing off,” according to one passing local, its branches now trimmed in white.

Reaction from the duck population has been decidedly mixed. Market Square regulars have declared it “the best thing to happen since the marketplace got a proper flower cart,” with several younger ducks already organizing an unofficial pond-skating committee. Bitter Bill, filing from his usual corner with the Gazette tucked under one wing, was less enthusiastic, muttering something about “ice underfoot and no decent place left to sit.” Meanwhile, over on the boardwalk, the rowers have simply swapped oars for scarves and carried on as though nothing at all were unusual — which, longtime residents note, is rather the Waddletown way.

Roads remain waddle-able. The Gazette will provide updates as the marsh continues to sparkle.