We collect
the weirdest, cutest and funniest ladder related stories for you to enjoy in
your coffee break, and this time we kick off with what might have been the
event of the year.  The Queen’s Platinum
Jubilee may have been the big event of 2022, but the inaugural Edinburgh
LadderFest was the undoubted underground hit. 
Organised by student Daniel Lawrence the event, held on Saturday 7th
May at The Meadows, originated on Facebook and attracted the attention of
online commenters as well as 25 people who turned up with their ladders at the
venue.  Lawrence was inspired to create
the event due to the number of flats in the city’s Marchmont area which have
ladders – mainly to reach cabin beds and mezzanine levels.

 

Pleasantly
surprised by the turnout, Lawrence is planning to organise more ladder related
events in the future, where perhaps he’ll be able to hear some of the classic
ladder jokes in person.  The wisecracks
left online included “Were there any biological ladders there or just step
ladders?” and “Watch out for those ladder lovers – they only use them to get
high”.

 

Whether it’s
Monday and you need a boost to get you through the week, or high time for some
Friday silliness we have got you covered with this cute panda story.  In the clip a panda cub tries and fails to
climb a simple ladder in the zoo enclosure where it resides.  The ladder, which is a central pole with
rungs either side, proves too much for the panda cub as it tries to scale the
ladder several times, always slipping off the side..  We love the resilience of the furry creature
as it never gives up, but we also can’t stop laughing at the way it flops to
the ground each time!

 

Another cute
animal falling foul of ladders was a juvenile grey seal which got separated
from its mother and ended up swimming up the Peconic River in from the Great
Peconic Bay in New York State.  The
misplaced mammal was looking for food and followed some migrating alewives on
their journey upstream.  The seal managed
to climb up the fish ladder, installed to help returning fish reach their
spawning grounds, and ended up in the town of Riverhead.  This creature was much more adept at ladder
climbing than the unfortunate panda!  The
seal cause havoc in the town, flippering its way into a petrol station before
making for the road and ending up on a traffic island.  It was then rescued from there by police
officers more used to dealing with crime, or at least the much more menacing
moose who venture into town.  The seal
was taken to the New York Marine Rescue Centre where it was rehabilitated and
released back into the ocean after a few days of rest and recuperation.  The team there have released many seals back
into the wild and are confident he will re-join his colony.

 

Meanwhile in
Plymouth, Massachusetts, a different type of ladder for marine life is being
used as hoped.  The new eel ladder,
installed in 2019, allows two stages of American eel to reach the upper ranges
of the Town Brook watercourse.  Glass
eels are the younger stage at around a year old, and are translucent (hence the
name).  Elvers are older, pigmented, and
are bigger.  Eels traverse the river in
the opposite way to migratory fish, spawning at sea and living in freshwater
rivers, unlike herring and salmon which spawn in freshwater but live in the
ocean.  The eel ladder slows the water
down enough for the eels, which find the faster flow of the fish ladder
unmanageable.  The ladder is like a form
of mesh which allows the eels to reach a collection pool where they are then
transported by the bucket load to Jenney Pond, where they can stay or swim on
further up the river.  At the peak of the
migration over 20,000 eels a day are transported, and the town recorded an
estimate of 44,000 eels using the ladder in 2021.  The eels, once back in freshwater, live for
10-20 years before reaching sexual maturity, at which point they head back down
the river to the ocean to spawn and continue the cycle.

 

We hope this
has given you something to smile about on your break today, especially with
regards to how different animals cope with different ladders!