chrisdobson45

Don't we just know it, new domestic water pump and a new water pump for the generator this week. They say things come in threes, the shower pump at home gave up the ghost on Monday...

I worked in the Middle East for most of the 1990's, I still shudder at the thought of the welders wearing "safety" flip-flops. As Smoggy said, it kept the mid focused...

Kath and I had lunch at The Kings Head yesterday, lunch menu was a little unusual but what we had was delicious. The service was a little chaotic but the staff were pleasant and were trying hard. I’m sure they’ll get the hang of it after a few days

Ah, we are ///salary.circles.myth, we’ll keep an eye out for you, we should be down most weekends and for most of the summer.

Where in Cove are you? We'll stop by to say "hello" when we're down next weekend.

We will be afloat irrspective of what the weather throws at us. There's a certain pleasure in listening to the rain on the cabin. I'll probably invest in a wellington rack for the cockpit...

We were down on Saturday, idylic, a few hours of sunshine were most welcome after what has felt like the longest, wettest winter, ever. We are back for easter, the forecast doesn't look too promising.

£722 paid for Mystic Lady yesterday. I paid online, the pain seemed to be a little more distanced than if I had paid it by phone...

I worked on the Castle Mall development in 1990, I was an engineer with Expanded Piling, based in Grimsby.

Like others, I hadn't been fortuneate to meet Ian but nevertheless regarded him as a forum "good guy" whose posts were always enjoyable and informative. I'll miss him. My mum used to say that God always takes the good ones for himself, he's definitely got a good one in Ian...

Jasper, doing what he does best...

An old neighbour had a citroen Visa in cream, it looked like it was attempting to cock its hind leg when cornering. It was always driven "spiritedly"...

OK, here goes: VW Beetle 1303 (VAL 63L), was my father's, learnt to drive at 17 years old, was probably the slowest, most awkward car to drive, ever... Ford Fiesta 1.6D Popular Plus (D93 FNG), my first company car, courtesy of May Gurney in Norwich. Didn't have a radio, loved that car, did miles in it, pulled like a train Austin Maestro 1.6HLE, in a very (un)fetching brown, the worst car ever, would stall in traffic on the Earlham Road in the morning traffic and would usually be pushed onto the forecourt of Duff Morgan to await May Gurney's recovery truck to take it back to Trowse. In the end I refused to drive it and was provided with an ancient Vauxhall Cavalier with 150,000 miles on the clock, at least this was reliable, until it caught fire on the A11 Attleborough bypass a few months later (I idly wondered what the smoke was behind me, then other cars began to flash me so I pulled over and got out, saw lots of smoke from underneath, and I did the unforgivable, I opened the bonnet, it was soon well alight and was reduced to a shell sitting on a pile of ash). This was replaced with a Vauxhall Cavalier 1.6LS, now we're talking, a proper car, in Postman Pat Red. Unfortuntely, the previous driver had a bearded collie who had eaten the knobs off the rear window winders and the foam off the arm rests... Then a brace of Sierra Sapphires, one a hatch (maroon), the other with a boot (Wedgewood Blue). The latter was written off on the A16 by a chap in a Saab Turbo attempting an overtake, he hit me head-on, I had nowhere to go. My car disintegrated and I was in a ditch, sat in the wreckage with two broken wrists and thumbs... "Sorry mate, didn't see you there, thought I could get past...." I took a rest from company cars and purchased an 8v Golf GTI in tornado red with Pirelli alloys from an airman at RAF Coltishall, who had purchased it duty free in Germany and kept it for the three year qualifying period. The interior had been stripped out in order to make it lighter (when I went to see it, the rear seats, door cards, parcel shelf, etc., were in a collection of bin bags in the guy's garage. I spent many happy hours screwing the interior back together). I really enjoyed this car, living at the time in North Norfolk it suited the roads and th fact that I was young & single. One evening, returning from a trip to the coast with a girlfriend, we were heading from Holt to Saxthorpe when a lump of well rotted cow s**t flew in through the open sunroof (flicked up from muck spreading in the adjacent field) and dropped into her lap. She was wearing a short white demin skirt at the time, trying to encourage her to keep her thighs together to stop the s**t from staining the seat was a job. Funnily enough, when we got back to the cottage and she'd showered and changed, she managed to keep her thighs together all night... In 1992 I left UK to work in Saudi Arabia so a procession of Jeep Cherokees, Toyota Landcruisers, Nissan Patrol and finally a Landrover Discovery were my daily drives for the next seven years. The Disco was the worst of the bunch, the Patrol was bomb-proof. 1998 saw me back in UK and company cars again, this time a couple of Vauxhall Vectra estates, before I changed jobs and was able to benefit from a PCS scheme (salary sacrifice and company contribution to allow me to drive what I wanted, within reason) so a Ford Mondeo estate in Ghia X trim and then a Volvo V70 SE D5 graced the driveway, ideal for the growing family. I then rather unwisely had a VW EOS for three years, and drove it in all weathers with the roof down... 2011 saw me travel to Western Canada for three years, where a Ford Explorer (V6, 3.2lt) was my trustly stead (and at just over $1.10 per gallon of petrol, who could blame me?) Since returning to UK in 2015 I've had a succession of 4x4's, including a Nissan Pathfinder, and now a 2018 Kia Sorrento which has just gone through the 70k mile barrier without any major issues. We reckon that we've done 24 trips to / from Brundall so far this year...

Thank you for this post, a reminder to myself & Kath to always wear lifejackets when out and about. We had got very lax in the summer when it was much warmer...