stumpy

If they're the 'push in - pull out' really old (4 years?) ones BA will swap them by return of post. We found a tenners worth last year in the 'that'll be useful one day ' drawer.

Our local Morrisons has a similar layout - at the peak of the panic they had a couple of staff on the queue, one going car to car asking 'fuel or shopping? ' then when he had a few shoppers radioing to his mate to stop traffic coming out from store and garage to allow the shoppers up the 'wrong ' side into the carpark. Worked a treat.

Back in the day it was a joy to watch Sid deal with raucous stag parties, years of coppering stood him in good stead.

Wash your mouth out and lie down in a dark room until the feeling passes!! Wise move on the timing belt though - I once had one let go on a straight six Rover while making good progress on the A12, it was quite spectacular!

If you do go down the route of changing the packing do NOT use your lady's best crochet hook to get the old stuff out! Take the handle off an old file and bend a hook into the end of the tang then sharpen it up- worked for me. My ears are still ringing after the crochet hook incident!

Many (50?) years ago I had a third share in a Dragon - one of the last all wood ones. She was fast as fek but a very wet boat, one year we sailed from Waldringfied on the Deben to Lowestoft for Edinburgh Cup week - got the wooden spoon but a cracking time at Nobs and Snobs. You needed three crew - two working the boat and one on the bilge pump! Arabis 11 - went to Ireland I believe. Our only claim to fame was appearing in a Giles cartoon as a bunch of hippies (we didn't blend well with the more conservative Dragon owners)

A question probably for the locals - we're spending tonight on Belaugh church Staithe and there's an ancient yew tree between us and the church festooned with ribbons and strips of lace, we wondered why? We know about the pagan practice of tree dressing but that's in December- and on church land??

Many years ago we had something similar in my Scout troop, a tea chest filled with hay with a Dixie sized hole in the middle. Porridge for 24 was boiled up last thing and carefully nestled inside with a 6" thick lid weighed down on top - perfect breakfast the next day!

There was a pizza boat in the early 70s on a big old bathtub - moored at Horning and plied its trade on Salhouse and Blackhorse. I think there was a fire which finished it off.

Fingers crossed the Lancaster will make it - last I heard she was stuck at Duxford waiting for the wind to change. After a major service they're not keen on taking off towards the M11!

I know a fair few truckers (it's hard not to in Felixstowe), they reckon its poetic justice that Macdonalds have run out of stuff. During the lockdowns when MacDs drivethroughs were the only food outlets open they were instructed not to serve truckers who walked up to the window having parked their rigs elsewhere, not being able to get under the canopy.

Or a Customs Officer 😉

MM - we do the same - washing up liquid bottle of dilute blue beside the khazi, a quick squirt does the job.

They swapped a dozen for us by return of post but that was in the olden days (pre Covid)

Spirit now knows what "Down below" means. We learned early on when she came off with me at Coltishall, by the time I'd thrown a couple of clove hitches she'd found a picnic and scarfed down a plateful of cocktail sausages! Luckily the diners thought it was hilarious.

We got our waterproof copy from the little BA shop at Beccles YS four or five years ago - may still be stocked although no mention of Notional Parks so maybe not.

It's even more fun when the horn is behind a little door on the back bulkhead of the bog just at ear level when seated!

Welcome to the forum and the empty pockets and big cheesey grin club, BigA. I've been told it's not easy to rename a boat in Norfolk because four and twenty virgins are needed for the ceremony 😉

We followed one of the boats,towing the scrim-netted dory, over Barton yesterday afternoon. It peeled off towards Sutton - I wonder where it'll end up? (I could find a use for the tripod mounted Gatling gun however)

AKA. - Nobs and Snobs 🙂

In my formative years there was a 'ping the ball bearing into the right hole' machine on Felixstowe pier where you could eventually win a single cigarette - I don't know how long they'd been in the machine but you had to keep blowing it out! Imagine the uproar today.

As my dear old Mum would have said (in broad Suffolk) "Best you have bread and pullit then dear!"

I've a certain amount of ironmongery in my right thigh - I once dropped my keks in Malaga airport to show the "No speeka Ingles" jobsworth the impressive scars where it went in. Got a round of applause from the growing audience behind me!

Kathy had her first TKR over Easter weekend, we came up last Friday to see how she got on getting on and it all went amazingly well. Onto aft deck, over cockpit roaming and down onto stern seat. Caravan step halved the step down into cockpit. No problems getting 2 steps down into the accommodation. We had the first check up today and her consultant reckoned that the slight wobble of an inland boat would be a good thing.

Could be one of the new volunteer rangers - you used to be able to tell the difference because only real rangers were allowed blue lights, vollies had amber ones.