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In 1958 ours was delivered to us at Landamores from a grocers on Riverside Road, Hoveton. We also had deliveries in 1963 at Richardson's and 1964 & 1966, both in Horning - can't remember the names of the shops though.

Yes, Hamble I think. There were two of them and I think they both went to Aquamarine.

Vaughan's boat?

Mine was only two years. Constellation II from Chumley & Hawke in Horning. July 1964 and September 1966. Hired many times in 60 years of Broads' boating but never the same boat twice since; there was always too many new boats to choose from - a bit like being in a sweet shop I suppose.

We hired Bittern for a day a couple of years ago. Like Simon we were thinking of a couple of nights on her in the near future just to do a spot of fishing and pottering around above Potter.

Another thing to bear in mind is the type of stern. Narrowboats generally come in three types: cruiser, traditional and semi-traditional. Cruisers sterns are the larger, open type rear decks - usually with a safety rail around the back. Most hire cruisers, certainly the larger ones for bigger groups, have this type of stern. OK for socialising when moored but because of the swing of the tiller it is difficult for more than two people to share the space when travelling. Fully traditional sterns just have a small rear deck (just enough room for the steerer to stand and work the tiller). Not really enough room for a second person as the swing of the tiller means they usually have to lean back over the water when making sharp turns. Semi-traditional sterns are a good compromise. They appear from outside to look like a traditional stern and still only have the small rear deck, but have an open area just ahead of the stern deck where the steerer stands; this area usually has a bench type seat on either side on which up to three people can sit whilst travelling. There are usually a pair of small opening doors which can be fastened back to the outside of the boat when underway. This semi enclosed steering position gives you some protection from wind and rain as opposed to the other two types of stern. Some owners fit a protective cover to this area (usually fixed by press studs) to keep the weather off when moored. In bad weather it is possible to leave this cover in position and just unfasten one corner then fold it back so the steerer has quite a lot of protection for their bottom half. Another advantage of this type of stern is that you can bring a (very long) centre rope back, and drop the end onto the bench in front of the steerer so they can step off with it when mooring.

The three and a bit car sets running at the moment are bimode electric trains with the short section being a diesel generator. As there isn't any catenary on the lines east of Norwich, these generators supply electricity to the traction motors so in effect they are diesel trains. When the train is on a route under the wires they become electric trains. Manufacturers are working on the possibility of replacing the generator section with a battery section but that would need the trains to run under the wires for a proportion of their journey to charge the batteries. This system is probably some time off as trial trains at the moment have a limit of about 70 miles on battery power.

So sorry to hear your sad news Monica, my thoughts are with you.

My daughter bought this bauble about 15 years ago . . .

I hadn't used public transport since February 2020 until last Friday when I had to make a return journey of six trains and two buses to the only garage that could source the parts for a repair my car needed. More or less everybody on the buses wore a mask. It was a different story on the trains - probably no more than a third of the passengers had masks. In my carriage on the busiest train, which was about two thirds full, I couldn't see one other passenger wearing a mask despite the continually played announcement to please wear a face covering. As masks protect others more than they protect the wearer it is a sad reflection on our society that the majority that don't wear masks appear to have little or no regard for the lives of others. I have asthma but have always worn a mask in shops etc during the pandemic. Most of our shopping was done online during the first year of the pandemic but since the supermarkets have stopped supplying goods packed in plastic carriers, so that I now have to lift the goods out of their totes and put them in carrier bags to take into the house, I have changed to either going to the supermarket early morning or late at night. While wearing a mask I move more slowly to keep my breathing rate down and while it is uncomfortable I can manage. I understand that this may not be the case with people with more severe asthma. I can't understand why people with conditions that make it not possible to wear a mask can't wear a face shield - not quite as effective but better than nothing.

Thanks folks. Found a section in Safari "settings for this website" and the zoom was set at 200%. Don't know how I have managed to do that as I just use the keyboard 'plus' and 'minus' keys to zoom.

I have been using Safari in Mac OS 10.12 for many years to access NBN forum and it has worked fine. Recently it has opened every time without showing the complete home page (pic attached) and I can't work out how to sort it. All other forums and web pages open as they should do. The home page opens fine in Firefox on the same Mac. Any ideas please.

Helian beat me to it. For many years retailers, particularly smaller ones, would not deal with American Express as their fees were much higher than either Visa or MasterCard.

I notice the waterways to the right of Barton Broad and Irstead, some of which are still accessible - probably a shadow of when the map was made - in dinghies etc. I didn't know that they were there until, when moored at Irstead about three years ago, a chap got into a dinghy with outboard and whizzed straight across the river and disappeared into a dyke on which the entrance was so overgrown with vegetation that it was almost invisible. The dyke is marked on one of Vaughan's maps.

We had breakfast (and a pint) on the lawn at the back of the New Inn in July 64. The lawn went down to the river bank.

From Brundall Station Boats II hire leaflet for 1990/91.

Did anybody hire this? Wouldn't have fancied being on the Yare overnight on it.

Had my booster on Thursday, it was Pfizer. Two original jabs were AstraZeneca. Doc wanted to give me flu jab at same time but I had already booked one for three weeks time as I didn't fancy having both vaccines together.

15 metres is just over 49ft. The Grand Classique (Crown Cruisers and now Le Boat?) is 14.63 metres which is just about 48ft. Connoisseurs Magnifique is slightly shorter at 14.5 metres (47.5ft). Both are 13' 5" wide. Didn't Alphacraft have a bathtub listed at 50ft?

I wondered why my wife was talking to me.

Just been to my local Asda (Trafford Centre), no queues, no limits. Four self pay pumps and just me using them. I notice on Mouldy's list of 16 countries only two have diesel dearer than petrol. I bet you can guess one of them,

A R Skitterall & Co, Queens Head Moorings (Bradbeers), according to the 1965 Broads Book. The yard appears to be in an inlet off the New Cut immediately next to the Queens Head Hotel. A foot note on the page states that the Queens Head is no longer a hotel. The 1974 Broads book has no mention of a boatyard, nor does it have the inlet on the map.

The EDP report says moorings in the picturesque village of Haddiscoe. While the moorings may be in the parish of Haddiscoe, most people would associate them more with St Olaves, and I can't think of many less picturesque moorings on the Broads - on a dead straight canal in the shadow of Haddiscoe flyover with trains whizzing past every half hour or so.

I prefer the squashed version. It's like a modern version of a Safari.

MM beat me to it. Phoenix mentions his hearing isn't great so I would recommend he listens to a Cello before he buys one. Could be that it wouldn't be a problem for him, but on the Cello I listened to it wasn't just the volume - speech was mostly unintelligible.