JennyMorgan

Not even midnight dory racing during regatta week?

Actually I don't know it. What I do know is that sailing clubs have construed Boris's announcement as being that people can at least race their sailing boats provided that the crews are from the same family. Indeed at least one club is racing on Wednesday evening. I suspect that this will also apply to any form of competitive or solo boating. The BBC's news website has the recording of Boris's statement.

The bin liner needs to be multi-functional too!

Whoopee, Boris has just stated that we can go outside and participate in the sport of our choice! Not sure that driving a motor vessel or a Gin Palace can be construed as a sport, even if it's a 'sports cruiser', but certainly many forms of boating can! Good on you, Boris!

Certainly is! I can also use it as a sea-anchor or for bailing out !!

Try living on an open boat for a week! Neither eggs nor margarine need a fridge. Tinned luncheon meet fries up a treat, as do tinned spuds. Porridge is a staple doddle. German rye bread doesn't know the meaning of stale and with a cup of flour dampers are a doddle. UHT milk is a godsend, as are Mars Bars. So long as I have gas, a box of matches, water and a tin opener then I can eat surprisingly well. I'm on a boat, I don't expect other than 'boat' catering, love it! One mini barbecue, one gas ring and a bucket to wash up in, that's my galley! Tinned pilchards with a poached egg on a damper, yummy!

So long as they can do so without running the engine or having to crowd around a power point at a mooring.

Exactly the same situation near where I live. We are encouraged to go walking as a form of exercise and told that we can drive a reasonable distance to do so. I suppose having to walk past a car park will encourage walking further! In the instance that I am thing about people are parking within yards of the closed car park. It's simply not logical, muddled thinking all round.

Plod in such quantity was clearly nonsense. Had the culprit been alive then I would have questioned what possible harm was he was doing to himself or to others? Someone clearly has a sense of humour, and a point to make!

I hope not! The folk out on the water were clearly enjoying themselves, doing nothing whatsoever that put themselves or others at risk. They weren't in close proximity of others, such as would be the case on a six berth cruiser, for example. It's all about common sense and it seemed to me that that applied, assuming that these were local folk who had only traveled a few miles. Anglers, bowlers and golfers all have governing bodies who have presented their cases to the government, perhaps the Canoe Union has too. It would have been good if our beloved Authority had done the same on behalf of us boaters, at least the ones that can stay apart from their fellow humans.. I wholly support social distancing, it is both logical and reasonable and is perfectly achievable in such as kayaks and rowing boats. Even harmless old codgers who want to potter around on their boats at their moorings should be able to do so, provided that they can maintain the one fathom social distancing. Hopefully Boris will see the logic of a limited relaxation such as has been suggested by the anglers and golfers for example.

The sun shone today, the wind was light and the sky was blue, absolutely delightful. There were six assorted kayaks, three paddle-boards and a lugsail dinghy out on the broad today, all at least socially distanced. Actually it was good to see a small degree of normality out there! Me, i'm catching up on my varnish work, seven coats so far.

I wasn't around then so I'll refer to the my cache of family legends. My father, being on the Home Front, was one of those who volunteered to go underground if the Germans invaded. For whatever reason his home then became something of an arsenal. Coincidentally his home was opposite a meadow that was deemed a possible landing ground for Nazi paratroopers. Mother was of a nervous disposition and when dad was on duty with the observer corps took to arming herself with a pistol and a sten-gun. One evening a young lady from the chemists delivered a prescription sometime after dark, mum very cautiously opened the door, sten gun poked through the gap. The chemist complained to my father the next day because his delivery girl was so shook up that she resigned there and then. That was the height of mum's war-time adventures! My parents were lucky in that they could afford to employ a 'char-lady', a Mrs H. Now Mrs H was normally extremely punctual but one morning she wasn't, her excuse being 'oh my lore, oi hadda insendry up moi back passage laars noight'! That was probably the height of Mrs H's adventures, the tale was told for many years after the event! At one point Oulton Broad had anti-personnel mines strung on trip lines across the water in order to hamper German sea-planes and gliders should they come into land. My brother, seven or eight years old, plus other local youngsters, had apparently discovered that if they threw bread scraps onto the water that swans sometimes came into land and in doing so hit the lines that triggered these mines. Many years later, when I managed what is now the Waveney River Centre, we allowed the dredging people to dump mud from Oulton Broad on our land and we had several of those mines in the spoil. The Bomb Disposal people came along and detonated them on site. Nothing major but it must have been exciting to the youngsters, if not to the swans. In later life I was to find out that the swans didn't need to be enticed with bread, it just happened. Eventually the remaining mines just sunk and were left until the dredgers came along. My brother then got shunted off to Wales as an evacuee, an experience he apparently hated. When he eventually came home the family had moved onto a houseboat at Beccles.

Sometimes we agree so you must have !

Still forgotten?? How will we celebrate VJ day I wonder?

Not far from where I live is an apartment block in which a lady died of the virus last week. Today, not a hundred yards away from that building there was a 'street party'. My daughter and I walked past, no social distancing, that much was obvious. This was about twelve thirty, folk were clearly enjoying themselves. These weren't irresponsible youngsters either, people in their 50's, 60's and probably 70's. The music was largely Alf Garnett and similar style war-time classics. Great party, if you like that sort of thing! Not sure about the timing though.

My Uncle Jack , like many Anglians, was trapped in Singapore, an unwilling guest of the Japanese, working in the copper mines. His job was to wheel-barrow Australian troops, those who had had their feet cut off for trying to escape, backwards and forwards to the workface. He never spoke in depth of his time in Japan. He literally witnessed one of the atom bombs, he lived with skin cancer for the rest of his life. Will we celebrate VJ day with the same enthusiasm? My Dad was on the home front, a member of the Observer Corps, he volunteered and went to the D-Day landings, his job was to tell American gunners what was friendly and what wasn't. He also went on one mission aboard a Flying Fortress, Americans were prone to shooting at anything that moved, friend or foe! Neither claimed their campaign medals, both would occasionally meet up with friends that they had served with, neither spoke much about their experiences. I'm not sure how either would have responded to the call for street parties for example, so few of the participants could have been there. I rather suspect that both would have preferred to quietly remember the friends that never came home, that they could only remember as young men. My Aunty Peggy was both a Land-Girl and in the run up to the D-Day Landing she drove lorries down to the South Coast, an experience that was an adventure for a county girl who had never been South of London. Clearly she had enjoyed that! I lost another Uncle, his Stirling Bomber was hit by friendly fire when it returned from a mission. Another Uncle, he flew pink Spitfires and light blue Mosquitoes over Germany, he was in photo recon., a successful career pilot, his attitude was that it was all a big adventure, a different attitude to the other men in my family. He thrived on his memories! My flags are up, I'm joining in, but I do have mixed feelings. We mustn't forget, more a time for reflection for myself.

When she came out of the boatshed and down the slipway she would have been immaculate, her hull varnished and glistening. Lenny Balls, the foreman boat builder, and Phil Crosland, yard owner, proud of yet another job well done. Their creations would sometimes go out on their first week's hire, only to return in a less than pristine condition, and the yard people would wonder why they had bothered. Then on Monday they would start building yet another immaculate boat!

Better late than never!

As for flying in food from abroad, how much of that is 'luxury' or unseasonable food that is largely unnecessary, especially for the obese among us. Once this is all over we shall have to adopt to change, why should that change exclude food? Do we really need strawberries for twelve months of the year, for example?

Surely to goodness 99.99999999 % of those travelling know full well that social distancing is impossible on a plane, as it is in Poppy's cabin! As for the BBC's pictures, it appears that all the folk travelling were adults, presumably equipped with a brain and having the privilege of being able to say 'no'.

Might well be my snap but I had completely forgotten it, until now! Definitely not the boat that I had in mind though. Perhaps I need two bacon rolls! This one had so many holes in it between wind and tide, poor old thing

I've probably got it all wrong but the boat that I remember being on Richard's mooring, and the one that I assumed had sunk, was one of Fred's that had been taken on by Peter Cooper at Hoseason's old yard.

Right, I won't bother Richard then!

BeBe Grande was probably the most popular 'honeymooner ' in her day, hence several look alikes were built. Only problem being flat batteries, the honeymooners rarely went far enough to charge the batteries! More than once I helped Fred Newson by telling him where she was moored up, sometimes she went no further than Oulton Dyke and there she would stay for the week! Richard, from the other place, had what I believe was one of Newson's bigger boats moored in his dyke, when he had one, regretfully she sank and had to be broken up. I sometimes go months & months without seeing him, sometimes I see him quite regularly and then it's generally in the the Bitch in the Ditch, (Lady of the Lake) at Oulton Broad but of course that's closed right now but I'll ask him, if I remember, when he does surface.

As far as care homes are concerned the folk living there were and are trapped with no way of escape, no where to hide. They are wholly dependent on those caring for them. It was a time bomb waiting to go off. Locally to me care homes were well advised and even trained by the NHS but the weakest links are the carers themselves and the inevitable has happened.