Timbo

Back from RT and I've added to the list: Life on a boat is intolerable without... A hand saw, a tenon saw, a long handled heavy duty screwdriver, Gorilla Glue (for gluing gorillas of course),'G' Clamps, an account with Tim Collins and Beardshaws. Finally Obiwan Doug on hand for advice, encouragement...oh all right, hands up I'll be honest... he did some most all of the work in-between his own project and playing keepie uppies with tank engines...I do make a good passable drinkable warm and wet coffee though!

Ah now you see I have this one covered. Since the purchase of the boat, my other half has never laid eyes on it in the flesh so I have to use Timbo's Theory of Transgenerational Televisual Telemetry. It goes something like this...The television has a remote control unit so I can change channels without moving from the armchair and I have a daughter to fetch me the remote control unit. In addition to this I use the theorems of one Mr Montague Python like so https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utuchVE_56M and one day I will have the shiniest boat on the Broads!

Now they look full of possibilities. Mind I quite fancy a monocle.

Just hang on one minute...you mean I've got to clean the windows as well as do all that varnishing?

As a potential customer MM here's what I would be looking for...a bit like my old local. A decent pint, somewhere where I could have a smoke in the dry, a beagle friendly pub that's not averse to an impromptu jam session should a musician be present (my old local had a cabinet in the corner of the snug with a couple of guitars and the odd banjo in it) and with some reading material available...be it the newspaper, old copies of punch, or the occasional second hand book if I'm feeling unsociable. Finally a small corner behind the bar where I can buy a tin of beans, pint of milk, can of soup and more importantly...tobacco, filter tips and papers should I run out! I'm a simple bloke.

A local pub landlord out here was once asked if he had anything suitable for vegans by a customer. 'Vegans eat free' he said opening the pub door 'the pasture's out the back'. I notice all these demands for condiments are already eating into MM's profits before he's even moved in!

...without an ever growing list of items that, once would be considered unnecessary luxuries but now that I'm knocking on a bit, seem to be indispensable. I'm currently packing for a trip down to RT, and I've just realised how much stuff I take with me that I feel is essential. Take underwear for example. I'm at a loss without my thermal underwear, even in the height of summer the thermals are packed...just in case. If that's not bad enough there is the item that the wearing of, in her presence, my better half considers to be a request on my part to live a life of celibacy...and that's the elastic that stop my glasses falling in the water when they drop off my face. Microfibre cloths are another item. I can't seem to pass a pound shop without adding to my ever growing and glowing collection of brightly coloured cleaning cloths. Come wash day folks 'round my neck of the woods think I'm some sort of magician or perhaps a fool...in motley. The special cup. Is there some point in life when you just can't drink tea or coffee out of any old beaker? If there is I've hit it. I mean Royal Tudor has a set of mugs on board...but still I have to pack my favourite Eyore mug! My watch, currently a rather smart U-boat watch, I can't leave for the boat without it...even though there are four clocks, a tide clock and a barometer on board Royal Tudor. Some nights I have to get up to hide the clocks to stifle the noise of the ticking. The candle stub. I mean...WHY? It's not for lighting...no of course not...it's just in case I need to wax something, like thread to sew up a canopy or fishing line so if I want to fish on the surface. But like the myriad of other little 'so important can't do without items'...I just can't do without them. Five Swiss Army knives...each with a different set of tools for getting boy scouts out of horses hooves. Five! Is it just me or is everyone like this? Is it a part of boating?

Is that a pint MM? I know John was quoting some outlandish beer prices earlier...says the man who wrings out any insect that may drop in his beer, just in case it swallowed any!

I took Uncle Albert for a trip out on a Thames barge, can't remember which one, but he didn't enjoy it much as it was very much a case of 'sit there and don't touch anything'. So to make amends I hired the Humber Keel Comrade for the day to celebrate Uncle Albert's 50th birthday. Now Comrade means a lot to Uncle Albert as he was 'the boy' on Comrade before he joined the RN. To be fair I did warn the Comrade crew (five of them) that Uncle Albert would be our guest of honour for the day and they recovered well from the shock of him showing them his 'hidey hole' (ooh er Mrs) above the ledge where he slept in the bow which still contained a photograph and three 'Players' cigarettes. The day turned into a learning session for the crew as Uncle Albert started to move lines and sheets to the correct positions. With Uncle Albert on the tiller, and the now redundant crew relegated to sitting with us 'out from under his feet' and sipping champagne, we made our way with a full sail under the Humber Bridge. fantastic day out...the old boy refused to kick the bucket though!

£3.20....a pint? (Scooby Doo sound effects) Zoinks! Call me 'Foggy Dewhurst' but....£3.20 see thee!

Could I just second this praise of the brundallNavy? You see, there I was... pondering the damage to Royal Tudor and wondering if I could ever put her back to rights...if I'm really honest I was close to bawling & at my lowest ebb...when there was a knock at the stern door. There was Doug, popped in to see how I was doing. So on with the kettle and over a coffee he delivers sage advice, support and a whacking dose of confidence and practical help...just when it was needed most and in such a quiet and unassuming way. You see I've always known The Broads to be a special place...but what really makes it special are the people...people like Doug!

For those that use the Chrome Browser could I recommend the use of Adblock Plus as well. It's a nifty free plugin that stops the appearance of unwanted advertising on websites. Since installing it I've not been asked once if I fancy meeting a Russian lady!

I have heard tell...that when the wind howls and batters at the hatches of hire boats, and rain comes down in sheets glistening like mailed fishes a mysterious ghostly bearded figure can be seen wandering the streets of Oulton and haunting the occasional pub. Come dawn, while most are still a bed...flashes of white light herald the wake of a solitary Drascomb as it sails across the broad through the fingers of the early morning mist...the only evidence that it was ever there are photographs posted by JennyMorgan! Its all true I tell you!

Ah you see Keith I have given this some thought, tried an experiment and reached the following conclusion... The chocolate fire-guard does not allow any heat to be radiated into its surroundings, due to the daughter and two beagles providing a secondary guard as they try to devour the fire-guard before it melts!

I would add a small pair of long nosed pliers to the list of equipment to help in unhooking fish. I'd also take a look at this video and don't forget to wet your hands before handling a fish and wash your hands after handling a fish...above all...have fun!

My other half thinks that I have no common sense. If asked to cite her reasons she would probably point out that A) I am an academic (or nerd) and B ) I am a man. Although I would be the first to admit that once outside of my sphere of expertise I’m as much use as a chocolate fire-guard, I do have certain skills and proclivities...for example I do like to make sure I can find my posterior with both hands in any situation that I could find myself in. Having said that I’m about to leap off the deep end with regard to the renovation of Royal Tudor, but I am trying to research as much as I possibly can before I nail my fingers to the deck. This long preamble brings me to a question about ‘interior design’. You see I want to keep RT as close to a ‘period’ vessel as possible with only the occasional nod in the direction of modernity. As Royal Tudor was built in 1960 would I be right in assuming she would be fitted out with fabric, housewares etc from the 1950’s? if so could someone give me a nod in the right direction to do a spot of research? I have to say having Googled ‘50’s fabric designs’ I can now put some historical context to the space race. “Chhkk... Houston…” “Chhkk...Go ahead Apollo…” “Chhkk...Tell my wife...Chhkk...we can still see those living room curtains from up here...Chhk…”

I went and checked Mike, as one of the lads mates works on the dustcart. We have separate collection days for recycled, garden waste and landfill bins. It's just that the lorry that collects my rubbish parks up at the end of my road after emptying our blue recycle bins, while the crew have lunch, and then it drives around the corner and starts emptying black landfill bins with the same lorry and same crew. So far only the garden waste goes to be processed, even though we have Ecoplastics up the roads, when it's not on fire, it takes everybody else's rubbish but not our own. This won't be implemented until 2016 for some reason, but then our council is the one that lead the way in investment in Icelandic banks as well as building brand new head offices in one town five years before the head offices are to be moved to another town and don't get me started on misplacing a couple of million. The one thing I can say that they have got right is the local rubbish dump. Friendly service from lads that will come and help you empty your car and sort your garbage into the right skips without being asked. Now on Mike and Uncle Albert's side of the river...I was refused entry to the tip to dispose of some of uncle Albert's junk as I had 'writing on the side of the car'. Indeed I did, it said 'courtesy car'. I pointed out that the car in front had writing on it too 'Ford' and the one in front of that also had writing 'Volvo', and the one in front of that had 'Nissan' on it, all to no avail. In the end I remembered there were two skips outside the council offices in Scunthorpe so dropped off the crap in the foyer when I picked my car back up after it's service. Surprisingly the security guard at the council chuckled when I told him what I was doing and helped me put the junk in the skip. Top bloke!

I know I should be concerned about global warming, melting ice caps, alternative power sources and the like. Two weeks ago I tried to be more ecofriendly and went to all the trouble of washing out the empty bean tins etc and putting them in the recycle bin, only to watch the recycled waste from my street collected by the dustcart which then went on to tip the rubbish from the non recyclable bins in the next street into the same dustcart and take the lot to landfill. It was at that point I realised how much water I had used washing out the garbage, how much time I had wasted...and promptly shaved off my three week ecofriendly, otherhalfunfriendly, stubble and turned off the repeat of the Great Crested Lisping Tit on Spring-watch. Reading the latest guff from Brussels I realised that at my time of life...I just need to get the Beagle Hair off the sofa!

Now Gracie...Royal Tudor has been tweeting for a while and is working on her own website! Definitely a silver surfer.

That would be fantastic Nigel, PM sent. In the meantime I'm wading through notes on a conference on the Geoarchaeology of River Valleys at the University of Ghent held in 2006. At first glance, and without checking some of the detail, it seems to poke some large holes into the Great Estuary theory postulated by Brian Coles' 1977 Ph.D. thesis.

I didn't realise that Mike! I will be keeping my eyes skinned for the Vulcan again though come Wednesday.

On the BBC today...The future of Broadland Bachelor Party Boat Crew attire. The facekini? THE FACEKINI? We were getting used to the mankini becoming a regular feature of the bachelor party boat crew, with deflated wearers of said garment now greeted with the 'how original we've not seen that before, no honestly' eye roll . But I can see in the future the mankini/facekini combo. Anyone remember Kendo Nagasaki from the Saturday Evening Wrestling on ITV? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-china-blog-28803400