Mouldy

So, what’s new?

Helen! Go on, liberate a few pounds and treat yourself to a go in Xscape! I’ll make the journey from Norfolk to watch! 😉 I can’t really say too much though. Never been on skis in my life!

Humph! If I live to be 75, I’ll be grateful to still be able to walk, never mind ski! 🤦‍♂️

Life jackets aren’t fixed to the boat, so aren’t part of the BSS. If you have self inflating ones, they should be of adequate size to hold up your weight, fit correctly and ideally have a crotch strap, although some don’t. There is a ‘use by’ date on the gas canister (similar to those used in a soda siphon) that inflates the jacket when either immersed or the ‘ripcord’ is pulled. If the life jacket hasn’t been deployed, yet the canister is out of date, it and the actuator should be replaced. The jackets aren’t (as far as I know) dated, but should be replaced if damaged, but are repack-able if deployed, with a replacement gas canister and actuator. Ours are Seago branded, although others are available.

I wouldn’t wild moor on The Yare. As for The Chet, it’s too bloody narrow for most of its length and getting narrower as time passes. I’ve certainly noticed a difference over the past six years. In some places now, I doubt two craft could safely pass, the channel has become so narrow. We usually moor at Pyes Mill. We tried Chedgrave Common once, but a group of teenagers arrived with a picnic (largely alcoholic) and started having a party, accompanied by some loud music, so being grumpy old farts, we moved on! Personally, the traffic is so light on the southern rivers now that none of the BA moorings get really busy for the majority of the time, with one or two notable exceptions, those being Reedham and Bramerton when the Brundall Navy set sail.

Hmmm. I can’t help thinking that Greta will have more success shoving an elephant up the stairs than she will with trying to convince the five top polluting nations in the world that they need to reduce their emissions- China, USA, Russia, India and Japan. Somehow I can’t see the American police or the Russians taking bottles of water to climate protesters who glue themselves to the roads. Their version of sympathy would be a little less sensitive!

Have to agree with what you say about cars. My last ŠKODA, a 2 litre petrol vRS, had an issue at around 60k miles with the inlet manifold, which was made of plastic. It had worn around the fuel butterflies, consequently not functioning correctly, necessitating a repair costing in excess of £800 in 2015. About three weeks after buying my current car, some kind person left me with a broken radiator grill in a car park, whilst it was parked and unattended. Needless to say, I was not best pleased, but grateful that the damage appeared relatively minor. I contacted my local dealer to order a new grill, to be told that they were only supplied with the front bumper, cost including painting but not fitting, was over £900 (in 2017). Fortunately, I managed to get a grill from eBay and a friend who owns a body shop in Northampton took the bumper off (no mean feat in itself), carefully cut away the plastic welds holding the grill to the bumper and re-plastic weld the new one in place, total cost to me was £250. This isn’t a new thing though. Back in the 1990’s, I had a Ford Sierra Sapphire. At around three years old the rear silencer developed a hole. I tried the usual exhaust replacement specialists and was told that at the time, they weren’t available as aftermarket parts and had to be supplied by Ford. Off to the local Ford agents I went, but was horrified to be told that I’d need to replace the whole system, from the manifold back - the reason was that the original exhaust was manufactured in one piece and fitted before the rear axle was at the factory, so it was impossible just to replace the rear section. Bearing in mind that it was a Ford, it wasn’t cheap either. I seem to recall that I was relieved of around £130 for the exhaust, which was a fair chunk of money in the early 90’s (to me).

Personally, I’d like to see a reduction in the building and development around where I now live and around several other Norfolk towns until such time as the infrastructure is updated to accommodate the increase in local population. Yes, we have moved to the county, but our bungalow was built over 35 years ago and we have simply replaced the two people who originally lived here, so no nett increase. Our doctor’s surgery is overwhelmed, getting a dentist is virtually impossible, barely a week goes by without Anglian Water digging up the roads to repair a system that is not fit for purpose and suffering from under investment to modernise. As far as The Broads is concerned, I resent navigation funds being used to further NP aspirations. I do not see that more ranger patrols will promote safety generally, although they may help in busy areas to educate and protect kayakers and paddle boarders who contribute nothing financially to the BA’s coffers, most of whom are licenced by their own organisations. Our property is small - just a 2/3 bedroom bungalow on a small development about a mile and a half from the nearest town. It’s nothing special to look at and we bought it in a very dilapidated state. It was liveable, but only just. The day we moved in, my wife started to put things in a kitchen cupboard and it promptly fell off the wall! We have spent a small fortune on the place, updating everything from the gas boiler, the kitchen, bathroom, even the internal doors and garden, which was extremely overgrown and uncared for. Yes, I’m lucky, I’m retired, having spent 48 years at work since leaving school, the vast majority in the logistics industry working long, antisocial hours. I consider my position now to be one I have earned, not to which I am automatically entitled. Just as a footnote, I lived in north west London until I was 21 and had to move away to be able to afford to buy a house. Like you, there is no way that I could afford to return to live in the area of my birth and childhood, even if I wanted to. It’s just how things are.

Andrew, as a nation, the UK contributes about 1% of global emissions in total. Changing from gas to electric for cooking on boats on The Broads would have no effect in real terms. The fact is that to power electric cookers would probably entail using a generator anyway. Much is being made of becoming carbon neutral in this country, but who will tell the Chinese, whose emissions represent about 28% of the total produced (amongst others) that they will have to reduce their output of greenhouse gasses, when their whole economy is based around a manufacturing industry that makes so many of the things that we buy.

Oooh! That hurt. As an incoming suburban retiree, I resent that generalisation. I keep my boat on The Broads, spend quite a lot of my money on maintenance at a Broadland marina, spend money at Broadland businesses when onboard, whether in shops or pubs. Since moving here, we’ve spent multiple thousands of pounds with local businesses refurbishing our home. Ive been coming to The Broads for over 50 years and it was a long held ambition to move to the county when I retired. I remain extremely grateful that I will spend the remainder of my life in a county in which I feel so very comfortable and am proud to call my home.

Mmmm! Good point. But I’m quite enjoying living like a normal person after too many years of working shifts, including fourteen years of nights, long hours and starting work at times that don’t feature on a lot of people’s clocks.

Make the most of it at this time of the year, sunrises are a tad early during the summer months. 😉

Without a doubt. We need 8’3” to clear Ludham and looking at the river levels since the end of October, when the first of the storms hit, I’d guess that we’d have had few (if any)opportunities to navigate under the bridge since. Something needs to be done - I’m not entirely convinced that global warming is the reason behind rising river levels on the northern rivers in particular. There must be something else influencing the change, whether it is a lack of dredging, more water run off from streams and rivers running into the Broadland waterways or something else. I don’t have the local knowledge to say with any authority, merely to speculate, but I think the lads at Richos will have a busy season at the bridge if levels don’t recede soon.

Simon, we sometimes struggle to get under Ludham! I think the rudder would be digging in the mud before we had enough ballast to negotiate Potter! The last time we went under ‘that bridge’ was around 2006, when we hired Grenada Girl from Summercraft.

We have a similar set up on NL. The container looks like a Tupperware box, but I know it isn’t, with a float switch and pump mounted inside. The shower drains into the box and water is then pumped out through a fitting on the starboard side. Our galley sink and basin in the heads both drain through fittings above the waterline on the port side, marked in the photo.

There appears to be no reward for loyalty now. My RAC renewal came in at the end of November and it took a phone call to negotiate the price down to something more acceptable. Our mobile phone contracts were coming to an end and we’ve saved a fortune by buying new phones direct from Apple and getting discounted SIM only deals from EE, who provide our full fibre broadband and not accepting the deal offered. And don’t start me on actually getting through to speak to a human being. Automated answering, selecting multiple options to eventually get through to someone who can help is so frustrating and the music they choose to play whilst you’re waiting usually drives me to distraction. My most recent experience being with Halfords, whose Tyres on the Drive operative succeeded in damaging two of the alloys on my wife’s car whilst fitting new two new tyres. Twenty minutes listening to inane ‘muzak’ to speak to someone in South Africa, who lacks any degree of empathy, is not what I call customer service! Grrrrrrrrr! 😡

There is too much speculation that the cause of the fire was hushed up. With the promotion of EV’s as ‘the future’ open admission that they aren’t dangerous when they do catch fire could be damaging to the industry. Looking at some of the videos and explanations on line, there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that it was a hybrid. The explosion that caused much of the damage seemed far more violent than one would imagine from a diesel vehicle. Although diesel combusts, it is far less combustible than petrol. There are a great many rules and regulations abut the safety of lithium batteries. Try sending them by post and see the hoops that have to be negotiated before they can be sent. There are special boxes that are recommended for storing batteries for drones and camera, such is the volatility of the materials they contain, yet they are deemed safe in a vehicle that can be involved in an accident. I’m afraid that I remain suspicious of their safety in vehicles and of the cause of this incident. The current storm of publicity in the news about another ‘cover up’ should be proof that the truth is often withheld.

I thought that.

Watch home contents go up soon due to the amount of flooding there has been recently. They’re in business to make a profit, don’t you know! The issue with the fire in the car park at Luton was caused by an electric vehicle setting itself alight. Obviously, with more and more electric cars now on the roads, the chances of more frequent incidents involving fires of EV’s is increasing. While ICE cars catch alight more frequently, they’re easier to extinguish than fires involving the batteries in electric vehicles.

They must have something against ageing ŠKODA drivers living in rural Norfolk then!

Richard Digance explains it quite well in verse 4: https://youtu.be/x4oiX7yrdDA?si=iJ1TD3khr5FMvtF3

Hmmmmm! My insurance renewal came in a few days ago. We have a Multicar policy, which includes the buildings insurance for our bungalow (but not the contents). The cost last year was £961 and the renewal came in at £1285, an increase of more than 33%. I drive a seven year old ŠKODA Octavia vRS TDi and the wife has a three year old Kia Sportage AWD, neither being prestigious or of a particularly high value. Hearing that there’s been significant increases in insurance rates, due in part to the fire at a multi-storey car park in Luton that resulted in about 1500 vehicles being written off, I’d already made some enquiries with other insurers, as well as a couple of the comparison sites. Frankly, no one was cheap, one company who has a talkative dog as their advertising mascot quoting me almost £800 for my car alone, so I phoned our current insurers and negotiated the cost down to £1202 for both cars and the bungalow. Cant say that I’m happy, but judging by some of the quotes I had, there’s not much to be gained by looking elsewhere. 🤨

I haven’t ever met Ian, only knew him through this Forum. I’m so sorry to hear of his passing, so soon after he’d achieved his ambitions of moving to Norfolk. Heartfelt condolences to his family. Thoughts and prayers are with you at this sad time.

Paul sent our Eberspacher to Panks in Norwich, if my memory serves me correctly. It was certainly nowhere near £900, even with Paul’s time to remove and refit the unit. I think that if our heater became too expensive to repair, I’d be tempted to fit an Autoterm heater. If they’re good enough for Griff, they’re good enough for me!😁

Isn’t it strange how nothing seems to stick to Teflon, but it is able to adhere to so many surfaces, including people?