LizG

I think a lot of the older residents of Horning rely on the PO - with all the banks going in Hoveton it is the only place to withdrawn cash locally (apart from Wroxham PO that is). I also have found it very useful in Horning when staying there but here is a point - when the Sailing Club would only accept cash, I would run out of cash during Horning Week - now they have a card reader and the need for cash is eliminated. However, I do still use my local post offices (note plural) to post parcels (selling stuff on eBay) but it is cheaper to buy on line and drop it off. There is a need for Post Offices but their roles are changing.

Lazy jibs are lazy! Ideal for solo sailing but a p*g in light airs. Crewing my brother in Mayfly I would stand at the bows and back it to pull the boat around on a tack. Strong winds that isn't a problem though on this boat!

It's reported as Wood Rose which according to their website doesn't have an engine fitted

There is a little bit more detail on the Hunter's Yard FB page

No doubt I have told this tale before but back in the later 1960's father decided to have nav lights installed on WR and had this jolly idea of crossing Breydon Water in the dark or at least dusk! This we did with no problems that I recall............we then went through Yarmouth and as we proceeded up the Bure hit a blanket of fog! We couldn't see anything and of course there were no safe moorings. We just had to somehow keep going! I know we knocked a boat around 5 or 6 mile house and finally we got to Stracey Arms where we just threw the mud weights into the reeds on the other side of the moorings, creeping over to the other side at dawn. Mother never let father try that one on again!

Eager beaver

The race would have been in the morning usually starting from just past the Ferry depending on the wind strength. There were quite a few boats according to HSCs social media outlets Got married in Horning church and both my parents' ashes are there (on the other side of the church overlooking Ranworth). Good place to see Swallowtail butterflies - they come up from the marshes Liz

We drove back from Norwich today and we're very relieved we weren't driving in the opposite direction

I would say the Bure Valley Railway?

It was a strange time - working as a receptionist in an opticians we became aware of something not being right quite early and were taking precautions long before any lock down rules came into force. I used to hate it when patients leaned over the counter and I note the perspex screen is still in place! I was trying to finish off some NHS submissions on the Monday and my colleague was searching on the internet about loss of taste as he had had no taste over the weekend - he went home immediately! He had just come back from Cheltenham! Other colleagues were off sick - ill with coughs and some had been ill several weeks before. In the August a lot of them had blood tests to see whether they had antibodies - a 1/3rd of the workforce did, some didn't know they had had Covid, others almost certainly did have it but no antibodies. I was furloughed and quite liked not having to work, I spent most days walking my local paths recording butterflies - thankfully it was so sunny and dry unlike this spring! A friend's mother died just before lock down but by the time of the funeral there were she and her husband attending. A good friend died in April and there were just 10 of us at the funeral. A neighbour (we live in a cul-de-sac of 14 houses) who's husband was in a care home died of Covid. Our immediate neighbours ignored the rules and then they went abroad (for work) whilst leaving the house to have major very noisy building works completed! Then just before her birthday, my middle daughter (who lived nearby) was diagnosed as having leukemia and was rushed into hospital in London! She started chemo within 36 hours of the blood test. On her birthday, we drove up to London to take a birthday cake and a load of things for her. We left them with a nurse at the hospital doors and then looked up to the 13th floor - we could see her through binoculars and waved. That was so painful. Thankfully she made a full recovery, she was one of the lucky ones. Sarah would come to live with us between treatments, so we had to isolate for 2 weeks before she was due home, we couldn't catch anything! So although the majority of my colleagues were back at work, I didn't go back to mid October. I lasted until May when I retired - it was so hard, with all the restrictions and rules and cleaning, it was never the same! They say that a lot of people lost their sight during lock down because they wouldn't call an optician - we provided an emergency service throughout, the practice was open (doors physically locked) even during the highest restrictions! What else - it was a contributory factor in both my other daughters' marriage break ups, contributory not cause!

It was windy?

When nearly all the planes stopped flying into Stansted I suddenly realised I could hear the Sky Larks

Allowing dogs into a pub is probably a financially good thing but in a way allowing dogs in a pub is like allowing children in a pub! Some love them some don't! An example of a pub being dog friendly occurred some weeks back in a pub just outside Norwich where we took my 95 year old and relatively frail mother in law. We were just finishing and about to leave when a couple arrived in the adjacent area of tables and then some friends arrived with a VERY large dog. I overhead the other friends saying something like I see they have brought the beast along! The tables were quite close and one of the first things the dog did was look around and sniff out people including mother in law - who it licked. If she had been standing up, it would have almost certainly knocked her over. This was not a good example of allowing a dog into a pub!

That one is one of the best with Water Rail featuring as B77 in the still!

My husband found that out last night. They told him they had been busy so he went to the New Inn where they had one!!!!

They are in Horning - not lost thankfully, but I found I did have a scan of me on my first holiday - Admiral III (not positive about the number but will never forget the boat!) My father was introduced to the Broads in around the 1930s when his father took him on holiday - there are photos of them on a Sabrina, but later photos with my mother on something a bit smaller! After the war they then started to hire motor cruisers and the Admirals were my first two holidays.

Likewise with your trip and CeePee's - I was thinking I've been there.

There are photos but I don't have them...

I need to find a photo from my first trip in 1956 - look at my avatar that's another later trip?

It was a baby Angel of the North but still by Antony Gormley!! There were lots of sculptures along a pedestrian street in Adelaide!! As to Canberra's three trains a day.....it's not a busy /big city and most people fly there?

Day 19 to going home Until now apart from our drive along the Great Ocean Road when it rained the weather had been lovely but on our last whole day the forecast was extremely iffy! We set off for the Blue Mountains with fingers crossed and we were remarkably lucky until our drive back to the hotel when it did eventually rain! Our first stop was Windsor which had a nice old town and then as we went into the mountains we stopped at the Blue Mountains Botanic Gardens at Mount Tomah, which were very pleasant and we also saw and heard a Kookaburra. We stopped for lunch in Lithgow which was a coal mining town and then went to Katoomba and found Scenic World – we didn’t have much time but we managed to fit in the three rides with spectacular views of the canyon. Throughout the journey we were following the railway line and if we had had longer that would have been on my to do list! On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a Woolworths and bought supplies of Vegemite and Tim Tams for the daughters to enjoy! So we had come to the end of our holiday, we drove to the airport via Botany Bay to see where Captain Cook had landed and then dropped off the hire car. At the airport we walked to the gate expecting to see our plane already there but………..no it wasn’t and it wouldn’t appear for another two hours – they were checking a potential fault and the plane was on the other side of the runway and we eventually left two hours late! Sydney Airport goes down as far as I am concerned as one of the worst airports to be stuck at. The WiFi wouldn’t connect and the food and drink selection very poor and the beer terribly expensive! We stopped off briefly in Singapore and got back to Heathrow where our youngest daughter came to collect us – it was 3 degrees centigrade in London and very unwelcoming! A few days later our youngest daughter told us she had a new job – in NEW ZEALAND!!! We hadn’t planned to have two holidays in one year but that tale is for another day! THE END!

Day 18 The next day we continued our drive to Sydney and the coast, driving through some spectacular scenery - we drove past a giant concrete sheep at Goulburn and then down a really steep hill to the coast at Wollangong at which point we started seeing missed calls from home – considering this was in the middle of the night there, we started to get a bit worried. It transpired they weren’t emergencies although one had potential; just my phone got called instead of someone in England! From Wollangong we made our way to Bondi Beach so we could say we had been there but the parking charges were so high we only stopped for about 20 minutes to buy some lifeguard swimming trunks for our grandson. We then hit the Sydney rush hour traffic and having been absolutely determined to not drive on a toll road as we hadn’t set up payment for the hire car, in the midst of all the traffic, I found I had gone down the wrong turning and yes we were on a toll road!!!! Although in retrospect it did save us about an hour’s driving and we later managed to sort out the payment before the hire car company sent us a bill with fees added. We were staying at Blackdown and next to the hotel was the Royal Cricketers Arms pub!

Day 16 & 17 We have now reached Day 16 which was Albury to Canberra which involved driving through lots of small towns with really difficult names to pronounce let alone write but one was Wagga Wagga where we stopped for some lunch near the Murrumbidgee River! We stopped at the Dog on the Tucker Box memorial and drove on into Canberra. Canberra is surrounded by several distinct hills and we drove up Black Mountain to check out the view! The next morning we decided it was easier to get an Uber into the city rather than try and find somewhere to buy a bus pass and we were dropped by the Parliament Buildings. It wasn’t necessary to book a tour so we were able to just walk around the building, including visiting the Parliament and Senate. We then visited the old Parliament building which is now a museum and then walked around the large lake that splits the city in two. Canberra is strange place there are almost no tall buildings let alone skyscrapers or old buildings for that matter, there is also very little public transport other than buses – just a few new tram routes so there are just loads of carparks! It was quite difficult to find any bars that were open but we did eventually! It should be noted that despite being the capital of Australia, the station has just one platform and just 3 trains a day!

Day 15 In the morning we set off with the intention of finding somewhere for breakfast (the hotel’s was too expensive) which we did in Yea, and then onto Murchison where in 1969 a meteor had landed! Violet Town station was the site of the Southern Aurora train crash also in 1969 which was caused by one of the drivers suffering a heart attack – thankfully although the photos look horrendous only 9 people died – it could have been a lot worse? We stopped in Glenrowan, where Ned Kelly was captured and there is a huge monument to him – the town was a ‘bit touristy’ with every shop selling something to do with Ned Kelly. The highlight was Chiltern, a town where time had stood still, and lots of interesting shops (although most of them were closed). Our destination was Albury, a town we were told was really nice………..which the River Murray passed through. The hotel was large but apparently the restaurant was closed on Mondays, and this was Monday and most of all the other bars and restaurants were also closed on Mondays! We did find a bar which was open as well as doing food – not the most inviting of towns (on a Monday anyway)!

Day 13 & 14 Having packed up, completed all the washing that needed to be done, we called an Uber to take us to a Car Rental Office where we picked up our first and only hire car for the holiday. The plan was to drive along the Great Ocean Road and then make our way back to a small town called Little River! Well the Adelaide heat wave had broken and the weather system hit the coast that day and it rained and was windy, so the drive was rather disappointing! Despite the weather all the carparks were busy and one could imagine that if it had been sunny the tourist hotspots along the coast would have been unbearable. Our daughter had done the same route some years ago on a coach and maybe in retrospect that would have been better? Driving back into the hills, it was as it we were in a rain forest with ferns and mist. Once over the hills the weather improved, we found Little River where we were staying in a B&B next to a pub – probably the only pub for miles and it really was in the middle of nowhere. In a garden there was a large boat which the owner had been building for about 25 years – how it was ever going to get to any water, one wonders. The B&B was quite quirky with a do it yourself breakfast – as we arrived the night before a large parrot/cockatoo roost had turned up, it was extremely noisy and there were 100s of birds. Our clean hire car was no longer clean in the morning!!! We drove up into the Yarra Valley and stopped at the Healesville Wildlife Sanctuary – it was a Sunday and very busy with families but very interesting. The highlight was the Tasmanian Devils’ feeding time – not for the faint hearted. We heard how many of these marsupials are dying as a result of a fungal disease which is transferred by eating the same ‘joint of meat’ and effects their mouths so they can’t eat and they die – a lot of research is going on to find a cure. As we left Healesville, we found a nice little preserved railway line and watched the last train of the day leave and then we drove off to our next hotel. This was in an upmarket vineyard with the most fabulous views, some pretty nice wine and some very expensive food if you wanted – we went for a light bite of a cheese platter which wasn’t quite so expensive!