TheQ

it's enought to say In the Hitchhikers Guide to the galaxy triolgy, there are Five books

like ... A square meal, Naval expression, square plates that fitted into square boxes on a table to stop your meal sliding about. Brass monkeys, Naval expression, a Powder Monkey was the boy who fetched the gunpowder for cannon, a wooden monkey was a bit of wood the held cannon balls from srolling around, When they introduced brass monkeys to replace the wooden ones the temperature differential on different metals still allowed the cannon balls to escape sometimes. A balls up, Sailing , when a ship runs aground, it's supposed to haul 3 balls up in a verticle line to signify you are aground. A Cock up, you have the cock feather ( the longer one) on your arrow in the wrong place on your bow. Sleep tight, old time beds used rope strung between the frames, if the rope got loose, you rolled into the middle, tightening the rope reduced this. Chance your arm, military, take a risk that might mean you lose your stripes, Cold shoulder, to give a visitor a cold cut of meat instead of a hot meal. Flash in the pan, your musket power just went flash in the pan leading to the charge, the charge didn't ignite.

I can see the markings, unfortunately the design and shape of the round abouts is stupid, Why do they have 3 concentric rings of markings when there are only at most 2 lanes of traffic joining or leaving. The roundabouts themselves have very sharp entries and exits compared to most modern or even older roundabouts, the exits have very short merge areas when you have two lanes of the roundabout heading to the exit.

This mornings Lead Item on radio Norfolk Morning discussion programme.. The stupid design of the roundabouts on the NDR, One of the reasons for no lights on the round abouts, Enviromental it's classed as a " dark area" Alongside the Norwich airport with thousands of cars trundeling up and down with head light on?

They'd need to blow up the roundabouts first...

Years ago there was a little more snow...

Me, i believe in Milankovitch cycles Which now predict, I believe, we have now started a 30 cooling period. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles

From the EDP, Not quite the NDR but close, The A1150 North Walsham road Between Allens road and White Woman Lane will be closed for resurfacing from 9am to 4pm from the 12th of March for two weeks. That's the Coltishall road from the last road junction before the rugby club most of the way towards Norwich at the round about at Mile cross lane on the "old ring road" Also there is an extra set of traffic lights just North of the NDR Wroxham road roundabout, before the Rackheath turning and about a mile on towards Wroxham some cones round a hole in the tarmac.

Both Hickling Broad, and Horning Sailing clubs have web cams. Hickling club watch their end of the broad, their events start 18th March, Hornings cams watch both up and down river, as well as watching normal river traffic, on any Sunday throughout the year you can see either Horning or Snowflake sailing club action. The other 4 web cams on HSCs Site are only active during the 3 rivers race. Things to watch, SFSC sail from 10:45 to about 15:00 on a Sunday (their season finishes in about three weeks) HSC sail from 09:45 to about 16:00. on a Sunday (their season starts on the 25th March, for the following 6 months.) HSC also has the Sail training school from Thursday 3rd May, in the evenings. HSC has Laser radio control sailing on Wednesdays. HSC have a lot of events on Saturdays as well, incuding the 3 Rivers race 2nd and 3rd of June, and Regatta week 29th July to the 3rd of August this year. All three clubs programmes are available on the net.. I've also seen otters, seals!!! and Kingfishers at HSC

They've now cancelled tomorrow's show in Beccles.

Go down to great Yarmouth the council have the JCB out.... To clear the sand blown into town

It's definitely not nice up there I've just been viewing videos sent by my niece 14 miles from Edinburgh. But it's not much better here. On the minor road I live on we have 3ft snow drifts and it's blowing a hoolie at the moment. I've put in a days leave for tomorrow...

Years ago I started using Maplins when they were a family business down near Southend, you replied to an advert in a electronics magazine and they sent you a catagloue with a free sci fi poster inside and pictures of All the staff printed inside the front cover. Then they expanded like mad, generally went down hill and put their prices up. Did Norwich really need two shops?. Maplins also killed off a lot of local electronics shops, there used to be one on St Benedicts Street I used to use. Years ago I used to use a catalogue from " The Woodscrew Supply Company" a couple of men in a shed near Yeovil , they expanded like mad, for a while they went a bit rubbish, but sorted themselves out after a while, they are now Called......Screwfix... RS used to have an Amateur supplies branch called I think Doram, which they sold off and it sank with out trace. They, RS, then refused to supply private buyers. Farnell (Now known as "Farnell Element 14" for some reason) also did not supply Private Buyers. These days RS and Farnell or anyone else will supply anyone with a credit card so the top end of the electronics has been taken from Maplins, then you can Buy almost any Identical parts from Ebay or Amazon for half the price or less, so they have taken the bottom of the market. Leaving Maplins with nothing much in the middle.

I've got blue snow on the Landrover, the blue windscreen washer liquid froze after staining the snow..

Hmmm, looking at the cossh report Wet and forget looks as bad for the enviroment as the Patio maigic I suggested and got an ear bashing for. wet and forget http://complyplus.grainger.com/grainger/msds.asp?sheetid=3809640 patio magic http://www.whelehangardening.ie/_fileupload/341990 4010340 Patio Magic 2_5l.pdf I think I might take my fenders off and clean them with patio magic at home though

Snowflake sailing club's event a couple of days ago made the EDP Here...http://www.edp24.co.uk/sport/snowflakes-sailing-club-enjoy-an-excellent-day-s-racing-in-len-ramuz-s-memory-1-5413387

I see the EDP reports plans for 30 flats and a dozen bungalows on the abbatoir site in Stalham. With all the houses and flats being built in Stalham they'll need a bigger Tescos... oh..... they can't, they are building 30 flats and 12 houses on the site...

I'd wait till it's cooled down a bit, maybe June...

The Trowse bridge is comparitively new being built in 86-87, did that ever have replaceable rails? it also has a nominal clearance of 9ft, Sadly I do think one day Trowse Bridge will be replaced by a fixed bridge, It's approximately 2000ft from Trowse station (end of platforms) to the Trowse Bridge, 1 in 200 is not unusual on British railways so the best they could gain would be about 10ft of height for a fixed bridge. This would however require rebuilding the Trowse triangle and the Crown point depot which would not be cheap. Reedham bridge itself could be replaced with a much higher bridge, it would probably require road over bridges to become road under bridges. I suspect 20ft clearance would allow all most all traffic through except the odd yacht that would have to drop it's mast. Would a 20ft clearance be acceptable? Yes commercial ships to Norwich would be stopped but they haven't run for years. so it would only be yachts that would have to drop their masts I suspect that the costs for both would be huge, So I think Reedham is unlikely to change. The southern bypass, is listed as nominal 35ft clearance, there aren't many boats that would have trouble with that.

Just a bump for the first Show on the list, for the Multi-scale Narrow Gauge Railway Modelling Group which is planned to be at Beccles on Saturday still appears to be on. The following week is the NRS show which used to be in Norwich but not is as below, Broadland MRC will have a layout at the show.

err I did Err I did notice the snow lying on the river at Wayford bridge so not all the rivers are open, as sections of the Ant are iced up...

Well I've driven in from the Coast of Norfolk to work in Norwich, I didn't see any tarmac, overtaking BMWs with their wide wheel spinning on a slight slope is most satisfying. I was driving my 34year old LandRover 110 (which has additional limited slip differentials)at 20 to 30 mph, more to the point on All terrain Mud and Snow rated tyres.. They did send a plough on the front of a tractor down my road last night.... not to clear snow just to clear the mud, they were dragging sugar beet out of the mud till 21:00 last night... According to the radio South / South west of Norwich is basically a No go

958 trains cancelled, no trains from Norwich to Sheringham, Gt Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Trains from Kings Lynn to Kings Cross cancelled, Leading to increased traffic on the roads, many of which are now at a stand still. I'm Glad I came in at 06:00 with few problems 40 Schools closed. and we have.... about an inch and a half of snow...

Today being sailing day it was off down to the sailing club, flags up, buoys out, bacon butties had. Then I went out to the buoys again.. Today is the Ramuz trophy and Hong Kong trophy. Back in the 1970s the race was from the club to the Ramuz's house on South Walsham Broad, for the Ramuz Trophy stop for tea and coffee and the return for the Hong Kong. We've run the race either as a down river or up river to somewhere else for some years, but today due to the high winds and freezing temperatures it was decided to use an extended buoy course. So my second trip out was reposition buoys after a discussion with the Officer of the day, assistant officer of the day ( me) and the competitors. So buoy 4 was beyond Dydlers mill, and buoy 1 by the New Inn. Ramus Trophy race course 1p,2p, 4p. Sunny clocked all day, Wind Easterly, b****y cold, tide going out for the first race and in for the second ( as planned for a down river race). All boats started together, sadly only 4 Yeoman started, we of course, we're officiating, one crew came down realized it was a long race, and since the helmsman was in his 80s, and has had heart operations that was not a suprise when they withdrew. I guess others did not turn up looking at the weather conditions. We did have a good fleet of dinghies. I then occupied a rescue boat for a further 1 3/4 hours, during the race a couple of dingies fell over but sorted themselves out before I got there. The race was won by a Yeoman, then there were 2 lasers before the next Yeoman. After lunch, race two was down to 6 dinghies, so I moved buoy 4 back to its normal position at Black Horse broad, I had just managed that when the dinghies came round the bend. After another hour and a half on the river, you could feel the air temperature drop at about half two, I collected buoys, packed up the rescue boat, to find the bilge pump area still frozen with ice. After getting home after about 5 hours in a frozen boat, it was a long soak in the bath, very long, I fell asleep!!

The EDp has changed It's story, and Included drawings... http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/politics/expansion-plans-at-roys-of-wroxham-to-include-cafe-restaurant-plus-more-car-parking-spaces-approved-by-north-norfolk-councillors-1-5404980