SwanR

Hmmm ... Muse ... that is acceptable on this occasion ... but don't make a habit of it!! I nearly sent you The Osmonds Down By The Lazy River ... but I thought that really would be showing my age.

Beautiful photo Jay.

Ok ... might need to do something about your musical tastes there Jay. How about a bit of Feeling Good famously covered by Michael Buble and originally written by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse. Birds flying high You know how I feel Sun in the sky You know how I feel Breeze driftin' on by You know how I feel It's a new dawn It's a new day It's a new life For me And I'm feeling good We might just need to compile you a list of suitable songs.

What's that? Something about someone being back? Not quite sure if I heard you from here.

We like to use a double sleeping bag and hot water bottles for boating out of season. That ensures that someone doesn't pinch all the covers and leave someone else getting cold!

Lovely to see your photos and to have a holiday tale to read so you ramble on as much as you like David. I have a few extra days off work and plenty of time to be reminded of what I'm missing.

Or add the sender to your blocked list. At that point you will see the address that the email has come from.

We had an email the other day purporting to be from the TV Licensing people. Checked the account online and it is fully paid up. You can't stress enough how careful you need to be with links in emails ... just never click them basically! Scammers are very good at making their emails look authentic.

Welcome Ghostwriter. Hope you’ve had a good Christmas and that we can get to know more about you in 2019.

Is there no end to your talents Helen? Maybe I missed that little nugget about playing the organ. How wonderful and how special. Merry Christmas to you and yours.

It's a turkey crown for us as well ... already stuffed so that saves me trying to find time and room to cook stuffing separately. I've got a piece of gammon to cook as well for sandwiches and to go with the cold turkey on Boxing Day. Our cold meats will be with salad and mashed potato ... and for me HP Fruity Sauce.

Thanks Jay, I thoroughly enjoyed that. Interesting to see the clouds racing along with you. And I liked the music as well. Very atmospheric.

Jay I went to watch your video and it's unavailable ... any chance of putting it back or did it need censoring?!

What a great write up and reflection on 2018 in terms of what has happened in your own life and the things that are important to you Ian. If I was to do the same then ... A long weekend in Edinburgh in April was followed by so many amazing weekends at our caravan as the hot summer continued until we closed it up in early November. In fact we part exchanged our little van for a newer slightly larger one in October so we're looking forward to the next spring and summer to make the most of that. Our only time afloat was a day boat this year but we have a few days already booked in March. Work has been ever-changing and there's more restructuring ahead so I'm not done yet with trying to achieve the impossible. But my garden gave me hours of relaxation as well - I enjoyed coming home and watering the plants through the long hot evenings and pruning the roses that seemed to thrive and do better than ever. In the meantime I count my blessings every day. Thinking of Grace and her family given how poorly her dad was. And Alan facing Christmas without Tan. I might not have met anyone in person yet but it does feel like a very supportive group that we have here so my thoughts are also with anyone who has lost someone close to them. Here's a few photos to sum up my year.

Welcome to the forum Mike! I'm looking forward to hearing more of your own tales and experience that I'm sure you have.

Well the webcam at BB seems to have now gone supersized!! It fills the full width of your browser screen. And for any afficionados of simply watching boats of all kinds, the webcam on HMS Warrior now seems to have come back online after a long while of being unavailable. It's now in full colour day and night ... wonderful pictures of the comings and goings at the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour. I do enjoy watching this one ... and you can also make this full screen. http://www.hmswarrior.org/webcam

Um ... did you say you were off to work Jay? Seems you can get yourself into all sorts of trouble no matter where you are then!

Ah but I found my Prince Charming over 37 years ago ... who needs shoes ... just a few glasses of wine and a Spanish holiday!

It's great to be another year on and still see the forum as alive as ever, full of interesting debate and good friendship. Three sleeps to go so have a lovely Christmas everyone, safe travels to anyone yet to journey to their Christmas destination and happy cruising to those folk lucky enough to be afloat.

Ok so I think I currently have maybe four pairs of shoes, two handbags and I've run out of perfume!!

My office is also open on Monday. Hoping that we can send everyone home about 1pm but it will depend on whether we still have any calls coming in or whether any of my team are on remote support in the middle of fixing things for customers.

Very interesting Robin. I shall come back to the video later ... certainly sounds as if buying anything is done in a certain way when it's you! I'm sure that when you finally buy a house or property of some sort, in the words of Phil Spencer, there will be "a deal to be done!" Enjoy the car. :)

I'm a big fan of Strictly as well. And those "celebrities" that you've never heard of in August feel like old friends by the time the final comes around. I had been rooting for Stacey and Kevin for quite a while. But given that it's a dance competition I couldn't deny that Ashley and Faye were clearly in a league above Stacey and Joe in the final. So my votes went to Faye last night. Having said that, Kevin must be an incredible teacher to keep getting his partners to the final. So I was very glad to see him win at last. But really I have to say that I think that the singers and the band are the unsung heroes of this programme. They rarely get a mention and you rarely see them interviewed anywhere. But without them this programme wouldn't be anywhere near as good as it is.

Are you safely back home now Jay? Seeing the photos of the rivers around Brundall today, you must be glad you got Moonlight Shadow back in its berth.

Robin has posted a little video on the Facebook page showing what it's like where Independence is moored, if anyone who is a member over there is interested.