YnysMon

They are a bit weird. At least they don't have faux shutters any more.

I’ve only watched the first bit so far but am enjoying it. Loved seeing the windmill’s sails turning. I probably have a different view of Hunsett Mill from those of my generation who cruised the Broads as children, as we only discovered the Broads relatively recently. What I mean is…I don’t have fond memories of what it used to look like. For me, the photos of Hunsett mill from the 60’s/70s look like a kitschy restoration of an older cottage, at least on the outside. It was the typical ‘chocolate box’ cottage of the time, which was a 60s-take on what was traditional, not necessarily authentic though. So, on that basis, I don’t think the latest version is any worse. I quite like the format of the programme too. It’s a twist on the old celebrity interview, rather than being primarily about the place.

This did make me giggle, being surrounded by taller people.

Yes, I spotted that too. In fact I wondered for a few moments of the photo was back to front, so to speak. Even though I’m relatively short, I love being able to cruise along in Moonlight Shadow with the hatch open.

Oh no! Just the idea of ‘using up good weather’ is just depressing. Anyway, I was doing a bit of a review of our last few trips on Moonlight Shadow, and it’s clear from the photos that we had a lot more sun in November than we had in the summer.

Although we’ve bought not a syndicate now, we always look out for the boats we have hired. We feel quite proprietorial about them for some weird reason. Compared to others on this forum, we discovered the Broads quite late (not until 2014 or 15), so we are relatively late comers. I remember seeing adverts for Broads holidays when I was a child, thinking that would be a lovely holiday. It wasn’t going to happen though, given our family was just Mam and me. Mam made up for it though, as she first took me ‘abroad’ when I was 7 (this was 1967). We went to Holland to visit a couple of Aunties and their families - that was a legacy of the Dutch Navy having been stationed in Holyhead during the war. At the time none of my friends had been on holidays abroad. Looking back, I felt quite privileged. Mam worked for Sealink, then part of British Rail, so we had free travel. In the 1970s she took me to Switzerland, Italy and Norway (all by ferry/rail). Sorry, thread drift. It’s just that the thread prompted memories. Very happy ones.

We've also enjoyed a takeaway at Beccles. It's a fairly short walk up the hill (Ravensmere) to Oakfired Pizza at the Royal Oak and almost next door to them is The Cod House chippy. Has anyone tried out the new deli/coffee shop that has opened on Fen Lane? That's the lane that faces on to the moorings that are next to the Yacht Station. If you are going Norwich way, there's a highly recommended Indian takeaway near the Commissioner's Cut moorings - Merchant's of Spice. Near the Yacht Station there also a new Turkish restaurant, Gem of Norwich, that do dine in and takeaways and is (judging from reviews) also highly recommended. We had an excellent takeaway in Oulton Broad when we were there last from the Labone which is just up the road from the Yacht Station - it's literally in the OU North railway station building.

There’s not much downriver from Beccles, not with pubs anyway. There are lovely quiet BA moorings at North Cove and Worlingham Staithe but it’s quite a walk from those moorings to pubs. Theres also mooring at Aldeby Staithe, which is just before the old railway bridge piers. Private moorings. Last time we passed I think the sign said £5 overnight. If you can get under the old bridge at Beccles (i.e. upriver of the Yacht Station) there is a very nice quiet mooring at Beccles Lido. We moored there stern-on a few years ago, but I think you can moor side on if you pay a bit more. When the lido is open you can get water too. Further upriver between Beccles and Geldeston there is now a cleared bank where you can do a wild mooring and, of course, at the head of the Waveney navigation there are the BA moorings near the Lock Inn and in the other direction there are the wild moorings on Geldeston Dyke. A short walk from the Dyke takes you into the village and the Wherry Inn.

Not cheap! (Thankfully.)

Hope you also have a cover for it. Graham (house husband) does all our washing and swears by our Lakeland indoor dryer (with cover). It does take up quite a bit of our hallway (not that we have much).

I don’t think it’s that simple. If the wind is blowing toward a narrowing area of water it will probably amplify the effect, even if the narrower area is around a bend. Sorry, I know I’ve not described that well.

Not something we were advised to do, just what we prefer to do. I know a lot of people like to hike up the revs on Breydon, but we’ve discovered that we enjoy the passage far more if we take our time. Anyway, flogging a new engine somehow goes against the grain. We’ve paid enough for the engine collectively, so why not nurture it? Our first day or so was spent going against the tide anyway, so we couldn’t take it that easy.

We were looking for 6kg Calor. I will be emailing fellow syndicate members to discuss, as the situation with Calor gas got ridiculous months ago.

Graham and I were on the overnight ferry from Newhaven to Dieppe that unforgettable night. The crossing took about twice the amount of time that it should have as the conditions were too bad for the boat to get into port. It just kept circling around off shore. The worse thing was that, when heading into the storm it felt as though the ferry was heading down really big waves, and when it got to the bottom of the trough the whole ship shuddered violently. Not something I want to experience again. The only positive is that somehow I managed not to be sick. Felt awful, but didn't actually throw up.

Really glad to hear that you got back to Bridgecraft safely. Have a safe journey home. Helen

Yes, all three hoses were missing. Thursday 17th It was well after 6 by the time I woke this morning. Shortly before dawn we could see that the full moon hadn't yet set, so I tried taking a few photos with my little pocket camera that has a good zoom. The wind was strong and was occasionally buffeting the boat onto the quay, but we had slept well despite that. The first thing I did was to check the weather forecast on my phone. I could see that the wind for tomorrow was now predicted to be much stronger (gales), so we decided to head home today. We got up and started packing and then cleaned the boat. I wasted about an hour or so phoning around trying to source another gas bottle using the list of gas suppliers around the Broads that I had compiled after our June trip, when we also failed to find a supplier. However, I failed miserably. Last time we were on the boat we managed to get one from Swancraft, but this time they said that the orders they had put in for the size of gas cylinder that we need had not been fulfilled. It was the same story from other suppliers. I emailed the syndicate member who will be on the boat next week to warn them and remind them that there is an electric induction hob on board for use in emergencies. Before our November trip we bought an single-ring induction hob from IKEA and we have left that on the boat as an insurance against running out of gas, so at least it should be possible to cook something when on shore power, though one induction ring is not as good as having a cooker with four gas rings. I hope we manage to source some gas. We left the boat shortly before high tide. In complete contrast to the start of the week Moonlight Shadow was riding high on raised river levels. The water was over the quay heading in places (not near MS fortunately). We left the boat around 11.30 and had a good journey back to MK, only stopping for a short time at a drive through to get something to eat. Harry hadn’t read the text that Graham had sent him, so when we did get home and he heard sounds from downstairs he momentarily thought there were burglars in the house. LOL.

Wednesday 16th February Another beautiful sunrise this morning. Moonlight Shadow's shadow. We started off from Hardley Mill just before 8am this morning ono our way back to Brundall. The wind was due to strengthen from late morning onwards and we wanted to be re-fuelled and have a water top-up before then so that we could hunker down on our mooring for the next few days (the water tap near our mooring is always turned off in the winter months). As we were so early, and the Brooms fuel kiosk doesn't open until 10am, we took a detour around Rockland Broad. We still arrived at Brundall far too early. That wasn't a problem though, we just moored up in front of the fuel kiosk and waited. The loo had been a bit smelly on this trip, so we had a pump-out too. I don’t know whether it was down to the inexperience of the young lad who did the pump-out, but the loo was still smelly later on that day. Getting into our mooring proved interesting. I thought it was helpful that the wind was blowing up the dyke as it we are moored in a corner, so provided the wind didn’t blow us on to Lightening’s bow (she’s moored just around the corner from us) I thought the wind would help us into our spot. That didn’t quite work out, as I hadn’t considered eddies. The wind was rebounding off the shed that is alongside our mooring, pushing the boat off. Not a huge problem. I just moved out slightly to reposition the boat before reversing again. Graham had not been feeling at all well this morning. He had stomach cramps. Once Moonlight Shadow was safely moored, I made him some porridge. I don’t think it had helped that he hadn’t eaten anything yet. We had planned to go out somewhere in the car this afternoon, but Graham just wanted to rest, so I took a trip into Norwich by train. A return ticket cost £4, which I thought wasn’t too bad, and it’s really handy having the train station so close to Brooms. Over the past few months I have become a bit obsessed with sewing, although I'm fairly new to it. My grandmother was a seamstress and my mother made a lot of my clothes. I had some really posh suits and dresses when I was younger that she made for me. However, I haven’t done much sewing myself apart from a couple of items that I made as a teenager. During 2020 I tried making a few items, with mixed success, and I bought an overlocker. The overlocker stayed in its box for about six months whilst I plucked up the courage to actually use it. Unlike a sewing machine it has four spools of thread that you have to meticulously thread through a complicated series of loops etc. If you get one stop wrong the thread breaks and you have to start again. When I did get it out of the box it took me quite a while to get to grips with it, in fact I got very frustrated with it! Now that I have finally mastered it, I love it. Last month I used the overlocker to make myself a pair of leggings, a sweatshirt, a jersey dress, a couple of t-shirts, and a pair of joggers. I also used my sewing machine to make a pair of trousers and a cotton top for the summer. So why this detour into sewing matters? Well, my reason for going into Norwich was a quest for more fabric (though to be honest, I’ve already amassed a too-large stash of fabric). I first made my way to the market, as I knew there was a fabric stall there. I didn’t spend much time there though as they didn’t have that much of a selection. Actually, I felt quite uncomfortable being in the market. I haven’t been anywhere where I’ve had to pass so close to other people for the past two years, and it made me feel quite uneasy. Before I left the market, I got a warm chicken and chorizo empanada from one of the stalls and ate it as I walked toward Tombland, where I found a bench in an area that wasn’t crowded with people. I then walked down toward the hill, crossed the river and found another fabric shop on Magdalene St. This one was really well-stocked, and I came away with some lightweight cotton canvas intended for a summer pair of trousers for Graham, some blue ribbing fabric suitable for making cuffs and waistband for a sweatshirt and a metre of an orange stripy viscose jersey fabric that was on sale at £5 per metre, which I thought would make a nice t-shirt. I walked back to the station along the river and past the Yacht Station. Unfortunately, I missed one train by just 5 minutes and had to wait another 45 minutes for the next one that stopped at Brundall. Even so, it was only around 4pm when I got back to the boat. I was relieved to get back as I had felt quite uncomfortable on the train too. It was crammed with families with young children, maybe because it’s half-term, with very few people wearing masks. Graham had managed to eat some crumpets whilst I was in Norwich and we thought that something like a macaroni cheese would be a good option for dinner as his stomach still didn’t feel right, so I popped up to one of Brundall’s Co-ops to get some more supplies for dinner. I was longer making dinner than usual as I busy making the sauce for the macaroni cheese using the microwave and didn’t notice that the pan of water that I had put on the hob wasn’t coming up to the boil as the gas had run out in one cylinder. We had another quiet night. Graham went to bed really early whilst I stayed up to watch an episode of ‘Great British Menu’. However, the TV signal kept breaking up and I ended up watching it on my iPad instead, using the BBC iPlayer app. Brooms changed the Wi-Fi for berth holders last week and the new Wi-Fi has a much stronger signal.

Tuesday 15th February I slept later this morning, but still woke in time to catch a beautiful sunrise. We knew that rain was forecast for later and were getting concerned at the weather forecast for later in the week, promising much stronger winds. That prompted us to change our plans and return south today instead of tomorrow. We left Irstead shortly after sunrise and had a beautiful cruise down the Ant in the early morning sunshine. By the time we reached Ludham Bridge it was clouding over though. I love early morning cruises. I seem to spot a lot more wildlife than other times of the day. An otter swam in front of the boat just before the bend in the river blow Irstead, and shortly after I spotted a couple of kingfishers. No photos of the kingfishers, but I did get a couple of lovely ones of a swan. It started clouding over by the time we got to How Hill. It was worth getting up early to catch a glimpse of sunshine. On the whole we didn't have problems with condensation on this trip. Our little fan blower did come in handy this morning though. At 8am, just after we’d passed How Hill, Graham put the radio on so that we could listen to one of the classic Goon Show’s - ‘The Affair of the Lone Banana’. I'd forgotten how funny the Goons were. (Must remember to put on the radio next week Tuesday 8am for the next episode!) It was getting quite gloomy looking by the time we turned onto the Bure. As low water at Great Yarmouth wasn’t until around 3.30pm, we only went as far as Acle this morning. We hoped to give Seren a walk along the riverbank before the promised rain came along. To start with Seren was having a great time, chasing after her ball and running around like a mad thing, but then another bird scarer went off in the distance and she started to run back toward the boat. Luckily, she’s well trained enough now to respond when we call her, so stopped running, but we couldn’t persuade her to go any further along the path. We went back to the boat, having had a rather short walk (we could do with the exercise too). Shortly after it started raining, so we would have got wet if we’d persisted with our walk. By the way, there is no water available at Acle at present. I made us a brunch: sausage, bacon (vegan versions for Graham), mushrooms, fried potatoes, scrambled egg and tomato. After that we whiled away the next hour or so reading/doing jigsaw. We set off just after 1.30pm, initially taking things very slowly, or as slow as we could with the outgoing tide behind us (about 4mph). The weather was miserable; it was still raining. We went past Six Mile House mill around 2.30pm, so that seemed about right to get to Yarmouth for 3.30, so I speeded up a bit to just under 6mph. The advance bridge marker at Yarmouth was just over 10’. The tide was still flowing out quite strongly, but that’s what we expected, and not a problem, especially with the Yacht Station being closed. As expected, Breydon Water was very flat as the tide was still flowing out and the wind behind it. It meant for a slow Breydon crossing, as we were trying to take care of our new engine. It had only done about 26 hours or so before we took over, as we were only the third set of syndicate members to use it. This trip was the first time the new engine had crossed there and back over Breydon certainly. We could see several murmurations in the sky to the south of us. We were fairly slow going up the Yare to start with too, about 4mph, but the boat speeded up a bit before we got to Reedham without us increasing our revs. We passed Polkey’s Mill around sunset. By the time we got to Reedham the light was failing. The bridge is very well it though. It was properly dark by the time we moored up for the night at Hardley Mill pontoon. Luckily the tide hadn’t really turned properly, so we were able to come in to moor with the bright lights of Cantley sugar factory behind us. They really don’t help night vision! Before settling down for the night we turned the boat on her ropes as we were expecting a south westerly wind to pick up before the morning and we wanted to avoid bow slap. We had another ‘easy’ dinner this evening. Some daal with hardboiled eggs and rice. We listened to another episode of a Peter Whimsey mystery on the radio.

I think the problem with Stokesby, and other places that are fairly close to Gt Yarmouth, is that the water on the surface continues to flow out for quite a while after low water. We observed that when we moored overnight at Polkey's Mill last year. The water was still streaming past toward Yarmouth even though we could see that the boat was clearing rising relatively fast against the quay heading.

Monday 14th February I woke fairly early again. The wind had eased during the night, so we had a good night’s sleep on the whole. It got going again toward dawn though. We set off early again, around 7.15, and made our way up the Bure. Mr and Mrs Nog had obviously set off early too, as there was no sign of Humber Bridge outside the Acle Bridge Inn. We didn’t see much other traffic on the river initially but saw several boats as the day progressed. It looked like most of the northern boat yards had at least one boat out, Richardson’s being the most numerous, we saw about four or five of their boats. We had been tempted at the thought of trying for a mooring on the staithe at Horning but got lured up the Ant instead. No problems getting under Ludham Bridge, the marker showed we had over 8’. Crossing Barton Broad. As we wanted somewhere sheltered tonight, we made our way to Neatishead, which was deserted apart from a liveaboard's yacht and a couple of fishermen. However, after we’d moored up we realised that we should have stopped off somewhere for water first, as the hoses had been removed and the water turned off. As we hadn’t filled up since Saturday, we thought we ought to fill up today, so we set off again in search of water. First we tried Barton Turf staithe, but that was in the same state water wise, though much better underfoot (Neatishead looked very muddy) with fresh looking bark chippings. We then went to Sutton Staithe, where we got water, but again it was muddy, worse than Neatishead and rather dangerously so I thought, as the muddy grass sloped down slightly toward the water. Graham almost skidded down the slope. The combination of the mud and the noise from the nearby main road persuaded us to look elsewhere for our mooring. It was not yet mid-day, so we had plenty of time to find another mooring. Initially we thought to return to Neatishead, but before reaching Barton Broad the boat that had been moored at Irstead when we came upriver passed us, so we decided to try for Irstead instead. Returning across Barton Broad. When we got there, a boat was moored next to the electric post, but we moored on the other section. Fortunately, we have an extension lead for the shore power line, so we were able to plug into the electric post from where we were. Lunch today was the haggis, neeps and tatties that we had left over from Saturday’s evening meal. It tasted just as good heated up in the microwave. After that I visited the church which is well worth a visit and has a good selection of visitor guides. It has several interesting features including medieval font and (defaced - literally) rood screen. Graham then tried to take Seren for a walk, but she absolutely refused to go along the lane that leads from the staithe. She could hear the bang of bird scarers in the distance, and they freak her out. So, we had a quiet, uneventful afternoon. In the evening we listened to a couple of old murder mysteries on BBC4 extra and had another early night after a light supper of pasta with pesto.

Sunday 13th February I woke up ridiculously early this morning, as I normally do the first few days when we are on the Broads. It was only just after 4.30. I did some of an iPad jigsaw in bed. It was lovely and cosy in the bow cabin with our little radiator, so cosy that I put my electric under-blanket off. I woke Graham around 6.30 and we got ready to set off just after 7, pretty much at dawn really, though the sky was overcast. We chugged slowly downriver against the tide, having the river pretty much to ourselves, though we did pass one boat just before the Hardley Cross moorings. Seren gets bored when the river is quiet. Nothing apart from the odd swan, marsh harrier and flocks of birds on the wing. We eventually moored up mid-morning at Berney Arms and took Seren for a walk along the Wherryman’s Way toward Breydon Water. The old Berney Arms looks very run down, worse than when we last walked past in November 2000. It’s a shame. Having posted on my ‘live’ thread that we were intending to cross Breydon Water, Norfolk Nog posted a reply indicating that the Nogs, who had hired Humber Bridge this week, were intending to do the same. As it happened, Graham and I had just cast off and were making our way upriver to get past the posts before turning when we spotted Humber Bridge making her way downriver. So, we ended up following Humber Bridge slowly across Breydon and up the first stretch of the Bure. Actually, I found it reassuring to be following another boat, as the wind was strong (as forecast) with gusts of just over 40mph. I needn’t have worried though. We had timed our Breydon crossing before slack water, so the tide was still flowing out and, as the wind was behind us, the water was pretty flat. As Mr Nog said…’like a mill pond’. Crossing Braydon. We kept going at a very leisurely pace as we didn’t want to push our brand new engine too much against the ebbing current. Due to the way the Bure twists and turns so much the wind was against us some of the time and that made a real difference to our speed. I had the Aweigh app going and could see that we were mostly going along at around 4.5mph, though we did dip below 4mph on the more southerly facing stretches. It was good to see that the cap of the Stracey Arms mill has been restored. It was on the ground last time we passed. As we were making our way up the Bure we were debating whether to continue on to somewhere like Ranworth, Irstead or Neatishead, as it would have been good to find a more sheltered mooring. However, it was already 4pm or so by the time we got to Stokesby, so it would have been getting dark by the time we got to those places. I didn’t fancy doing a night nav on a rainy night, nor trying to moor up in the dark in such windy conditions. I had assumed that by now the tidal flow would have turned (we had definitely speeded up a bit), so went upriver a short way to turn before approaching the Stokesby moorings. I should have checked properly, though I think it was more the wind than the tide that was the problem. It’s a good job there wasn’t anyone else moored on the Stokesby BA moorings (apart from a privateer tucked in at the downriver corner), as the wind pushed me toward the bank more quickly then expected. Still, apart from the boat not behaving quite as I expected, we moored up without any problems. I only realised that the flow was still downriver when I fed a couple of swans whilst Graham was sorting out the ropes and saw that the swan food was drifting downriver. Once we’d hooked up to the electric and got the boat all toasty, I made us a salad with smoked mackerel and rollmops and some freshly baked crusty rolls (the type you buy part-baked). After dinner we watched the Great Pottery Throw Down and then prepared for an early night. Stokesby definitely wasn’t the most sheltered mooring this evening, being exposed to the south. The bow-slap was awful, and we seriously considered rearranging all our stuff to sleep in the aft cabin instead of the bow. That would have been a lot of bother as we generally just dump all our stuff in the aft cabin when there are just the two of us on board, never mind having to re-make the beds, so in the end we slept in the bow cabin as usual. It wasn’t too bad, and we both got to sleep. I woke once in the early hours, and the wind had died down by then.

THE TALE OF TRIP 9 This is just a long-winded version of the account I've already posted in the 'Live' version of this thread, with more photos of course. Saturday 12th February A very special day today. Not only were we starting our 9th trip on Moonlight Shadow, but it was also the 45th anniversary since we started dating. For us, the 12th of February has always been far more significant than Valentine’s day. We started the day at a fairly leisurely pace, and despite having mostly packed the car yesterday, didn’t start off until after 9.30. We didn’t hurry either, as we’ve found that pootling along at roughly 60mph saves a lot of fuel. The traffic was pretty light this morning and we made fairly good time. As we were approaching Norwich, we came up with a plan of taking Seren for a run somewhere before doing our food shop. I’d read that the grounds of the UEA Campus are really good for dog walking, and knew roughly where it was, so rather than turning east onto the A47 we turned north and came off the next junction which was signposted for UEA. Seren had a great time, though she tried very hard to lose her ball in the lake and rougher ground. After our walk we went back to the A47, as we thought that would be a quicker route to Thorpe St Andrew than the route our satnav was trying to take us on (into Norwich). Last time we visited (November) we had noticed that a new Lidl had opened just off the distributor road and, as we had plenty of time, we thought we’d do most of our shop there and then go to Sainsbury’s for any items we couldn’t get in Lidl. Now that Graham isn’t eating meat, it’s good to have more choice of vegetarian/vegan alternatives. As I mentioned on my ‘live’ thread, we were surprised at how low the river level was when we got to the boat. Getting on and off was very difficult and getting Seren on board even more so. It's lucky that we didn't have Graham's Dad with us this time. We'd never have got him on board. Although it was a lovely sunny afternoon, the wind was starting to gust quite strongly, so we decided we would stay on our home mooring tonight. It took us a while to unpack and sort everything out anyway. Seren was quite nervous at the noise of the bow slap. I had planned to do a cold fish platter with salad this evening but, as the sun started setting we started to feel quite chilly, so our meal plans changed to a more robust warming meal. Haggis with neeps and tatties! There wasn’t anything we wanted to watch on telly, so we just had a couple of games of dominoes and had an early'ish night. We were planning to get up early the next day anyway.

I see they’ve now issued a red alert for the Bristol Channel. As Carol Kirkwood said this morning, red alerts are like hens teeth, very rare. Hope people on the coast there aren’t too badly affected.

Glad we came home today!

Thanks. Enjoy the rest of your trip.