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YnysMon
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Posts posted by YnysMon
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Our current cooker and our previous one have been gas hob and electric fan oven plus top oven/grill. Best of both worlds, though a tad more expensive than single fuel options. Previous one (John Lewis own brand) lasted quite a long time, so I have no complaints. Current one is an AEG which I’m very happy with.
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Having a mooring in Horning Pleasurecraft is very handy. It’s so central for the northern rivers that we often opt to ‘go back home’ rather than stop at other moorings in the vicinity. We’ve yet to overnight at Horning Staithe, St Benet’s or Cockshoot Dyke, even though we often claim that we want to try out those moorings.
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7 hours ago, SwanR said:
Lovely write up and great photos. Sounds like syndicate ownership and retirement are working well for you. 👍
Yes, we’ve been fortunate in picking up a couple of extra weeks. Luckily this one was at the start of the month and, as the first Sunday of each month is my ‘Sunday off’ playing the organ in church, I didn’t have to worry about letting anyone down by taking the extra holiday.
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1 hour ago, Mouldy said:
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.
Yes, but when the early morning wake up is no longer driven by others, it can be a treat!
My first job in Bletchley railway station used to involve a shift that started at 5.30am. If I didn’t go to bed before 9.30pm the evening before I struggled.
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1 minute ago, Andrewcook said:
It's very nice to see Pozzic having a good snuggle up after Thier long walk with Serene.Which is the Best place do the dogs like best? visiting the Seaside or the Trips around the Broads.
As long as they can have a good run they are both happy. On board during the day Seren likes to keep a look out whereas Pozzie just chills out.
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3 hours ago, Mouldy said:
Make the most of it at this time of the year, sunrises are a tad early during the summer months. 😉
It’s even more worthwhile getting up extra early during the Spring and Summer. The bird song alone just after dawn is wonderful. I always see far more wildlife just after dawn than any other time of the day.
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Friday 12th January
The usual boring final morning of cleaning. Late morning a chap turned up to do a safety check of the fire extinguishers on all the syndicate boats. Evidently, HPC contract out the checking to a guy that specialises in fire extinguishers. I took the opportunity to ask him about the type of fire extinguishers that we have. Apparently, the ‘rules’ governing holiday lets has changed since last October, and they are no longer allowed to use powder extinguishers. However, the Boat Safety Scheme specifies that we should have powder extinguishers, not CO2 or other types. I also discovered that the extinguishers on the syndicate boats are checked annually and are replaced every five years. That’s reassuring to know.
The weather was rather changeable, so we weren't able to do much cleaning of the exterior of the boat this time.
Around lunchtime we made our way to Boulter’s for pump-outs and a re-fuel. We used 38.6 litres of fuel on this trip, which cost us £56 at £1.45 per litre. We didn’t cruise that far, but did use the Webasto heating quite a bit, though we do try to use our mini radiators when we are on electric. Two pump outs cost us £24.
We were able to set off for home before 2pm and had a good journey home, having stopped off at Hoveton to get rid of our recycling at the waste facility that’s near the Hoveton St John’s moorings. We also had lunch at the Old Mill Café, which we have found is consistently good.
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Thursday 11th January
We were aiming to return to our home mooring this evening but wanted to stop off somewhere to take the dogs for a walk on the way. Upton was mooted, as the pub was open again. However, Harry pointed out that it’s been a while since we have visited The Lion at Thurne, so we moored at the Boundary Farm moorings instead. The Lion is open Thursdays through to Sundays in this winter period.
From the Boundary Farm mooring we made our way to South Oby Dyke and then struck inland to meet the Weaver’s Way that took us across fields, past the church and then into the village.
Harry and I had a look around the church, including having a nosy into the room under the tower where you can find a spy hole that points in the direction of St Benet’s.
There must be a very enthusiastic knitter among the congregation. The nativity set was particularly delightful.
Here's the spy hole in the tower. It looks across to St Benet's.
In the Lion we shared a platter of olives, houmous, sun-dried tomatoes and toasted ciabatta and a side of chips, which kept us going for the walk back to the boat along the riverside path.
On our way to our home mooring, which is just beyond Evening Shadow.
The water levels are gradually receding.
We got back to Horning before 4pm and Harry and I popped to Roy’s again. This evening we had some lovely lamb steaks (Graham had a Quorn thing) with beer battered chips (also from Roy’s) and veggies.
Watched another couple of Sharpe episodes before bed.
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Wednesday 10th January
As there was a possibility of rain tomorrow, we thought we’d best get back under Ludham Bridge today. We started off quite early again and stopped off at Gaye’s Staithe to fill with water. The sun came up as we were there.
We didn’t stop at How Hill this time, as we wanted to get under the bridge well before high tide, so we just carried on down the Ant and then down the Bure until we got to Stokesby.
Ludham Bridge.
You know where...
There was plenty of room at Stokesby.
Unfortunately, the Ferry Inn was also closed, as was the shop, so I made us another brunchy lunch.
After lunch we set out for a circular walk, walking westward along the river until we reached the draining pump, then northward along Muck Fleet before turning southward again to reach Stokesby.
We had a lovely sunset this evening.
The trouble with Seren is that she's an expert at collecting burrs in her tail.
As we’d had quite a large lunch, we just had quesadillas again this evening and watched a couple more episodes of Sharpe.
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Tuesday 9th January
A lovely sunny morning at last! As the next few days were promising to be dry and sunny, we thought it would be a good opportunity to go up the Ant. We were certain that we’d need to drop our canopy and screen to get under Ludham Bridge, so we had been wary of doing that over the weekend. High water was for late morning, so we thought it best to start off early, just as it was getting light.
I do love early morning starts, especially when the sky is clear.
The sun was just getting up as we were approaching St Benet’s.
As anticipated, there wasn’t that much clearance under the bridge. Just 7 ¼ foot.
Still, we were under.
We stopped off at How Hill and had coffee and cake (Walsingham Honey Cake from Roy’s – I recommend) before taking the dogs for a walk south along the riverbank.
After that we continued on our way, ending up a Neatishead where we chilled for the rest of the day.
I made us a brunch.
One other private boat arrived late afternoon. It was very peaceful.
This evening we had a creamy mushroom sauce with pasta, using a vegan version of Philadelphia cheese for the sauce, along with some garlic and olive oil ciabatta slices from Roy’s.
After that we started watching a boxed set of the original Sharpe series from the first episode. Graham and I had watched it years ago when it was first on TV, but Harry hadn’t seen it. I’d forgotten how good it was.
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Monday 8th January
Graham’s birthday!
We had been debating where to go for lunch. The initial plan had been to cruise to Thurne and visit The Lion, but Kate had reported that they would be closed on Mondays during winter. Someone else had confirmed that the same was the case for The White Horse, Neatishead. I phoned The White Horse, Upton, but they were also closed for refurbishment.
However, some fellow syndicate members had sent me a 50% off voucher for The Swan Inn, Horning, so this morning we cruised up to the Staithe, nabbed a mooring near an electric post and I phoned to book a table.
We had a very pleasant lunch; the only disappointment was that the ‘Chef’s Special’ of venison steaks was out of stock. Harry and I both had Sea Bass fillets with pea and bacon in a velouté sauce with broccoli and spring onion mash. Graham had the vegan version of their Penang curry. For puds I had sticky toffee pudding, Graham had banoffee pie (again) and Harry had the double chocolate brownie, his first choice of ‘The Honey Pot’ again being out of stock.
After lunch we returned to the boat for a while. It was trying to snow/hail. Pozzie was not impressed.
Harry and I went to have a look around the Post Office and Tidings. I bought a second-hand board game for Graham as a birthday prezzie – having left the prezzie I had bought him at home. The game was QI – based on the TV series.
When Harry and I returned, Graham took the opportunity to visit the Post Office too, getting himself a second hand book about Wellington (the general, not the boots!). The Post Office is a tiny shop, but they usually have an interesting selection of books for sale. After that, we decided we might as well return to our home mooring as we have wifi there, rather than stay on Horning Staithe overnight.
We didn’t want much to eat this evening, so I just made us some quesadillas filled with vegan cheese and a salsa made from red pepper, tomato, red onion, chilli, black beans, and sweetcorn. There was rather a lot of it, so we’ll be having quesadillas later in the week, no doubt.
Cosy, cosy...
Watching canal boaters on YouTube...
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Sunday 7th January
We finally made it to Holt today. The weather was cloudy, but at least it stayed dry for most of the day.
Holt is a lovely Georgian town with some interesting architecture and a good range of independent shops. However, the majority of the shops were closed, so we didn’t spend as much time looking around the town as we’d anticipated.
We found a good place to park for free, in the layby beside the entrance to the Spout Hills Park at the bottom of the hill where the A148 leads out of the town.
The dogs had a good run around the park before we left them in the car and walked back up the hill to have a look around the town.
For lunch we went to The Snug, having first checked out the menus of the other places that were open. The Snug had the most interesting sounding menu and was fairly reasonable cost-wise. I had Persian-spiced chicken with couscous, Graham had roast veg with lentils and halloumi and Harry had a burger.
As there wasn’t that much else to see in Holt, we returned to the boat by mid-afternoon.
Graham has figured out a new way of keeping the our saloon cosy. It worked too. If you dipped under the blanket into the galley you really felt the temperature difference.
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Saturday 6th January
We had a very lazy day today. We were late getting up and then even later getting out of our PJs. Late morning, I cooked us a brunch, then we set off by car to Caister-on-Sea where we had a grand walk northward along the beach. The dogs enjoyed it too. The wind was surprisingly strong, considering there had only been a moderate breeze in Horning.
It took me a few seconds to realise what Pozzie was sniffing at in this next photo. Unfortunately, it was a dead seal pup, which must have washed down the coast as there wasn't any sign of seals on Caister beach.
We stopped off at the Caister Lidl and at Latham’s on the way back to the boat. I had been hoping to get a new draining rack for the boat as the one currently on MS is too large for the draining board, but none of the racks they have were small enough.
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Friday 5th January
We had considered going by car to Holt today, but the forecast was for rain all day. We decided instead to visit Norwich. It would be an opportunity for Graham to join us looking around Norwich as we normally visit by boat and he always volunteers to stay on board with the dogs.
We left Ranworth shortly after 8am to return to our home mooring at HPC. It was still windy, but a more moderate wind than last night. Luckily, Evening Shadow was in the shed for her winter maintenance, so I had a lot more manoeuvring space to moor-up than normal.
Once moored up, we had breakfast, so it was getting on for mid-morning before we set off for Norwich. We made our way to the Rose Lane Multi-storey Car Park, passing the Yacht Station on the way. The car park is behind the Premier Inn that overlooks the river. There was a laminated sheet pasted up showing the relative parking charges of the different Norwich car parks and Rose Lane appeared to be one with more reasonable charges. It's not that much of a walk up the Prince of Wales Road to get to the city centre.
Leaving the dogs in the car, we made our way to the Cathedral. Graham and Harry had a quick tour around whilst I spent my time in the Cathedral shop, having been around the Cathedral several times on previous trips. Some photos from Harry...
There is a Cathedral cat.
Midday, we made our way to the Shikki Japanese Restaurant in Tombland, intending to introduce Graham to its delights. Unfortunately, they were closed for the week, so instead we made our way to Saporita Italian Restaurant on St Andrew’s Hill. It’s family run, so we thought that would be better than going to a chain restaurant like Zizzi, besides the reviews on Google are really good (I don’t always believe bad reviews, but if a place has mostly rave reviews they must be doing something right).
Saporita lived up to expectations. It’s quite small, so we were lucky to get a table. Five minutes later we’d have been out of luck. Initially, I was a bit sceptical about their pizza menu, which offered a slice of pizza for between £7.50-£8. When they arrived they were very impressive though. Generous slices, filling most of the plate, and I’ve never seen such a thick (and light) pizza base, with very generous toppings. Graham and Harry had pizza with a shared portion of chips. I had a piadina (a thin Italian flatbread, a bit like a tortilla) filled with roast veg, tomato and olive pate and which came with chips and a side salad. Not bad for under £9.
After lunch we just wandered around a few shops before making our way back to the car.
We stopped at the Sprowston Tesco’s on the way back. Actually, I think this Tesco’s might be closer to Horning than the Sainsbury’s at Thorpe…if we want an alternative to Roy’s,
Another quiet evening on the boat.
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Thursday 4th January
We had thought to go down south this morning, as the long-range tide table had forecast low water for around 10.30am. However, when I checked the Aweigh App yesterday the forecast was for just after 9am, not enough time for us to get down to Gt Yarmouth from Horning without a lot of night nav’ing. Also, Project Troll showed that there wouldn’t be that much clearance under the bridges, even at slack water, so we decided to scrap the idea of going south, at least for today.
Kate (Kpnut) and I had been messaging each other about a good time to meet up, as she was on Springer’s Retreat this week. With the ‘going south’ plan scrapped, we agreed to meet up at Ranworth mid-morning with view to taking the dogs for a walk.
Initially we moored at the far side of the dinghy dyke.
Kate joined us on board for a cuppa. After we’d had a bit of a natter, we noticed that the boat that was moored side-on on the side furthest from us had left, so we moved our boats over there. Graham and I bagged the taxi rank and Kate moored closer to the water hose as she needed to fill-up. Whilst Graham was helping Kate moor up, Harry and I put our dogs on the lead so that they could meet with Findlay on neutral ground. As we were walking toward Kate’s boat Pozzie nudged me one way and Seren pulled in another, so I lost my balance and fell into a puddle (no doubt full of goose and duck poop). One leg of my trousers and one sleeve were pretty wet, and I had a few grazes, so I went back to MS to wash the 'ik’ out my grazes, change my clothes, and wash the muck out of my walking trousers and fleece.
Kate joined us for lunch on board MS and after that we went for a walk down Farm Lane (behind the Granary Stores). The dogs had a fine time and Kate and I (inevitably) continued to natter.
We retired to our own boats after the walk, but early evening Kate re-joined us for dinner, which was roast veg with mixed grains and houmous and we had a very pleasant nattery evening.
Later in the evening the rain started coming down really heavily and a northerly wind picked up so the area that we’d moored wasn’t as sheltered as it normally is. The wind was driving waves against the side of the boat, so it was quite noisy. We slept well though after our walk.
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Moonlight Shadow Holiday Tale - Trip 17
Wednesday 3rd Jan
Harry was able to join us on this trip, as he was sacked from IKEA just before Christmas because he’d been on a final warning for sickness (since December 2022, having had two bouts of COVID in 2022) and unfortunately got the flu just before his final warning ran out. He couldn’t have gone into work anyway as you aren’t allowed to work in the restaurant for 48 hours after throwing up. My estimation of IKEA as a good employer has taken a nose-dive. The good values it had when the Swedish founder of the company have gradually been eroded since he died a few years ago.
Ironically, our younger son Alec started his new job the day before Harry got sacked, so Alec wasn’t able to join us.
This week-and-a-bit was another bonus for us, as the people who were due to be on board this week and next weren’t able to take advantage of their allocation. Actually, the boat hasn’t been used much through December and won’t be for much of January.
We tried our best to start off relatively early this morning, just in case we needed to move the boat to another location to load our stuff on board, so we set off shortly after 9am and managed to get to the marina shortly before 1pm, despite having a breakfast stop-off at La Hogue Farm Shop (on the A11, shortly after the turn off from the A14). I had just ordered scrambled eggs on toast, as I was feeling quite nauseous and thought that eating something relatively bland would help. It didn’t, so Graham finished off my portion as well as his. He also had a huge portion of Banoffee Pie, which he said was the best Banoffee Pie he’d ever tasted.
When we got to the Marina, the area in front of the sheds was awash.
Although the area behind MS wasn’t too bad, we didn’t take the chance of taking the car across as the tide was rising and we didn’t want the car to be stranded. Instead, we did the same as we had done in November and took the boat and car around to Ranworth to load up.
As we were passing through the dyke that leads to the marina we spotted a couple of deer.
At Ranworth.
With Harry’s help loading was done fairly quickly and we made our way back to the marina. Once there, Harry and I went off to Roy’s to do our food shop whilst Graham sorted out the boat – covering the saloon surfaces with rugs, emptying and re-filling the water tank (as it’s been ages since anyone has been on board) and making the beds.
There was quite a lot of unpacking and sorting out left to do when we got back to the boat, so we only had a simple supper this evening (pasta with pesto) before having an early night.
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Switching over to my main 'Carried Away' thread for the relation of the full tale.
It's only the same thing, but more long winded and with more pictures!
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Well we had the usual slightly sad final morning spent cleaning the boat. Fortunately, the water levels had dropped sufficiently that we managed to get the car and trailer to the rear of the boat to load up.
We stopped off in Hoveton to offload our recycling (there’s a handy recycling point just at the rear of the St John’s moorings) then we went to The Old Mill Cafe for lunch. Reasonably priced and consistently good.
We were anticipating a hold up on the A11, as much of the carriageway had been blocked by an accident earlier, but we had quite a good journey back home, considering it was a Friday late afternoon.
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My condolences to Marina, Alan and the rest of Ian's family. I only met Ian and Marina once but count them as firm friends through this forum. Ian had an indomitable spirit, fighting to the last. I loved his chef tales, and the news on how the new boat was progressing. It's a shame he won't get the joy of sailing it.
Rest in peace Ian.
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Excellent news!
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Thanks Kate. We'll be back in Horning later. Currently in The Lion having walked here from the Boundary Farm moorings.
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13 hours ago, kpnut said:
Re: washing up drainer.
Catherine got this one for the boat. It’s superb, just right for all the plates, a pan etc and enough room left on the drainer itself for mugs, cutlery etc. I’ve cut a piece of that non-slip holey rubber to fit the drainer so nothing slips or rattles.
I don’t think Catherine got it from Amazon and this isn’t the exact one, but it’s something like this.I’ll ask her where she got it from.
Actually I bought one similar to that from IKEA, as I liked your set up, but I wasn't sure if other syndicate members would agree.
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24 minutes ago, NorfolkNog said:
Assuming you crossed the Stokesby to Acle Road (which I guess you did) looks a good walk, maybe 5 miles at a guess. Shame the pub is shut!!
Yes that's it. Followed the green squiggly footpath northward and then back to the village. I'm glad we didn't do the walk the other way around as some of the public footpath signage in Norfolk is a bit lacking.
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Thanks, that's a handy tip. Might have to wait for our next trip though.
We had a delightful circular walk this afternoon. We followed the river bank upstream from Stokesby to where is meets the watercourse called Muck Fleet. The majority of the walk was along Muck Fleet until it met a footpath leading back towards Stokesby. I'm not sure how far we walked, but we've been out all afternoon.
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Using Ballast To Get Under Potter Bridge
in Broads Chat
Posted
Talking about the Wensum, I couldn’t help noticing how that river was well over the banks around the village of Lenwade (just north of Norwich) last week. I’m sure the EA must manage the flow of the river to avoid flooding the city.