YnysMon

Well it was a springs tide yesterday, but the bridge gaps chart on the 'My Norfolk Broads' website says that the normal tide range at Acle bridge is between 1 ft 3” - 1 ft 9”.

This is my new thread that I'll post to when we are on Moonlight Shadow, reserving the main thread 'Carried Away on a Moonlight Shadow' thread to post the full tales of our trips. Helen

Yay! We are back on Moonlight Shadow tomorrow. We are hoping to get on board little earlier than normal, as the people with this week’s allocation didn’t stay the whole week. If I didn’t have work commitments we could have had a couple of extra days. We were intending to take my 89 year old father-in-law with us, but he now says that he prefers stay at our home with our sons to look after him. I just hope he behaves himself. Last weekend when Graham and I traveled to Anglesey to clean his house he scared Alec by talking about getting a taxi to the railway station to go home, something he’s not fit enough to do, and can’t afford. He’s promised not to do that next week. We want him to stay with us until a social care package is in place to help him live independently again. Having looked back on my posts from our last few trips, I think they look completely muddled as I did some ‘live’ posts and then did more detailed posts at other times. I think I’ll start another thread for the live posts and will post the full account on this thread later. The weather isn’t looking great for next week, but we don’t care. Having missed out on our February allocation, we’ll just be glad to be on board again. The tides are looking just right go go north, so we’ll probably do that on Sunday. Wave if you see us! We’ll probably be flying the ddraig goch 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 as usual.

Welcome to the forum. Helen

Hope to see you around Malcolm. How lovely to be able to just pop down to the boat for weekend. I know you used to do that occasionally when you were in Northampton. Presumably you are finding it much easier from your new home.

Glad to hear that you'll be on Water Rail again. I have fond memories of being on her last year. She's a great little boat. We shall most likely head north on Sunday, just 'cos we can and also because our trip up north got but short last September due to high winds.

That's one thing about the past 12 months. I think it's the first year that I can remember when I haven't had a cold or the flu.

Fortunately, Holyhead didn’t suffer that much from bomb damage during WW2, despite being a target. What remained of the Dutch Navy were stationed there. The church hall received a direct hit one evening, luckily a couple of hours after it had been packed for a dance. Less lucky were a few houses that did get direct hits. On a morning following an air raid my maternal Nain (Gran) went to town as usual. She had a momentary shock, before realising that the ‘bodies’ lying in the road were from the tailors outfitter’s windows.

Hmm...a rectilinear bomb crater. How would that be possible?

Presumably if you managed to get on power at Rockland it's still fairly quiet on the rivers?

Hope to see you around next week. We are on Moonlight Shadow from Saturday.

When I read the title of this one I thought...Is the dyke high and dry?.

Rocket presto sounds great Ian. I just can't grow the stuff on the allotment though. It always end up with rocket leaves peppered with lots of little holes due to flea beetles. I'm finding your tales of your career and the recipes fascinating. Thanks. Helen

Glad to see the holiday tales are starting up again.

An update on my 17th April post. Now that we've had Dad staying with us for a week he's looking a lot more chirpy. His memory is still pretty bad, but at least he's not looking quite so confused and doddery. He has a good appetite and I've been feeding him up. I fact, we think he'll be strong enough to come with us on our next Moonlight Shadow allocation from Saturday. Graham and I spent the weekend in Anglesey again, trying to tackle the worst of the mess in his house, leaving Dad in the care of our sons. It was worse than we thought it would be. Finding a grey furry blob in the salad spinner wasn't great, nor the mouldy fridge and microwave, and the very mouldy ex-pork chops found under the grill. I will spare you the bits that Graham tackled in the bathroom. We also found a police penalty notice fining him £100 for driving his car without an MOT. Dad had called us in January to say it had failed, but we think he then forgot about it and has been driving the car regardless. Obviously, Graham has now confiscated the keys! Life must be so complicated if you can't remember stuff. I spent all this morning composing a letter to Anglesey Social Care to describe the state we found Dad and his house in, and sent that off late morning together with some photos. About half an hour ago I was very impressed to receive an email from the social worker assigned to his case. She'd read my letter and a referral from his doctor. That was speedy! It took months to sort out an assessment visit for my Mam when she came down to live with us. The weather this weekend was beautiful. Of course, we couldn't fully appreciate it, being tied up with cleaning and sorting, but we did manage to sneak in a few beach walks with Seren. Early Friday evening on my Dad's favourite beach - Porthdafarch. Not one we can normally visit as it's dog free between May and September. Saturday evening at Newry Beach, holiday, with one of the Irish ferries making way in the distance. Sunday evening. Newry Beach again.

We hope to be on the Broads from 1st May too, so do give us a wave if you see us on Moonlight Shadow. It does depend on father-in-law's health though (which I referred to at the weekend on the 'My Day' thread). Thankfully, he's looking a lot more chipper, now that I've been feeding him up for several days. Indeed, he's looking so much better that we are hoping that he will be able to join us. We think he was looking so weak because he hadn't been eating.

There's a chart on the range of rise of fall of tide at the various bridges and a few other locations on the Broads here: https://www.mynorfolkbroadsboating.co.uk/norfolk broads bridge clearance.html

Brilliant! Glad to hear you had such a good time. That mooring at St Benedict's Horning is very peaceful. Good that you found the joys of wild mooring too. Helen

Personally I liked having the all inclusive package. If you are normally frugal on fuel and get a substantial refund on a fuel deposit then perhaps it would work out an expensive option, but when we first hired from Ferry Marina (back in 2016?) the comparison of similar boats from other yards showed a substantial saving once you'd taken into consider the extra deposits/insurance costs. When we were hiring we cruised as much as possible, so the first year we hired with NBD we only got just over £20 back.

Graham and I took it in turns to go around the gardens (they aren’t that extensive) whilst the other waited around the entrance with Seren (our collie). She had a good run beforehand. The path down to the gardens runs through bluebell woods. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many bluebells clustered so thickly together.

If you do go to How Hill, remember to visit the Secret Gardens. They should be a riot of colour at this time of the year. Beautiful rhododendrons and azaleas.

There’s nothing nicer on the Broads than starting off shortly after the sun has risen. Best time of the day.

Well...my yesterday anyway. Not the best day. Graham and I had been intending to drive to Bournemouth and back on Friday, as Alec doesn’t think he’ll be getting any face to face teaching at Uni this year and has decided he may as well pick up his stuff. However, on Thursday we got a call from my father-in-law’s neighbour to say that Dad was complaining of not feeling well and that he was looking very weak and had lost weight. We haven’t seen Dad since before the lockdowns and it’s almost impossible to get him to answer the phone. We have been resorting to send him cards through the post asking him to phone us. He promises each time to phone us regularly but never does. Last time we saw him he admitted he was having difficulty remembering things. So, we ended up going to Holyhead instead and had rather a shock when we got there. There as hardly any food in the house for a start. Just some bread and milk. I won’t detail the mess we found. Shortly after we got there phone rang. It was the surgery asking Dad to go in for his second Covid jab that afternoon. We suspect that, like us, they hadn’t been able to contact him. Whilst Graham took him to the vaccination clinic I did what I could to clear the worst of the kitchen mess, then we got Dad away for the journey back to MK by shortly after 5pm. Today he keep saying he must get a train home and that he’ll be fine at home...it was just that he hadn’t feel feeling well for a few days. (The mess we found was more than a few days worth). Which leaves us in a quandary. We really don’t think he can look after himself any longer and think he should stay with us. We understand that he wants to be in his own home though. Its so worrying. I think the best we can do is to phone social services and the Dr’s on Monday to ask for advice. We are feeling immensely guilty that we stuck with ‘the rules’ and didn’t check him out earlier.

I've also come across people who said that the Herbert Woods staff told them to run their engines when they wanted to use their heating. In our case we were on Womack Staithe and a boat next to us turned their engine when they got back from the pub around 10pm (after we had gone to bed). I got up and pointed out the 8am to 8pm rule, and got the response about the advice they'd received. Fair play, they did switch their engine off though. I must admit, I now prefer not to be stern moored unless the weather is warm, or it's not too busy. On the other hand, when we at Pye's Mill for the 2019 August bank holiday for an afternoon and evening, the boat in front of us put their engine on about three or four times. And that was in a heatwave. Maybe they were using their microwave and showers a lot!

How is Moonlight Shadow after Neil? Good I hope. I was really pleased to hear that she had been checked regularly during lockdown, cleaned pre first takeover and the water tanks sterilised.