YnysMon

Forgot about that one as you can’t go under it. We had to scandilise our sails when approaching it on one occasion though, when it closed as we were approaching. That was in the days when Hunter’s Yard boats were purely sail/quant powered.

I’ve only passed under two on the way up to Coltishall.

I hope you mean just ditch the name of bank holidays, not the lovely days off work. Personally, I couldn’t care less what they are called. It’s the day off I care about.

There’s the Lady Julian footbridge in Norwich, which is upriver from the Novi Sad bridge. It’s the one that spans the river from a point near the Weatherspoons Queen of the Iceni pub. I must remember this counting bridges strategy when I next have difficulty sleeping.

Ooo Jay, you do like to live dangerously. Obviously hoping ‘the lady’ doesn’t read this. Either that, or she knows you well enough by now to take all your nonsense.

Coo...Jay is mentioning pubs I never even heard of.... The Fat Cat And Canary, Thorpe

Thanks for your good work Jay. We are hoping to be on MS from 1st May and have plans to go north (hopefully for longer than we managed last September). All this info on pubs opening is very helpful.

Happy birthday Ian. Hope you are having a good day. Helen

I’ve loved both pubs. However, the best meal we had was our first visit to the White Horse in early 2017: Confit Duck Legs, fracassee of bean and pea and red currant jus. It was memorable! More recently, although we have mostly enjoyed our food we’ve felt the menu has been adapted to suit prevailing tastes, so for us there are fewer interesting menu options and unwanted bigger portions (last time we visited The Lion the portions the dishes we had were so big as to be off putting). I’d rather pay for something more interesting but a smaller portion. Is there any way you can accommodate those conflicting customer choices?

I saw that too, and to make things worse it should have been their wedding day.

She looks super smart Malcolm! Paul sounds like a just about the most helpful Yard owner you could hope to get. We’ve been so impressed how helpful he’s been to our Moonlight Shadow syndicate, even though we moor at Brooms. We met Paul February last year when we were on Moonlight Shadow during a week when Brooms were remodelling their fuel key and we were looking for an alternative option for our end of week refuel, pump out and water top up (the tap near our mooring having been turned off for the winter). We couldn’t have found anyone more helpful.

There’s a list of places with electric posts on the BA website and also a list of places selling the cards, all on one web page...here... https://www.broads-authority.gov.uk/boating/facilities/electric-boat-charging-points We tend to use a low wattage electric radiator overnight during our winter allocations. Mostly we find that putting £1 on the electric point is sufficient, overnight, but not if we run the electric heater during the evening too.

We have felt so privileged being able to hire from Hunters Yard. We love chugging about in Moonlight Shadow, but absolutely nothing can beat our first afternoon’s experience on the Broads on Hunters Yard’s Wood Violet. That perfect moment... just north of the Potter Heigham bungalows (we were completely naive and got under that bridge without knowing what a big deal it was)... the only sounds being the water chuckling under the keel, wind through the reeds and bird song. Bliss. Is it any wonder we fell in love with the Broads.

We loved Royale Emblem when we hired her from Ferry Marina back in 2017. She was very comfortable (we hired early May when the weather was a bit changeable), an older craft but very well maintained, and a dream to helm. My initial reaction on hearing the news of a refit was ‘great’. I have issues with most of the newer boats being built (too high an air-draft), so I think Ferry are wise to upgrade some of these older boats. However, the pictures posted aren’t very encouraging. I prefer the older version, even if the interior was a bit ‘tired’. The rear lounge on the original was just right for a party of 6 on board, very good layout.

Hope so. Would be lovely to meet you. Socially distanced naturally! We also had a family cottage holiday booked for mid-May, but that has been postponed (yet again) until September. So frustrating to have to postpone a holiday and family meet up which if taken just a few days later would be fine.

We’re not due to be on MS until 1st May. Seems ages away...! I was going to say ‘can’t wait’, but I guess we’ll have to. Roll on May!

I had my jab a week ago, it’s encouraging how quickly the rollout to younger (slightly less wrinkles) is happening.

The best feature of this story were the comments below. e.g. ‘It’s clearly a Devon ship. Down here in Cornwall we prefer to put the ship down on the water first and then the air on top. I bet it’s top crimped an orl!’

Retirement to an area where you have kept up an ongoing connection sounds like a good plan. When Graham and I were younger we just assumed we would go back to Anglesey when we retired. I’m not sure about that any longer. I’ve grown to love Milton Keynes, especially it’s multicultural vibe. So maybe settling down back in Anglesey might not be as straightforward as we might hope. A while back I was manager to a woman who had previously worked in my organisation but been in the US for about 10 years before returning to work in the UK and she found it quite difficult to settle in. My own ‘line manager’ (boss) was a woman originally from the US. I found it helpful that she observed that culturally the UK had changed so much in that 10 year period that anyone returning would have to adjust and if they assumed everything would be the same that would be a problem for them. And that’s just 10 years!

It wasn’t just that. Remember we had a new lockdown imposed in early November. Brooms had a few boats booked out. We were on Moonlight Shadow the week the new lockdown came into effect and we were keeping in touch with Brooms to check out how long they were keeping their refuelling station open that week.

That all sounds very sensible Malcolm. Good luck with the move to Norfolk.

We love cruising in winter on our syndicate boat Moonlight Shadow. A crisp sunny winter day’s cruising with hardly anyone else on the rivers can be idyllic. However, we have had a few weeks in our allocation where the cruising has been limited by the weather. February last year we had a week that coincided with Storm Ciara, so the wind was just too strong for us to cruise through from the Sunday to Tuesday. That would have been much more of an issue had we been renting a boat though. Less of an issue when you have four weeks allocation per year. We quite like being on our home mooring in bad weather and using the car to explore Norfolk and Suffolk.

This is a really interesting topic. Graham and I have vaguely thought about either relocating after I retire to Anglesey (where we both grew up and met) or Norfolk. I wonder how we would adjust to the move though. It took me several years to adjust to the move from Anglesey to Milton Keynes. I don’t think it really felt like home until our kids started school (over 10 years since moving here).

Depends whether you mean permanent moorings or temporary.

But in the summer... I found this vlog a while ago. Though I love hiring Hunters Yards boats, I can’t imagine how challenging it would be to take a baby and toddler along for the sail.