YnysMon

Bless you Kate. Thanks!

I heard earlier that this week’s owners on MS have also gone home early, using bin bags to keep their legs dry as they waded across the yard to their car.

We might stay on our home mooring at least part of the week and even if we decide to cruise some days we could decide to go back to our home mooring in Horning before dark. Ludham Bridge shouldn’t be too much of an issue unless rain is forecast as we only need 6’10” with the canopy down.

Wellies definitely! Ooo, and I forgot to mention that the sale of one of the shares that we had up for offer went through last week, with the new owners having confirmed they received the keys to the boat today. So they are all set for their first week on MS early next month. We currently have one other share available. If anyone is interested, please email admin@moonlightshadow.net or send me a pm.

Just four sleeps to go before we are on MS again. Hopefully the water levels might have gone down a bit by then. 🤞

The worst ones are those with a ‘click-bait’ title. Invariably exaggerated.

Sounds like you had a good time Kate. I’ve always been shy of turning up to such events, it’s great that you had a warm welcome.

Anyone know what Horning Pleasurecraft is looking like?

That singalong sounds fun. Love the Fabre Requiem, but only had the opportunity to sing it once, at an OU music course summer school (back in the day when there were scummier schools). The trouble with Latin is that the the choirs I sing with insist that we use consistent pronunciation, which is all well and good, except I have been getting very muddled this term as the OU choir have had a programme of Handel and Haydn, so German Latin, whereas the for the concert last month with the other choir we went for the Italian conventions in a programme of a Capella early music from England, Spain and France and modern English and ‘Baltic’ music. It’s bad enough coping with the music never mind the pronunciation! I would have been terrified by that shoot. Good thing you know about such things. By the way, Harry, Alec and I have spent the evening playing Christmas music at band, including ‘It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas’, Driving home for Christmas’, ‘I wish it could be Christmas everyday’, Merry Christmas Everyone’ ‘When a child is born’, etc. I’m now thoroughly Christmassy. At least until tomorrow.

Glad to hear The Granary is open some days this winter. Anyone know if they are dog friendly?

I’m not surprised. Having been standing on the back of your boat when you were approaching and then mooring it looked an impossible mooring. Right in a corner with hardly more than the length of your boat to manoeuvre.

Glad you had that extra time in the sun to rekindle the love. I hope the river levels drop before 10th Nov. We’d have a real job trying to lift Pozzie onto the boat!

I was going to be cheeky and ask if we could join you again Kate, as we had a brilliant time this year. However, I’m going to be away so many Sundays in late May/ early June as it is, and I don’t want to let church down re: the organ for yet another Sunday. I’ve got a choir visit to Worcester on 25/26th and then we have a fortnight on MS from 31st.

We ought to start some diy jobs now I’m retired, as most rooms in the house are well overdue for decoration. However, we have another week on the boat in less than a fortnight and will have another trip to Anglesey at the end of the month to start work on trying to sort Graham’s dads house (that will be a mammoth task). The job for the next few days is to make some curtains for the heads on Moonlight Shadow. I made some earlier in the year, but the ones in the aft en-suite heads are already getting spotted with mildew, so it will be good to have a spare set of curtains.

Agree with you about coffee stops Jean. I’m finding as I get older that I don’t have the appetite for full-on lunches or dinners. The only snag is that I tend to prefer savoury rather than sweet. On our way back from Holyhead last week we stopped at a pub (The Running Hare) in Ewloe (not far from Chester), just off our route that had a carvery which offered ‘small plates’. The portion was just right for me, and very reasonably priced at just over £8 on weekdays, more expensive on weekends. We’ll probably be using that as a stopover for future trips to North Wales.

How can a pub run out of real ale? Must be a popular pub!

Coo, wellies are definitely on our packing list for our next trip!

Loving this introduction to other parts of Norfolk Jean.

Westminster Abbey is wonderful. Thanks for posting. I was very fortunate a few years back to go to Westminster on a trip with our church, which has a special connection with Westminster. Our church was built in 1660 and paid for by Richard Busby who had bought the local manor. He had been headmaster of Westminster School, where he had taught Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke. Hooke designed our church. There's a memorial to Richard Busby in Westminster just around the corner from the altar area. So our church has a special connection with Westminster. We were invited by the Westminster Trust members to attend an Evensong service and afterward we were treated to tea and cakes in the Jerusalem Chamber, which has a whole history of its own, being where Henry VI died - apparently it had been foretold that he would die in Jerusalem - not quite the one he expected! After tea, when the Abbey was closed to visitors, they divided us up into groups of five or six and a guide took each group around the Abbey on a very personal tour, which is how I managed to take some photos with hardly any visitors in the background!

We moored there once last winter to get water. A muddy patch sloping down to the water’s edge was a bit worrying, but I guess if you take care…?

That’s good news. We are back on the Broads in a fortnight’s time and will confined to the northern broads (tides, and I don’t fancy night navving across Breydon). We’ve not moored overnight at Sutton Staithe before, so that would be a good ‘first’.

Bumping this up as although we have a buyer for a share, another share has come on the market.

Our two thankfully are not in that camp. We didn’t discover the Broads until they were adults. 2015 Harry was 25 and Alec 23. They don’t join us on every trip, but are still interested.

Great thread Jean. Felbrigg and the Venetian waterways are now on our to-do list. There are a couple of cafes around the Venetian Waterways area which have excellent reviews, The Beach Cafe and Munchies. I know a lot of people are sceptical about reviews, but when out of the way places mostly get brilliant reviews I pay attention and have never yet been disappointed.

We had a family day out today. I'm still amazed that our 'boys' still occasionally deign us aged parents with their company for days out. The plan was to visit Northampton and visit the town museum that has a fascinating collection of shoes - shoes being one of the major products that Northampton was famous for (when I was working for the railway the main commuter train from Northampton to Euston was still referred to as 'The Cobbler'). However, Harry first wanted to visit a factory shop. I hadn't heard of this particular shoe manufacturer, probably because they are a bit 'high end' (British handmade shoes). It was Harry's birthday a few days ago and he fancied 'pushing the boat out', so to speak to spend some of this birthday money (plus a bit!). He got his pair of shoes, the most expensive any of us have ever paid for a pair, even though they were less than half the normal price. The place is called Crockett and Jones and have an 'appointment' to the Prince of Wales (now the King I guess). Not an easy place to find as it was deep in a maze of terraced streets in the Northampton suburb of Abington. crockettandjones.com. They had some interesting old catalogues in the factory shop. The factory... We also found a gem of a bakery just down the next terraced street where we had lunch. The Magee Street Bakery, an 'artisan' bakery. When I told him that we were planning to visit Northampton, Malcolm (Mouldy, who used to live there) was bewailing the sad condition of Northampton town centre. I was very impressed with Abington though. It seems to have a very vibrant high street. Lots of interesting independent shops and restaurants. Seems to be quite a 'hip' neighbourhood. Probably because it's not that far from the Uni. Before we visited the Museum the dogs had a walk in Becket's Park, that is beside the Rover Nene. Harry's new shoes.