grounded

Our favourite game (even out of lockdown) is Quiddler. It is a card game for 2 to 8 players. Each card has a letter (some have 2 letters) and a score. There are 8 rounds starting with 3 cards per player and ending with 10. The object is to make words and score high. Great fun and excellent for extending vocabularies. Our planned holiday of 3 weeks on Swan Rapture at the end of June is beginning to look a tad shaky. We really do feel for you folk up there. Hope the vaccine(s) work Chris

That's odd! I was not stood on my head. All my efforts to attach the pic correctly oriented have failed, so you will just have to invert your devices! Chris

So sorry you folk have been plunged back into a severe lockdown. We are watching events there from afar and becoming increasingly uneasy about our plans for next year. Anyroadup, I love my fishing. Never more so than at around 4am on an English river. This is a picture from our 2019 trip, just around dawn at Potter.

On the subject of wind and muweighted boats, we do have an experience to share. it was 2019 and we were on Swan Rapture. We broke down crossing Barton Broad (well the engine overheat alarm sounded and I switched off). The wind was blowing a hooley and we were being blown rapidly towards marker posts around a reed island. We had two muweights aboard as we always request a second, and I put one over the bow and the stern. They served only to slow the progress of our drag across Barton Broad. Now I did "only" lower the weights into the water and in future they will get the Highland Games heave. Also the Richardson's rescue team recommended dropping both off the same end of the boat as this would have had a greater drag reducing effect. We have loved reading your story. We live in NZ and are/were hoping to come back in 2020 (we have booked Swan Rapture again) but watching the way Covid 19 is hammering the UK I am far from certain our government will let us leave (or let us back in if we did!). We may have to settle for the vicarious pleasures we get from reading of others trips to our favourite place. Chris

I cannot see the event referred to (perhaps because everything looks a little eighties around here? Most strange) but I can most certainly empathise. My wife Lynda and I were on our honeymoon in 1972 on a small two berth boat heading up to the PBI to meet up with family. We were cruising with the tide, a boat ahead of us lining up to go under Potter Higham bridge. A craft appeared on the otherside heading downstream. The boat ahead of us backed off, as did we and before you could say whoops apocalypse we were stuck broadside on in the arch. Fortunately for us this predated cell-phones and if someone did get us on super-8, it has not yet reached Youtube. So far as I am concerned "there but for fortune" and schadenfreude would be totally misplaced. Looking forward to next year on Swan Rapture - Covid willing!! Chris

One of my favourite places in the world. Many thanks for posting the pictures. We hope to be getting back up there next year to see it again for real. Chris

As a (only too occasional) hirer, I intrude here with a little trepidation, but I hope my question is valid to the topic. In 2019 we hired Swan Rapture (loved the craft). At the boatyard I requested an additional mudweight, being something my father had always done, in case we mudweighted on a broad and needed to keep the boat in one position for fishing. Anyroadup, our motor overheated on Barton Broad and the wind was blowing like 10,000 b*****ds. I deployed (dropped) a mudweight off each of the bow and stern. We still dragged an awful long way before the Richardson's repair crew arrived. We were advised that, should we suffer a similar fate in the future, we should drop both mudweights off the same end of the boat. What does the team think? From almost Covid-free NZ Chris

Hi Bluebell. That looks like a late Mk3. Do you have any more pictures of it? Looks like a beaut! Chris

and this was my second favourite car. It was a Triumph Herald 13/60 estate which a very good friend of mine converted to Mk1 Vitesse spec. Sadly he passed and I bought it from his widow. The "Green Bean" is how it was known in our local Triumph Sports Six Club branch.

I do not wish to "hog" this thread, but here is a picture of my wife, Lynda's, Mk3 Spitfire which I rebuilt from a wreck. She loved that car!

Strange as it may seem, I would truly love to have this back.

Hi. Is this wireless or via ethernet cable? I had a similar situation and found the wireless card in one machine was acting as a bottleneck. When I upgraded it, the speed leapt up. Chris

Sorry, that was polycythaemia. I think my brain is going soft. Chris

Many years ago I managed a medical chest ward. We cared for many patients with COPD. I remember those in the most advanced stages had thrombocytopaenia - too many red blood cells - and had to be bled on a regular basis. What amazed me then - and now - was the number that within an hour of having been bled were sat on the verandah of the ward smoking. Nothing so ***** as folk, as my grandmother used to say. Take care and don't smoke. Chris

This is quite a thought provoking topic indeed. In recent years we have stuck to the Northern Broads, but I do have very happy memories of mooring at Beccles on our honeymoon in 1972! On the North, there are so many, but Ranworth is a very favourite place and we love Gayes Staithe for the peace and the fishing, Hoveton Viaduct for the fishing, Womack Water for the peace and the fishing (is there a theme here?), oh, and Thurne Dyke for the peace and the fishing. Chris

Sorry, for Pyms read Plyms. We didn't have to ply him with posh booze. What else don't I miss? Being put in charge of a ward of thirty patients, on my own, all night as a first year student nurse. Nearly breaking my back to have them all up and dressed for when the day staff came on at 7am. Oh, and not being able to start before 6am. Crazy days. No-one would believe it now. Chris

Planting celery plants for 10 bob a1000 as a school holiday job. Buy a fag and a match for thruppence from the school tuck shop. Ice on the inside of the windows. Outside loo in Winter. Outside loo in summer. Tin bath in front of the fire and ranking lower than the dog. T-square across my backside in tech drawing. Ruler across my knuckles in just about every other class, except history when it was a board rubber against the head. Oh, and Georgie Baker, Gym master, twisting my nipples for forgetting pyms. Chris

A very thought-provoking topic. There have been so many advances, for which we should surely be grateful. What I don't miss is playing on bomb sites and picking up shrapnel from German ordnance. We are the best of friends now of course. What I do miss is cycling. I would think nothing of slinging my fishing basket across my back, tying my rods to the cross bars and cycling 20 miles for a day's fishing. Now I would not dare venture out on a bike, even if my tired old bones would allow it, because of the maniacal traffic. Come to think of it, I miss playing marbles down the road edge. Its a funny old world. Chris

Duh, barmpot that I am. In 2017 we had Classic Gem. Swan Rapture was 2019. I think a marble must have dropped out. Chris

Hi John, when we came up from New Zealand in 2017 for 3 weeks on Swan Rapture, the quickest and cheapest transport from Heathrow to Stalham was via taxi all the way. Funny old world eh! We are back in 2021 for another 3 weeks on Swan Rapture and we too can't wait. Cheers Chris

Kia ora. Wishing everyone a happy and prosperous New year from sunny NZ. We love reading the reports of your trips around the Broads and get very envious. Still we can now say we will be back next year. It sounds much closer than 2021. Chris and Lyn

A very, very merry Christmas to one and all from New Zealand on a very warm and sunny Christmas morning. Have fun and stay safe. Chris and Lyn

And a very merry Christmas from us down here in the City of Sails (well, close by anyway) enjoying the sunshine. Looking forward to our return in 2021 and perhaps meeting up with one or two of you. Chris & Lynda

Does he have a website to display his works?

We watched the game down here in NZ live. First time Erindoors has watched a rugby game and it is a very long time since I have seen her so excited. Sunday morning I was sure I could hear bells tolling all over the Nation. A day of National Mourning. The press here was so convinced of an All Black walkover of England. Let our joy be unconfined! Chris