Coryton

And I believe the move is supposed to be towards all-electric houses...no gas heating or cookers...

When we had our hand-over, we were told that on no account should we use a hairdryer on the boat. The message was slightly undermined by the fact that there was a hairdryer in one of the cabins. Hard-wired, and no doubt 12 V, but....

Indeed. It's not just a question of how beefy the inverter is...

I wonder how many people would know how to investigate the supply network? I wouldn't!

To some extent I think it's one of those damned if you do, damned if you don't situations. After two weeks on the Broads, I can quite understand the desire to charge an extra damage deposit to groups of young lads out on a boat together. Putting an age restriction on would probably be illegal. You could leave it up to discretion when booking or taking on the boat...but that becomes contentious. A blanket policy is easy to implement, but then leads to the implication that a same-sex couple are more likely to do something silly to the boat then a heterosexual one, which is unfair. Thinking about it, a policy of an extra deposit for any same-sex group of three or more might work better. At least then you'd only get the anomaly when two or more same-sex couples share a boat, rather than just one...? Herbert Woods mention damage deposits for same-sex groups, but also mention for any non-family group. But that could also be a can of worms - what is a "family"? Of course the easiest solution is to charge everyone the same damage deposit. I looked recently at hiring on the Caledonian Canal and they wanted £500 from all comers. I think we paid a fairly hefty deposit on Lough Erne.

There really is an app for everything!

Are you sure? It wouldn't bother me directly if everyone stopped fishing, but looking at the large fraction of boats I saw with people fishing from them, I don't think it would be terribly helpful to the hire boat industry.

Compulsory viewing for (almost) the whole household last time round. I had the privilege of a visit to Fawley Hill, where it was filmed, earlier this year - that's some garden railway!

I was wondering but didn't like to ask...

I nearly had that problem. Our skippers' manual said if that happened to reverse the boat slowly to pull it out of the mud. It didn't explain how you get the quay behind you to reverse as well... We spent a night there, and found the staff very friendly.

Well from what I read above it's got planning permission...which doesn't guarantee that it will go any further.

Good grief - it's gone downhill fast! Being pedantic, it looks like something from a ground control tower at an airport (but a bit too low down). It certainly would be nice to see something done with it - it's not exactly the most pleasant welcome to Great Yarmouth (not that the yacht station is a thing of beauty)

Oh dear. It wasn't looking that great a couple of weeks ago. But better than that. As for having someone take your ropes, when we arrived in the yacht station fairly close to low tide we were quite a long way down and I had to scramble up to get the ropes on. Maybe if we'd waited someone would have come and helped, but all we knew was that they would come along and make sure we had them tied properly to cope with the tides (which they did), not take a rope in the first place.

Good grief! It takes all sorts, doesn't it? I can't think of a worse place on the Broads to try towing someone than across Breydon and through Great Yarmouth.

Actually, now you come to mention it, I think that was the point that I realised where we were. I was doing something in the cabin and not paying attention.

We took a detour/short cut through there on the way back from Coltishall. It didn't occur to us there was any reason not to. It looked perfectly navigable, and we didn't see any signs saying that it was private, or that it was too shallow, so I'm a bit surprised that people don't seem to normally go in there. Did we miss something? Here is a view of us coming back out again towards the BA moorings.

I think part of the problem is that a speed limit is easy to keep to, at least if you have a GPS speedometer on your boat or phone. But it's less obvious what your wash should, or shouldn't, be doing.

Do we want to know?

I see the point about fading. I don't have a problem with people peeking through the windows if the curtains are open though.

Clearly it depends on the level of tinting, but the trains from Cardiff to London used to have heavily tinted windows - presumably to make it easier for people to see their laptop screens. They made a nice sunny day look overcast and an overcast day look dreadful. And at night you could barely see anything. The new trains have nice clear windows, and blinds. (Well actually the windows aren't clear because they don't ever seem to be washed and they are filthy, but apart from that...)

I think what I don't realise is the benefit from tinting windows at all. In particular I found it quite odd to pass a boat and not to be able to see the person at the helm.

I'm not a fan of tinted windows. When I look out I want to see what the view really looks like.

The idea is that - since the barriers come down automatically when a train is approaching - any vehicle on the crossing when they come down can make a safe exit. For very good reason, emergency vehicles are not permitted to pass flashing red lights under any circumstances.

As in my previous post, I believe there will be. But there are plenty of level crossings in the UK which don't have anything to prevent a train approaching with a vehicle stuck on the crossing - these are the ones with "half-barriers" that just cover the side of the road for traffic about to enter the crossing.

I find it surprising that a level crossing replacement would be so expensive - staffing costs these days are huge. Also, I believe that the crossing will be replaced by a full barrier crossing which will be monitored by CCTV - the signals protecting it will only be cleared when someone has looked at the screen and checked that nothing is blocking the crossing.