kpnut

Most probably!! I have lost time to catch up on. I still have berths vacant for the meet weekend if you fancy it Helen.

So is mine Grendel, but that doesn’t mean I like getting out of bed. For some odd reason, 4.21 seems to be my waking time at the moment.

Thanks Gracie, I’m grateful for that reminder as it had not registered. Once I’m there, that’ll be lovely. But seeing as I was planning on leaving home at 6am tomorrow morning, in my book that’s going to be 5am. Might just have a bit of a rethink about that then.

So, having postponed the paint job, last weekend I brought both dogs (Finlay and brother Charlie, my daughter’s dog) down to prep the boat for the year. She’s all ready and waiting now, water tank sterilised, heater checked, curtains up, engine running nicely, window gutters thoroughly cleaned out, (probably full of willow leaves again by now😂), boat washed and polished. And first outing will be this Sunday for a week or so. Long overdue! A lovely bonus of my weekend was driving down to How Hill to pay a visit to Lulu on Mermaid. Honoured to be their first visitor. And although they have acquired her after such sad circumstances of Ian’s passing, I know they will love her and have wonderful adventures on her. And Desmond will find it so much easier to get on and off for stern moorings that so many more stopping off points have opened up for them.

The best laid plans and all that! The boat’s gone nowhere, not as far as the lift out hoist. Unfortunately, the boat already in and being done as I shut mine up took way longer than anticipated, so Paul R and I decided I’d try again in late autumn, just a year after the initial date I’d been given. So I’ve wasted January, February and March. Most annoying. Update on the heater - it was the fan blower causing an overheating problem. I had reckoned it was overheating after 3/4 hr of running but had hoped if would just need a service. Oh well. I still have in mind about swopping to a planar or Chinese in the future if necessary, but for now I’m up and running again. And very confident I know how to do a service on it myself when needed. Thanks all who gave me tips, phone numbers and websites. The man on the website that Smoggy posted is really helpful and friendly. And I also now have a contact in Hull for help. I would like to change to an 802 controller which can read the fault codes, but they seem rather expensive, so still thinking about that.

Well done Sam, you beat me to it!

I’m eating my breakfast Simon!

I’ve been taken in by that trick before now. Once at those bankside moorings just upstream of Hunsett Mill, the ones you can’t moor at now due to the dredging spoil being offloaded there. I pulled in, grabbed both ropes, let Finlay jump off, (didn’t need a wee!) told him to get back onboard, got back on myself and set off again, all in one fairly seamless motion, I think much to the surprise from another boater who was moored up there!

Bridge Broad if you can get through Wroxham bridge. Also that little inlet on the right angled bend down Fleet dyke (on the right going down towards the Broad, before you get to the EA ‘bend’ moorings.

They were closed in January, I presumed a victim of the high water levels. I would think the quay heading there is really poor condition now after being submerged for weeks. It wasn’t in the best condition anyway.

Whenever I’ve been in mid morning onwards they’ve run out of bread. So I’d suggest either getting there as they open (I don’t know what time that is) or maybe you can pre-order? They fo a very nice meal size sausage roll.

Room on there for both of them.

I like hearing the rumbling of the trains across the bridge.

Presuming you mean beer and ginger beer, totally yum! If lemonade has been anywhere near it, then rather you than me.

Sun before 7, rain by 11. although I’m not sure the rain is forecast in this instance till this evening. So perhaps not so true after all, but the gist of bright starts often don’t last still holds. On a positive note, it works better the other way round! And don’t forget, ‘blue sky early morning enough to make a pair of sailors trousers, the day will be fine’. They all contradict each other. Maybe some are more true at certain times of the year?

So sorry to have not made it to the end Steve. I remember waking and saying I was back and BT commenting, in jest, that I’d won, then I remember no more 😄 Who did win, Arthur, Polly? Or did someone else creep up while I slept?

I wish I’d found the Broads in my much younger days. So beautiful and atmospheric. As a child in the 60’s, we did once go on a canal boat and I have a few nice photos my dad took. Probably a cine film somewhere too.

Forgot it was today you were onboard Helen. I nearly rang you to scrounge a cup of tea. I was in MK picking up a new (to me) car. Have a good week.

What a complete exploration Liz. Very interesting with things I’ve practical notes filed in my head, like the apartments with washing facilities and where to get tickets from. Wierd that Canberra only has 3 trains a day. Just as with Jean’s photos, yours show that generally the cities seem to be kept extremely clean. What was the Angel of the North doing there? And the bronze pig rooting in the bin?😂

A couple of posts have mentioned parking in Stalham. I have always found a space in the high street when I’ve needed one. Maybe I just go at a lucky time. And I’ve never paid, I’m certain it’s free. Tescos is also free as Floydraser says and it’s a quick nip through the alley from there to the high street. There is also a pay carpark at the chip shop end of the high street. I’ve never needed to use it. I think Stalham has better free parking than many other places. And it has a lot of community events through the year, fetes and the like. Not a dying town I don’t think, there’s always plenty of people on the high street when I go. It’s just a bit shabby like loads of places. It is full of independent shops, even if not high quality posh ones.

Excellent Sam. Enjoyed reading that. I too think that potentially the electric wc uses more but you can somehow learn to use minimal (and I follow Malcolm’s/Griffs words when on my own). The manual pump one is more difficult to get away with using less. I still reckon with the capacity of your tank you’ll be fine for a couple of weeks between you if careful.

I think bog oak might describe petrified wood, as in fossilised in anaerobic conditions in a bog for instance.

That was a very lovely thing to read on waking up this morning. Thankyou Andrew

Plenty of oaks at Fairhaven water gardens. Oak will be the climax species of alder carr, but obviously once it’s dried out. There is a species called Pin Oak that likes wet ground. I think it’s nickname is swamp oak. Not native to the UK but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t have been planted.

He does make some lovely things. Reminds me of a pig farm I worked on. We collected swill and one collection, every Thursday, was from the Barrett’s sweet factory in Crawley. Bars and bars and bars of misshapen pink and white nougat, along with misshapen and stuck together chocolate fish shapes. As well as stuffing ourselves with the stuff, the swill had a very peculiar smell once cooked and the pigs went mad for it. Wonder what it did to the taste of the meat!