marshman

Don't see much freezingly cold weather on the horizon - all lots pretty normal towards the New Year. We shall see but once its broken, I don't necessarily see it suddenly returning.

According to those them there table things, sunset today is at 15.37. By Saturday its 15.38 - sounds like good news amongst the snow and ice! Unfortunately 'cos the world is on a bit of a huh, it doesn't help the morning thing, and its not until around the 5th of January that it starts to improve in the morning with sunrise begins to get earlier - just! Until then you will just have to put up with a little longer in bed if you tend to wait for sunrise to get up!

More wind about tomorrow so that will help a lot!

The insurance companies will find ANY excuse not to pay out - that as suggested in the OP seems like a built in "get out of jail" card! Down to the individual but I would not put one in my expensive boat for the sake of a few hundred quid and no cover at the end of the day!!!! P.S. Are we actually allowed to trade with Russia still??

But I can guarantee that one of those installed without proper validation, would be sufficient to hinder or stop any insurance pay out! They refused to pay out with a fire on my boat, simply because the WHOLE of the boat wiring had not been checked on a regular basis. And don't suggest it was a cheapskate company, it was probably the most well known one!!!

Easily - walk up the track, over the railway line and Church Loke and it came out by the church and the Ram. Very central, not like the other end!

I just knew you would know that Vaughan!!!!!!!!!

Correct!! To be honest I am not sure the red one was ever really anything - I seem to remember there was a big old boat moored in the mouth there and someone lived there, but I think access was only by boat. All behind was pretty wet as the digger driver found out - my recollection is that they had to get another one in to get the stuck one out, but with bigger mats!!! Undoubtedly Hobrough was indeed involved but I cannot remember sometimes what day of the week, it is let alone what happened 60 years ago!!!! I do remember, a bit earlier though ,when there was still a foot ferry at Coldham Hall. We used to ring the ol' bell to get him to row across, then run like hell!!!

No - it was not Bells dyke. They were adjacent to the yard and the "Blakes" dyke was further upstream and around the bend, almost bang opposite the western entrance to Surlingham - it was never Bargate in those days!!!!! Bells did try and dig a dyke out just upstream of the yard but whilst doing it they nearly lost a Ruston dragline which fell off its "mat" - now they didn't half struggle to rescue that and lost their enthusiasm methinks!!!! The Blakes dyke was an entirely different issue and access to it was down Church Loke and over the line there, nowhere near Bells. To the best of my knowledge there was never a yard there - come on Vaughan you can do better than this, dredge back a bit further into your mind! It may have had something to do with the Brundall Gardens Estate - certainly it is they who own that land immediately adjacent to it now. A quick look at any map will show its a long way from Bells and I can almost certainly confirm it had nothing to do with them - at that time we had moorings in Bells yard and it was certainly never mentioned to my knowledge by Vic Bell as them owning it. I assumed then Blakes owned it but looking back it was probably on land leased by Blakes and perhaps leased from Brundall Gardens - look on Google Maps (there are others!!) and its quite obvious how far away it was from Bells!

The dyke is almost opposite the western entrance to the Broad - almost goes up to the railway line! I guess it was dug on land that was leased - long since full of private boats! No doubt someone will know who owns it!!!

Having lived in Norfolk for "several" years, it would be quite unusual to have severe weather before Christmas - we have had a mild autumn and after a hot summer sea temperatures will still be relatively warmish. The Broads have sea on three sides and that often stops the hard frosts in this area at this time. Equally although other parts of Norfolk and indeed the rest of the country may have snow, I doubt if it would be more than a smattering here - by the end of the week winds should have worked back to a more south westerly direction direction which may help too!! Probably wrong but on balance I wouldn't expect this bit to be too badly affected!!!! Famous last words!!!

Its used a lot by motorcaravans as up by the hotel is quite a large flat car park and a level area of grass - inside it also has a reasonable dance floor but why would they want to keep that? No doubt they will scrap that to cram more tables in - people just don't go out to listen and dance to bands these days. They went with Covid. Cannot see it competing with the Fur and Feathers but the Bell is a shadow of its former self. Its mostly shut and seems to be trying to convince the planning authorities it is not viable as a pub!!

Sorry - more thread drift!!!!!! No connection to Sutton Staithe whatsoever - not sure he ever painted it either!! Too far for him to pedal!!

I wish Rackhams paintings were highly valued!!! Many suffer from the fact he used poor quality paint and lots have have faded but Rackhams fetch no more than a couple of hundred quid - if you are lucky! Indeed not sure there are any shops left that sell that kind of picture - pictures are unloved by the modern generation who like clear, uncluttered walls - except for a large TV!! I have several not more than a few feet from where I sit, but what he could do exceedingly well was paint a wherry sail exceptionally well - he got the curve of the sail just right, one of the few artists who got it spot on!! No guessing, no artistic licence but EXACTLY right!!!

I don't even have a basket any more - have a tray like thing at the top where the cutlery fits virtually upright in little slots. Mind you, nothing to do with disposable meat trays!!!!! Bit like the uninteresting news that wind power is currently now just providing 1.2% of our electricity needs - hows that for thread drift!!! Will my dishwasher even work or will the lights go out?

Clean foil trays are indeed recyclable

Interestingly. whilst dredgers mud wherries are another issue, you will be interested to know that whilst the last tree surgeon I had on site did have the traditional chainsaws for the big stuff on the ground, he did use one of the electric chainsaws whilst aloft. He was using ropes aloft and swore by his electric chainsaw up there - the chief benefit being they are light and you don't have the problem of starting them aloft! You can now get them up to 12" and you can easily carry a spare battery in your pocket. Watch them up a big tree and they spend hours adjusting their position, and not a lot of time cutting so in that respect they are much in use today already. I was in the Acle Stihl shop the other day and they do are a huge mail operation with the electric saws being big business - in addition a lot of the professionals use the premixed petrol as that is not standard petrol but that long life stuff. The petrol saws are no longer surrounded by a haze of blue smoke and they are much easier to start - I have been using that stuff for the last 5/6 years and I think one of my cans dates back to that time and is still fine!! More expensive but worth it - they sell it by the pallet load!

As pointed out elsewhere, an excellent case of "greenwashing" with the paper quoting an opinion out of context! EDP getting hold of the wrong end of the stick and people not reading wots wrote!!!!!!

Says on the advert it was built by Bridge Boats Reading? Is that a clue do you think ???

Jarrah is very very hard and not easy to work with as I believe it can be cross grained . When roads were made from wooden blocks, as they sometimes were, I believe it was jarrah which was used. The main cross beam on Albion is made of it I believe.

And probably permission from the EA!! Anyone know a tree surgeon who likes working over water - my guess is they are few and far between and if they need one of their own workboats, it doesn't magic itself up to Neatishead, it has to be moved from where it is working now!

Thats part of of the main river bank, the flood prevention put in place by BESL and they cut these once a year usually in autumn in part to inspect them for damage etc I guess. At some stage in the near future, I believe they are trying to "unload" the commitment!

I can work those - mostly!!!!!

I accept this to a point, but why oh why do we have to download Apps to park??? And for other things? Why cannot everyone at least do contactless?

Quite correct Vaughan - and in addition to that, when the new keel was added, further weight was added low down too..