SteveO

Thanks Howard, will make a pilgrimage next time we are allowed out then. The biggest thing that looks to have changed is the food. Back in my day, you were lucky if you got a cheese and onion sandwich or a pickled egg,

Back in the mid to late '70's no trip to Norwich was complete without a visit to the Plasterer's Arms. Very good beer, a friendly atmosphere and I seem to recall that the landlord had a number of stuffed toothy varmints displayed on the wall - I think they were pine martens. I believe that the pub is still there, or was pre-lockdown, but I suspect it has been tarted up out of all recognition. Part of me wants to re-visit but the other part warns that re-visiting places where you have good memories often leads to disappointment, especially when 40+ years have intervened.

Good to see that you got at least some of your ducks in a row.

This evening's quiz was won by NikO with Tigerhawk in second place and Janet-Anne and Bern tying in 3rd. Nik will be QM next Friday. Thanks to Pauline for setting it.

Bump!

That's how I gained my love of seafood. We also had a man who came round on Friday evenings selling cold fried haddock in batter. The cold fish made a great sandwich for Saturday lunch. I think that was very much a West Riding thing.

Pauline has got herself double-booked with the WI tomorrow evening, so I have agreed to act as QM, She has kindly provided the quiz questions, so the rounds will be as follows: WORLD GEOGRAPHY LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND ART HISTORY & FASHION Half-time break POP CULTURE & MUSIC FILM & TV GENERAL KNOWLEDGE Everyone is welcome to join us, starting at 8.30-ish tomorrow night. Enter user name - no password required https://www.nbnplus.co.uk/chat/

Interesting factiod: Back in the days of the Cinq Ports, Great Yarmouth started out as a fishing colony of Cinq Portsmen from the Sandwich/ Dover/Hythe area, who, in return for providing ships for the king, were granted the right to fish for herring off the mouth of the river Yare. Over the years, the town of Yarmouth grew up around the fishing camp and divisions grew between the locals and the Portsmen. The native population,avoided the need to provide the king with ships during times of war by agreeing to pay an annual tribute to the king of "100 herrings baked into twenty-four pasties". The Portsmen charged the locals for access to the river via a system called "Oarpence" . Tolls were set at a penny for each oar used plus fourpence per boat - an early Broads Toll? In return, the locals maintained the harbour lights and subtracted the cost of this from the tolls paid. All bumped along until the 1296 . when the Portsmen increased tolls to a point which the locals couldn't or wouldn't pay. Out and out conflict broke out, resulting in the loss of 25 Yarmouth ships and 171 men. The king intervened but conflict continued on and off until the relationship was quietly allowed to fizzle out in the 17th Century.

We used to be able to buy kippers, bloaters and red herrings, to say nothing of smoked sprats - also delicious. down our high street. Sadly, since the supermarkets moved in, the specialist fish shops have gone, except for one recently opened in the disused lifeboat house, whose astronomical prices are aimed at DFLs.

Ours works quite well, but you need to allow it to warm up for longer than you might think before cooking, turn the toast once on each side and have the grill pan lower too. Kippers? I detest "boil in the bag" too, but proper ones do well in the microwave. However, a word of caution: grilling "fragrant" fish like kippers on a boat would probably have all the herons on the Broads queuing up - and proper kippers are too good to share.

Very sad to hear this, Rest in peace sir Tom.

Now there's a blast from the past. We were in Thetford 1976-8 which was the epoch of the great Watneys beer desert. It looks as though things had changed for the better after we left - so often the way!!!! We use to visit the Chequers at Thompson which was right in the middle of the army training area where a lot of the Dad's Army action sequences were filmed and on Sunday afternoons would often be full of squaddies in full battledress whetting their whistles. Other great places out of town in those days were the Green Man at Methwold Hythe, The Oak at Ixworth, which was nothing more than a lean-to shed on the side of a house, with the beer served out of jugs via the kitchen window. Ahhhh nostalgia!

It certainly was a "Beer desert". We used to live in Thetford and the only pubs in town that served anything like decent beer were The Albion (Greene King) and the Thomas Paine Hotel (Adnams). As I remember the Broads, the pubs we used to visit were The Dog at Ludham Bridge, the Black Horse, the New Inn at Horning, which used to serve Greene King IPA, the Maltsters, the Maid's Head at Stalham, The Bridge at Potter, the Lord Nelson and the Ship at Reedham and the New Inn at Rockland. In the early '80's when we had a young family, the pubs were horrible. Children were either not allowed in or were permitted only in the "games room", which was usually a lean-to containing a pool table and one-armed bandits, thick with cigarette smoke and frequented by the effing and blinding local "yobbery".

I still shed a tear every time I drive past the site of the Black Horse at Hoveton. Great "old school" pub with good beer and interesting food which was definitely not from Brake Brothers. Their rabbit pie was to die for.

The heady whiff of Norfolk sewage as you approach Postwick.

I'd base mine on a semi- floating pontoon on Breydon water, accessible via a causeway from the A47. Boats available would be poled punts and rowed camping skiffs. In the remote event of hirers being able to actually get off Breydon, they would be able to enjoy a back to nature, environmentally friendly holiday experience on either the Northern or Southern Broads, depending on wind and tide. I would have a deckchair on which to lounge and admire the view, as I doubt if I would get many customers. given that, by the time this gets off the ground, the national parks people will have banned cars.

I have memories of making the North to South crossing in the Freeman 22 we owned around 20 years ago. I must have got the timing slightly wrong because water was flowing down the Bure as though someone had pulled the plug out. It was quite disconcerting at first, being carried along with not a lot by way of steerage, all I was able to do was keep the nose pointing in the right direction via little blips of high revs on the throttle. I was just pleased that we had cured our dirty fuel problem by then so the engine kept going.

After a weekend of rain, we woke to find everything coated in white stuff , which looked beautiful under a clear blue sky. The sun was warm, so we decided to have a trudge round the village before lunch. The air over the Channel was surprisingly hazy but from our vantage point in the churchyard, you could just make out the bulk of Cap Gris Nez in the far distance. Not much by way of shipping to be seen except for one large container ship heading South. Back home and we prepared lunch. Haggis, bashed neeps and champit tatties in honour of Robert Burns' birthday. The whisky gravy of my own devising set the dish off nicely. A rare treat indeed. Don't know what the rest of the day will bring, but if it is as good as the first half, bring it on!

Only met him once via one of the Friday night Fish and Chip sessions. As has already been said, a real character and a proper pub landlord of the old school. The fish and chips were good too, RIP.

I was thinking rich in terms of those with sufficient wealth to dedicate large tracts of land to the "re-wilding" projects that seem to be so beloved of BBC Countryfile. These initiatives seem to involve stocking land with wolves, beaver, otters and other species that were so pesky the first time round that we hunted them to extinction. The other key feature of these great works is that the species involved are always allowed to "escape" into the wild to become some kind of hyper-protected "totem" animal to the joy of the birdie boys and other nature fanatics and the general annoyance of anyone within a 50 mile radius who has to try to make a living out of the land.

Just another example of the BBC trying to promote its metropolitan-focused agenda, which sees the countryside as a kind of picturesque museum or a very rich person's playground.

We had the merest sprinkling. Not even enough to send the entire Southeast of England out panic buying.

After a tense tie-break, Bern was the winner of this evening's quiz and will be next week's QM. Congratulations!

Lest we forget.