SteveO

If it makes for easier handling, and you can afford to have one fitted, then why not? I wouldn't be without ours, but then it was already fitted when we bought the boat.

We really enjoyed the meet. It was good to catch up with old friends and make a few new ones. Thanks to Polly and all who helped with organizing the event, to Mike for the quiz and Robin for sparing me the task of lugging my large, heavy and very noisy generator up from Kent. The music was a treat and the weather behaved itself too. We had intended to stay the night, but by 8.45pm I was chilled to the bone and needed to get the heating on. I didn't think that those moored next to us would have appreciated this, so we decided to make a run for our "home" mooring, which we reached at around 9.15pm. Thanks again to all concerned!

I can hardly keep my eyes open. If you are going to flounce off, flounce off. Don't make a lengthy thread of it, because most of us have other concerns and, frankly, don't care. If you are going to flounce off, close your account and then you won't be troubled by misguided people pleading with you to stay (or is that what you really wanted?) and you won't be tempted to quietly flounce back.

Yawn.....

Yawn........

Yawn........

For me, flying and driving are all about the destination. In both cases, have grown to dislike the overcrowding and the unpredictability of the journey and in the case of flying, the security checks we have to undergo, the commercial exploitation of passengers in our airports and, nowadays, having to turn right when I get on the plane. I don't travel by train much, but when I do, it usually involves either a steam-driven beast with the smells of hot oil and smoke, or a historic line. In both of these cases, it is all about the journey. On the water, when sailing, it has to be about the journey rather than the destination whilst on the motorboat, I see it as 50:50. I love the ever-changing scenery and the fact that you never know who or what you are going to encounter next.

Nice to see a Norman again. I used to have one with leading link front forks and a Villiers 197cc engine. Many happy memories.

Cambridge Analytica will have a field-day with this lot.

I always thought that beef dripping was what you fry your chips and cook your Yorkshires in, whereas pork dripping is what you spread on bread with the lovely tasty brown gloop from the bottom of the pan and a good aneurysm-provoking pinch of salt. Wouldn't much fancy the beef stuff on bread.

We're going.

For anyone who is hankering after black pudding made from fresh blood, and are nowhere near either Macclesfield or Jimmys farm. this outfit will deliver it mail order, at a price. https://www.fruitpigcompany.com/Fresh-Blood-Black-Pudding.aspx I have never used them, so can't vouch for their products, but they might be worth a try, given the price of diesel nowadays. Looking at their website, they also seem to have a number of stockists around the country, and especially in Norfolk and Suffolk. https://www.fruitpigcompany.com/Our-Stockists.aspx

Having just spent a week cruising the Rhine from Basel to Amsterdam, and having been well looked after all the way, I don't need a BMI calculation to know that I am well on the piggy side of "normal". I like my food and enjoy a beer or three. I find gymn-type exercise extremely boring and have struggled with my weight all my life. No diet I have ever followed has worked. The quandary is; do I make myself miserable and possibly lose a few pounds from my current 18.5 stone, still being "obese" unless I could (improbably) lose 6 stone or so, or do I just enjoy the time I have left? The trouble with the NHS targets for me is that they are unattainable, so why bother?

I just love informed comment.

Good turnout for the quiz this evening. Mike won by a very narrow margin and will be QM next week. Sorry you couldn't get into the quiz room Delilah. Perhaps try again next week.

British Steel or British Steal?

Hi Delilah, you can log in at any time. If you haven't been in before it might be a good idea to go in before 8.30 just to make sure you can get in and know what to do when quiz time comes.

All are very welcome regardless of whether or not you are a full member.

We do indeed have a quiz this evening. Kick off will be at around 8.30pm, Rounds will be: 1) Detectives in tv, film and fiction 2) Advertising slogans 3) Food and drink Half-time break for fluid intake/output 4) My Stars! 5) Cars 6) Just mayhem. To access the quiz site, go to http://www.nbnquiz.co.uk/chat/ Enter your username but do not enter a password. I hope to see as many of you this evening as possible. Cheers Steve

Twenty years from now, I will probably be dead.

Ours opens easily under its own weight and, if anything, has to be restrained from rolling back too quickly. Look carefully at the little wheels that carry the sliding roof down the metal track on either side of the cockpit. You may find that one or more of them have become "derailed" over time. If that is the case, they can usually be re-seated without too much difficulty.

Hands off! I've been tweaking and training those boughs to make grown knees and frames for a maybe project in my twilight years. In any case, both trees have preservation orders on them so any timber would have to be removed with extreme discretion. ?

The old rhyme says: "Oak before Ash, we are in for a splash. Ash before Oak, we'll be having a soak". We have Oak and Ash trees either side of the house. In most years, the Oak is in leaf slightly before the Ash but this year, the Ash is already out , way before the Oak. This last few days notwithstanding, I will be interested to see if this phenomenon is followed by a wetter than usual Summer. The optimist in me reasons that the Ash is in leaf early, because Ash thrives best in the sort of cold and wet conditions that we have had plenty of in the last few months. Only time will tell, but I would be very interested in what people are seeing in other parts of the country.

Frankly I am fed up with this recurring debate. If you don't have electric posts you would have even more people running engines at antisocial times to charge batteries and generate hot water. It is OK for locals, who tend to use their vessels as day boats, to sound off about this, but those of us who live in the 21st century (i.e. outside Norfolk) and stay on our boat for a week or more at a time need our creature comforts and these often require electricity. Yes I would happily "rough it" if that was all that was on offer, but I can't speak for Mrs O and I can see that tension between family members who have different expectations of comfort and utility could very easily lead to a shared and much valued pastime becoming a source of tension and dissent.

Simple. It changed colour to match the background.