Luna’s Log

[SwanR]

Lovely tale to read. And lovely photos too. That first night’s sleep shows the magic of somewhere that you can really relax. 

[Lulu]

15 minutes ago, SwanR said:

Lovely tale to read. And lovely photos too. That first night’s sleep shows the magic of somewhere that you can really relax. 

Thank you Swan.  Ive never slept so well as I did that week. Now I’m home and back to work, its the usual waking every few hours.  

[SwanR]

1 hour ago, Lulu said:

Now I’m home and back to work, its the usual waking every few hours.  

I know that feeling. Not sure that working from home helps with that which I have been doing since March and will be for the foreseeable future. Our office is opening back up but with a very restricted number of people allowed in. But when I’m at the caravan I sleep in and switch off. 

[addicted]

Lovely pics Sam. Glad you are having such a restful few days. How I miss days like that. But all is not lost  perhaps as Tony is now thinking that if we get a smaller, less onerous to care for, boat and wherever we  choose for a permanent mooring there is  a decent boat cleaning  company then maybe we have a few more boating years left,.  I think our day at Brundall marina last week was so enjoyable  It caused him to do a rethink. I'm ecstatic. All we have to do now is find a buyer for Hot Gossip.

 

 

Carole

i

[Lulu]

35 minutes ago, addicted said:

Lovely pics Sam. Glad you are having such a restful few days. How I miss days like that. But all is not lost  perhaps as Tony is now thinking that if we get a smaller, less onerous to care for, boat and wherever we  choose for a permanent mooring there is  a decent boat cleaning  company then maybe we have a few more boating years left,.  I think our day at Brundall marina last week was so enjoyable  It caused him to do a rethink. I'm ecstatic. All we have to do now is find a buyer for Hot Gossip.

 

 

Carole

i

That’s great news Carole!  It would be good to meet up again out on the rivers x 

[Lulu]

Monday 20th July 2020

After another night of wonderfully restful sleep we awoke to a beautiful blue fluffy cloudy sky. It reminded me of the intro to the Simpsons cartoon.  We left Stokesby at 7.30 and yet again had the river to ourselves.   We arrived at Acle at 8.00 to get water and a pump out. We moored at the water point on the Pedros side and were told that we would have to wait for the guy to arrive as he takes the hosepipe away.  It was a hard life waiting in glorious sunshine. We then saw Bridgecraft opening up at 9.00 so we reversed Luna onto the Bridgecraft side and got the water and pump out done there instead.    

We left Acle at 9.45 and proceeded up the river. A little way along we witnessed aerial combat between a gull who had an eel in his beak and a heron who was in hot pursuit. This went on for quite a while and couldn’t believe how agile the heron was.  Finally the gull dropped the eel and the heron claimed his prize. Unfortunately I couldn’t capture this as it was all too fast.

 We decided Salhouse was our next destination.  It was still pretty quiet, although a bit busier as we went through Horning. We arrived at Salhouse at 12.15 and got an end spot so I could have an uninterrupted view later.  We went for a walk then as usual, boat watched, gradually watching the moorings fill up well into the evening. It was lovely having one side with a clear view. I think we were asleep by 9.30

 

[SwanR]

I know what you mean about keeping one side with a clear view. I have a favourite spot at Ranworth for that as well. 

Whenever I moor at Salhouse I seem to manage to pick the spot with the muddiest land at the rear of the boat!

[Lulu]

Tuesday 21st July 2020

We didnt get a lot of sleep. The geese decided to have a party at 2.30pm which continued on and off for the rest of the night.  After disposing our rubbish, we left Salhouse at 8.15. We turned left and went down to Wroxham Broad where I could practice some manoeuvring. Selsie always does the mooring and I always helm but i need to get some confidence to be able to do the more tricky stuff. The weather was, as it had been so far, warm and sunny. We felt incredibly lucky.

We didn't go into Wroxham knowing there would be nowhere to moor and we haven’t yet had the  courage to go under the bridge.  We took a slow cruise to St Benets. Again, as we were out and about so early the rivers were quiet.  By the time we got to St Benets at 10.30, boats were leaving to start their day and that was the end of our cruising for the day!  We were loving this routine.

 Selsie hadnt been to the abbey before so we went and had a look around then walked to the cross.  We had some lunch and the river then got very busy. After our disturbed night I went for an afternoon nap, lulled to sleep by the continuous sound of the boats passing by.

I was hoping for another good sunset. I walked back to the abbey in the evening where there were quite a few others poised with cameras. It wasnt as spectacular as the night we were at Stokesby but still a lovely light.  

[MotorBoater]

Gorgeous set of photos, sound like you are keeping out of the daytime madhouse !

[Lulu]

1 hour ago, MotorBoater said:

Gorgeous set of photos, sound like you are keeping out of the daytime madhouse !

Thank you. We have never really been on board in peak season and we thought this would be the best way to tackle it, plus we wanted to be totally lazy. It worked for us! 

[Lulu]

Wednesday 22nd July 2020

After a very quiet night, back to 9 hours sleep, we left St Benets at 8.30.  We were aiming for Potter but to be honest didnt hold out a lot of hope. We had a back up plan.  As predicted there was no room, well there would have been if there werent so many gaps, just not quite big enough.  Plan B, Womack. We pootled slowly back and turned into Womack Dyke and went down to the staithe. There were a few spaces and we could have done with topping up the water tank but I really didnt want to be stern moored for the rest of the day so we went back out and found a nice spot in the dyke at 10.10.  Another first for us, so another tick as we hadnt moored there before.   Such a lovely spot but got a bit hairy at times with boats going past very close and a dinghy that left its mark on a fender.  

We decided to try and find the much praised butchers in Ludham. It was a lovely walk. Didnt realise the path runs behind the hedge and walked along the road. We found the path on the way back . We popped into the shop for a few things then went to the butchers where we got a pork pie for Selsie, a sausage roll for me for our lunch and bacon and chipolatas for later. What amazing value. We will definitely go back. Its a wonderous thing finding bacon that doesnt foam!  

Small world, a couple moored in front of us were related to the previous owners of Luna. We sat on the deck chatting to our neighbours when a certain Mr Grendel came round the corner. He moored up a few boats behind us and we had a great catch up. 

The evening meal consisted of all the chipolatas and veg, so good.   We watched a bit of tv then the usual early night. 
 

[Lulu]

Thursday 23rd July 2020

After a very restful night, we tried to be as quiet as possible leaving the dyke at 7.30am.  Selsie was a bit worried about the batteries as we hadnt been doing a lot of cruising so rather than going to Womack Staithe as planned when we saw boats coming out, we changed plan and decided to go back to Acle and fill up with water at Bridgecraft before going back up the Ant with an idea to moor up at Paddy’s Lane.   We had a lovely quiet cruise down to Acle, fillled up with water at Bridgecraft, popped £2 in the box and made our way back.  

As we approached the Ant mouth, I couldn’t see any boats coming out but something made me even more cautious as i began the turn and lo and behold a boat was just about to turn left on my side of the river.  I used my newly practiced skills of stopping while they hastily moved to the correct side. Adrenaline running, and because I wont helm under Ludham Bridge,  I handed control over to Selsie but i was pleased I’d not panicked and dealt calmly with the situation.   

After we got passed the bridge I took over again and we had the usual discussion, “if Irstead is free.....” It wasnt so we went to Paddys Lane as originally planned.   After finding a lovely spot, we settled down and after a while I looked at what was going on on the forum to find that Grendel had just posted he too was at Paddys Lane.  I took a walk around the corner and there he was. After another catch up on all things boating, Selsie and I decided to have an explore and went for a walk around the staithe and up into the village. It was a lovely walk and I was really missing not having a hound to walk anymore. 

So after not being as lazy as we had been, normal service resumed and we boat watched and I had another afternoon nap and sat on the deck in the sun for the rest of the day. 

[Lulu]

Friday 24th July

A slightly later start as this was our last day. I walked back round to the staithe to get rid of the rubbish before setting off at 9.00 to go back to the marina.  We wanted to get a bit of maintenance done and also get plugged into the electric as Selsie was still worried about the batteries. (We have now decided to get an additional battery)  We had always intended to stay overnight in the marina before leaving for home early morning on Saturday.  We could have stayed another night but knew the weather was going to turn.

To summarise the best holiday on Luna we have had!

For peak season, because of the times we were cruising, we almost felt we were on our usual out of season cruising.   The weather was perfect all week, warm, never too hot, a few rain showers at night.  Everywhere we planned to moor, we found somewhere easily with our routine apart from Potter, but that worked In our favour by going to Womack in the end.   Being mentally exhausted by lockdown and work and recovering from post viral fatigue, I’ve never slept so much and unfortunately now Im back at work, Ive gone back to my old ways but I’m feeling a lot better. Anyway, few weeks time we are back again for another week so will no doubt catch up with more sleep then!  Thank you as ever Luna for looking after us. 

(I have decided this will probably be the last Luna’s log as it’s probably going to get too samey). 

[JanetAnne]

13 minutes ago, Lulu said:

(I have decided this will probably be the last Luna’s log as it’s probably going to get too samey). 

[YnysMon]

Nooo! I think my 'tales' are getting a bit samey too. If we all did that we wouldn't have any more holiday blogs.

[Ray]

2 hours ago, Lulu said:

have decided this will probably be the last Luna’s log as it’s probably going to get too samey

I think you're outvoted by the forum lol

There's always something a little different each cruise, like your emergency stop entering the Ant and sooner or later when you decide that you will helm through Ludham Bridge... and of course the photos which give us all a fix of the Broads if we aren't there.

Carry on Luna Logging 

[Lulu]

3 hours ago, YnysMon said:

Nooo! I think my 'tales' are getting a bit samey too. If we all did that we wouldn't have any more holiday blogs.

 

3 hours ago, Ray said:

I think you're outvoted by the forum lol

There's always something a little different each cruise, like your emergency stop entering the Ant and sooner or later when you decide that you will helm through Ludham Bridge... and of course the photos which give us all a fix of the Broads if we aren't there.

Carry on Luna Logging 

Ummmmm......ok then  :)   Actually, just for my own personal interest its rather nice looking back to previous tales and what we did,  especially the wooden boat show last year which unfortunately due to work we cant attend this year. Gutted about that :(  We would have been loading up the car today if we could have gone waaaaahhhhhhh! 

We may have an additional crew member on our next proper break so that crew member may be contributing to the content.......

[Lulu]

I had made the decision not to continue with Luna’s log but wanted to share what an absolutely fantastic week we had to show the Broads is a truly wonderful place to be still. With all what has been going on this year, we do feel incredibly lucky to have had two perfect weeks this year.  Very, very lucky with the timing of the weather.  In my last post, I mentioned we may have another crew member (a four legged friend) but unfortunately this didnt work out and we are still looking.
 

12th September 2020

We waved my daughter, son in law and 16 month old granddaughter off at 9.00am to many tears after a lovely week with them. They live in Scotland and hadnt seen them since January. Goodness knows when we will see them again with the latest lockdown rules, so to try and get ourselves out of our sad moods, we set off straight away to the marina leaving the house in a tip which we never usually do!  We arrived at the marina at 10.30 and decided to stay there for the rest of the day doing odd jobs, checks and cleaning.  We got our chairs out later and sat in the sun planning where we would go the next day. 
 

 

[Tempest]

We love reading the holiday tales, which as others have said always have something different and I also like to read opinions expressed, even if they differ from mine 

[Lulu]

In case anyone was waiting with baited breath for the next thrilling instalment, the combination of my new camera and uploading the photos from an Ipad (I dont have a laptop) means I can no longer include photos (im not into techy stuff).  All I know is it wont work and the tech team have tried also but we couldnt get round the problem without them posting links for me  so Luna’s Log will end here until I can find a solution. 

[CambridgeCabby]

11 minutes ago, Lulu said:

In case anyone was waiting with baited breath for the next thrilling instalment, the combination of my new camera and uploading the photos from an Ipad (I dont have a laptop) means I can no longer include photos (im not into techy stuff).  All I know is it wont work and the tech team have tried also but we couldnt get round the problem without them posting links for me  so Luna’s Log will end here until I can find a solution. 

You could email your photos to yourself and load them from your smartphone ? 
We all enjoy your tales/photos immensely 

[Ray]

That's a real shame, we all enjoy Luna's Log! Have you tried CC's idea, it sounds like a good idea.

If not does anyone else load camera photos to an iPad and then on to here? Is there's a fix to get it to work? (Asking for a friend ☺️)

[Mouldy]

19 minutes ago, Lulu said:

In case anyone was waiting with baited breath for the next thrilling instalment, the combination of my new camera and uploading the photos from an Ipad (I dont have a laptop) means I can no longer include photos (im not into techy stuff).  All I know is it wont work and the tech team have tried also but we couldnt get round the problem without them posting links for me  so Luna’s Log will end here until I can find a solution. 

I found earlier today that I can no longer add photos taken on my camera and stored on iCloud to my Norfolk Lady thread, but only from my phone.  I have found a way round, but it does involve exporting photos from the cloud and converting them to jpegs on our iMac. 

[CambridgeCabby]

If you have WhatsApp on your iPad you can WhatsApp yourself and auto save to phone photo library , alternatively you can blue tooth them over 

[Lulu]

thank you all for your lovely comments and suggestions. Experimenting from my IPhone rather then the iPad