Carried Away By A Moonlight Shadow...

[kpnut]

Doubt it, but I bet those meerkats on the TV adverts can. 

[Mouldy]

1 hour ago, kpnut said:

Doubt it, but I bet those meerkats on the TV adverts can. 

Which one?  Alan or Steve? 😉

[kpnut]

I thought they had Russian names?

Missing something here me thinks!!!!!

[Mouldy]

7 minutes ago, kpnut said:

I thought they had Russian names?

Missing something here me thinks!!!!!

I was thinking of these ones:

https://youtu.be/F0BfcdPKw8E?si=Xm3T0wLlUFxssqpr

 

[YnysMon]

Ferrets might be a thread drift too far, though I will mention that there was an interesting YouTube video from Cruising the Cut who interviewed various canal liveaboards about coping with pets on board. One couple had two ferrets on board. 

[Andrewcook]

Hi talking of pets on board Boats.  I watch a YouTube about Boating on Canals. Here is this story about Two Cats on Canal Boats. When they moor up they let two Cats off the Boar to stretch their Pawa on Trees and stay out till their meal time yet the two are never far away from their Boat and are ready to move on to their next location. 

[LizG]

My 5 year old grandson was Seren of the week, the 'reward' is that he has to look after Dewi the dragon and take it 'on adventures' which his poor mum has to document!!!

[YnysMon]

Less than a week to go now, until our next trip on Friday. Whoopee.

Planning is apace…packing list being reviewed, menu and shopping plans mostly completed. As we now have Sainsbury’s staff discount (courtesy of Alec), I might try to do a click and collect order from the Thorpe Sainsbury’s rather than shop in Lidl or Roy’s. 

Harry has messed up. He was intending to accompany us for the fortnight, but he forgot to log his apologies for band practices, and as the ‘A’ band has a number of concerts in April, the band conductor wasn’t happy with the idea that he would miss four rehearsals in March. Looks like he’ll have to return home after the first week.

[Broads01]

41 minutes ago, YnysMon said:

I might try to do a click and collect order from the Thorpe Sainsbury’s rather than shop in Lidl or Roy’s. 

I've thought about doing that in the past but decided with the distance I have to travel I didn't want to be pinned down to a 1 hour time slot. If you decide to do that I'd be interested to hear how you get on.

[CambridgeCabby]

We had a delivery whilst moored on Horning staithe from Waitrose a couple of weeks ago , we ordered it when we moored up in the afternoon for between 0800 and 0900 the next morning it arrived at 0815 

[YnysMon]

Come to think of it, our American syndicate members have been having their start of holiday shop at Sainsbury’s delivered to Horning Pleasurecraft (as evidenced by a photo they posted on their holiday vlog on our syndicate website).

We might as well do click and collect though, as it’s a very short detour to Thorpe Sainsbury’s once you come off the Pozzick (Postwick) interchange.

[MargeandParge]

Just make sure you have enough room as our old dog and bags of groceries always became the best of friends if left unattended. 

Kindest Regards Marge and Parge 

[YnysMon]

4 hours ago, MargeandParge said:

Just make sure you have enough room as our old dog and bags of groceries always became the best of friends if left unattended. 

Kindest Regards Marge and Parge 

Indeed! We have been known to drive the last part of our journey with everyone having food bags on their laps apart from the driver.

Mind you, I need to check out whether you can use the Sainsbury's staff discount on click and collect. 

[YnysMon]

The Sainsbury’s click and collect is off the plan. I tried doing an order but couldn’t use the staff discount. After all, it’s their staff time used to pick the stuff, so thinking that we’d also get the discount was an unrealistic expectation. We should have plenty of time anyway as it’s not that long a journey from MK to Horning.

Hopefully we should get away by around 9 to 10 am, aiming to stop off at La Hogue farm shop for brunch, with maybe time for a dog walk at the UEA campus before the Sainsbury’s shop. We aren’t supposed to get to the boat until 5pm anyway unless the previous owner on board left a day or two earlier than expected.

[MargeandParge]

That Sainsbury’s at Thorpe is a good one and their garage is normally very competitive. Don't forget your nectar card.

We used to use Griffin Marine so it was our local super market. 

Kindest Regards Marge and Parge 

[YnysMon]

1 hour ago, MargeandParge said:

That Sainsbury’s at Thorpe is a good one and their garage is normally very competitive. Don't forget your nectar card.

We used to use Griffin Marine so it was our local super market. 

Kindest Regards Marge and Parge 

Nectar card and (our son’s) Alec’s staff discount. Between the two we can make quite a saving. Sainsbury’s allow you to nominate a second member of you family for a discount card. So much easier than IKEA where Harry was supposed to get a manager to sign for any discount for a family member. 

[YnysMon]

Moonlight Shadow Trip 18 - 15th to 29th March 2024

Friday 15th March

Eldest son Harry was able to join us on this trip.

We started off reasonably early, so got to La Hogue Farm Shop café late morning. Harry had an impressive burger, with bacon mayo on it as well as lots of other goodies. Graham had a veggie breakfast whilst I just had a toasted teacake with dairy-free spread. I don’t know what’s got into me on recent car trips up to Anglesey and Norfolk; I know I’m hungry, but somehow I can’t eat much. It’s weird and disconcerting. This was the specials board at La Hogue...

Back on our way, we had a good journey to the outskirts of Norwich. We wanted to take the dogs for a walk before going for our food shop, so we turned northward when we got to the A47 and aimed for the University of East Anglia (UEA) Campus. They have a lot of open land running down to the River Yare and what's marked on the map as 'the UEA Broad', and we found that the first car park that you come across when you turn into the campus was free – at least for a limited time.

After our dog walk, we drove to the Sainsbury’s store in Thorpe St Andrew. Youngest son Alec is now working in our local Sainsbury’s, so his Dad has a staff ‘family’ discount card. We used to do most of our shop in Lidl and then go to Sainsbury’s for things we couldn’t get in Lidl, but now that we have a discount, there doesn’t seem much point in doing that.

It was about 3.30 by the time we’d done our shop, rather too early to be going to the boat (official pick-up time is 5pm), but we thought we’d chance it and check with the Yard whether the turnaround checks had been done before going to the boat. We timed it perfectly, the checks had just been completed a few minutes earlier, and we were free to start loading the boat.

It was good to have the extra time to load and sort out the boat in daylight. We didn’t bother with much of a dinner this evening…my usual lazy standby of pasta with vegan pesto. This evening we tried gluten free pasta, to see if that made any difference digestion wise. The jury is out on that one.

The dogs settled down well on board.

As did the humans.

Having checked the Aweigh App, we decided to start out earlier tomorrow than planned. The long-range tide forecast for Yarmouth was for low tide at 8am. Aweigh was forecasting 07:05, so we decided we should start out around 5am tomorrow morning. That’s about an hour before dawn.

Graham warned the crew on Silver Cloud that we’d be starting off early. I don’t think he said quite how early though!

 

[YnysMon]

Saturday 16th March

 

The alarm was set for 04:30 and we were on our way just before 5. Harry kept the dogs in his aft cabin whilst we were setting off, as I needed to have the hatch over the helm seat open and the dogs are normally very vocal whenever Graham is on deck. Luckily there was hardly a breath of wind, so I edged very slowly out of our ‘berth’, probably the noisiest bit was using bow thrusters, but I thought that would lessen the time we were being a nuisance compared to trying to turn without the thrusters.

As we started off, there was quite an orangey glow in the sky to the west, which we guessed must have been the ‘bright lights’ of Norwich, and just the hint of dawn in the east. (And yes, I did set off still wearing my PJs, with a cosy top thrown over.)

By the time we got to St Benet’s it was getting much lighter, and we got to Acle at around dawn, though the cloudy sky in the east meant we couldn’t see the dawn. I love a good dawn, but when you are travelling down to Gt Yarmouth it can be a bit trying for the eyes, so maybe it was just as well it was cloudy.

Nearing Stracey Arms.

We saw nothing else on the river until we got to Marina Quays. I guess that person may have believed the Aweigh App as we did, as he had a reasonably high air-draft and would have wanted to get through at low water. I did another check on the Aweigh App tides – only to find that the forecast for low water had changed to 08:24! Grrr!

Oh well, as I had also checked the Project Troll site, I knew we would be able to get under the bridges without taking our canopy down, as the tide was still falling.

Of course we had a chug across Braydon against the tide. There were only a couple of boats going the ‘other way’ and one sporty type boat overtook us on our starboard side unexpectedly at quite a pace. I tried to turn into their wake, but wasn't quick enough so the waves hit us diagonally. Moonlight Shadow got tossed around from side to side like a cork…not nice at all! Bordering on frightening to be honest.

We turned up the Waveney at the end of Breydon and stopped at the Burgh Castle moorings. Time to allow the dogs a comfort break and to stretch their legs. We only went as far as the mill that is called ‘Black Drainage Mill’ on the OS map, so not a long walk.

We also took the opportunity to have some tea and toast. Tea and cereal bars had been consumed earlier on the way, so I guess it was a second breakfast.

We got on our way again around 11am and took our canopy down, just in case we didn’t have enough clearance at St Olaves. We needn’t have bothered as there was just over 8’ (which is what we need with the canopy up). I was glad we’d taken the canopy down though, as it's less stressful. It was also turning out to be a beautifully sunny day, plenty warm enough to cruise with the canopy down.

It was getting on for 1.30pm by the time we got to Oulton Broad. I had thought to moor on the inner side of the pontoon, but that was taken up by boats moored side-on. Most of the moorings on the opposite, outer, side were taken too, though we could probably have squeezed into a gap. Most of the stern-on moorings on the outward bit of pontoon that faces toward the Sailing Club were free though, so we had no problem finding a space. We probably had a bit more bow-slap than we would have had on the inner side though.

Graham and Harry went off to ‘Wood’n’Dough’, a new takeaway pizza place that has opened up in the small courtyard near the Yacht Station. We just had the one pizza between us – beetroot and goats cheese. I’d never realised beetroot would be so nice on a pizza. They weren't busy and took hardly any time it make the pizza freshly. 

Wood’n’Dough

The pizza.

We just lazed around the rest of the afternoon. Graham and Harry both went off to their cabins for naps. I stuck it out with the dogs and started to prepare the dinner. This just meant cooking and mashing some spuds, as I’d brought the rest of the dish with me from home. A few weeks ago we had a vegetarian haggis, ale and mushroom cottage pie with a side of braised red cabbage. The haggis mixture and the red cabbage had been enough for two meals, so I’d just frozen them. Very handy for this evening!

[YnysMon]

Sunday 17th March

Pozzie woke us up just after 5am this morning, whining. Which is usually a sign that he needs to relieve himself. I was awake anyway, so took him out, leaving Seren with Graham, as I can’t cope with the two of them if they both pull in the same direction. When I got back, I stayed in the lounge with the dogs whilst Graham had a few more zzz’s. It was a fairly gloomy morning, with showers forecast for most of the day. Not that we minded. We had a lazy sort of morning mostly, though we did take the dogs out for a couple of morning walks around the park. It was lovely to see the sailing races. There were quite a few sailboards out too.

Just before mid-day we made our way to the Copper Smokehouse as I had booked a table. They were very dog friendly, allocating us a table out of the way and bringing each dog their own bowl of water. The service was excellent and very friendly and the food divine. I had their smoked brisket and Graham had the vegetarian ‘roast’, which was a celeriac schnitzel. Both came with a very generous helping of roasties (4 good sized ones), a ginormous yorkshire, creamed leeks, mashed sweet potato, roast carrots and parsnips and a bowl of greens; kale, broccoli spears and mange tout. The gravy that came with the roasts tasted really smoky.

Graham's celeriac roast.

My brisket.

The veggies.

Harry had smoked pork belly with hasselback potatoes, stem broccoli, savoy cabbage and a bacon madeira cream, which he said was so tasty. It also came with a pot of gravy that tasted like it had apple in it. 

I couldn’t manage a pud, but Graham somehow put away a generous helping of toffee banana cake with bananas, ice cream and toffee sauce and Harry managed a crème brulee with shortbread.

The Sunday menu.

 

After lunch we set off for pastures new. The original plan had been to go to Beccles tonight and then somewhere further down the Waveney the following day, but that would be two days of fairly short cruises, and the downside of Beccles is that the Yacht Station is only open in the mornings until Easter, so unless we phoned ahead to ask for credit to be put on a post for us, we’d be without 240v electricity.

Somerlayton was ideal. Very quiet, apart from the trains. We were the only boat there and there was about 50p on the post when we got there at 3pm. We put another £1 on and switched on our little radiator. We prefer that to using the Webasto as it’s less noisy and the temperature is easier to regulate. It was still drizzly and breezy at this point, but it started to clear up shortly after 4pm. The wind dropped and the sun came out. We had a lovely sunset.

 

Naturally, we didn’t want much to eat this evening, making do with some coronation egg sandwiches (i.e. egg mayo spiced up with a little korma curry pasta and a small amount of mango chutney).

The dogs had a treat this evening, as I had brought the remains of my smoked brisket back to the boat in a foil parcel.

Once the trains had stopped for the night it was completely peaceful, except that Graham heard a few long freight trains crossing the bridge in the wee small hours.

[SwanR]

What beautiful photos Helen. That looked like an amazing morning for your cruise south. 

[YnysMon]

Monday 18th March

Graham and I got up fairly early again to take the dogs out, but we then lazed around and had breakfast before waking Harry up. Later we all went for a walk toward Herringfleet Mill.

From there the path continued northward along the river bank and took us all the way to the Herringfleet moorings. When we got to there, we found a sign that said there was no right of way along the way we had just come. That’s a fat lot of use if you’ve started out from Somerlayton, where there’s a sign saying the footpath is a permissive one. We had no choice other than to return the way we had come anyway.

Once back at the boat we didn’t allow the dogs back on until their legs had been washed, as they had both gone into the reeds and come out with very smelly, muddy legs.

We then set out on our way to the Yare. It was a glorious morning. We had the New Cut completely to ourselves, apart from a seal that was sunning itself. He/she flapped a flipper at us, but otherwise was fairly unconcerned.

Once on the Yare we found there was still some outgoing flow, despite the tide having ‘turned’.

We stopped off at Hardley Cross for a while.

I made us some sweetcorn and courgette fritters which we had with bacon (vegan version for Graham).

After lunch we continued up the Yare, thinking to go to the Morrison’s at Norwich and then moor at Bramerton, but it was getting on for three by the time we were passing the Rockland Dykes, so we would have probably been leaving Norwich after sunset by the time we’d done shopping. Instead we moored at Brundall Gardens. Graham stayed on the boat with the dogs whilst Harry and I went up to Brundall to visit a Co-op, actually we ended up visiting both, as the first didn’t have a couple of items that we wanted. The walk up to the village was lovely, even though there’s only some new growth so far. The birds sounded particularly busy and, as described in my ‘live’ thread, the Merlin App on my phone identified several birds.

Once we had returned to the boat we set out again downriver.

Graham often views cruising as quality reading time, and Pozzie as 'chill out' time. 

Seren and I, on the other hand, are fully engaged with the journey.

We made our way to Rockland St Mary, getting there around 5pm.

The moorings were unoccupied, but another boat arrived shortly after us.

We had another peaceful evening. Dinner was mushrooms and chestnuts in a sauce made from vegan crème fraiche and wholegrain mustard, served with rice.

I retired fairly early this evening. The fresh air must be getting to me!

[YnysMon]

Tuesday 19th March

We were fairly relaxed about getting away this morning as we were planning a fairly short cruise up to Loddon.

We thought we’d stop off somewhere to give the dogs for a walk, either Hardley Mill or Cross. Harry took to whistling the Willy Wonka tune ‘Pure Imagination’ as we passed Cantley. I wonder why? 😊

In the event, there weren’t any other boats moored at the Mill, so we stopped there. Graham had a look at the electric posts, and it appeared that there was over £2.50 credit on one, so we plugged in and contemplated staying there overnight to take advantage of free electric.

Whilst we were moored this barge came past, with a boat suspended beside them. A sort of half tow half lift. Judging by the patina on the boat it must have spend some time submerged. Good to know that such boats are being lifted.

We took the dogs for a walk along to Hardley Dyke and back. Seren is a tinker, she still chases boats that are passing, but is better nowadays at responding to Graham’s whistle to call her back.

When we got back to the boat I made lunch. Sweetcorn and courgette fritters with bacon.

Graham noticed that the electric had gone off. The post had somehow lost all credit, so we decided not to stay there overnight after all. I had read in the recent BA newsletter, that was sent out with the letter regarding tolls, that the BA were planning to replace the electric posts at Hardley Mill. At least one of the posts must be playing up and not working properly.

We then went on our way again, hoping the tide had turned and would help us up the Chet to Loddon. Harry helmed most of the way. He found the river rather narrower than usual in places, particularly some of the bends on the lower river where there were reeds growing quite far out into the channel. It looked to me as though flood water had maybe broken up the bank, leaving some clumps of reeds further out.

There was only one other boat at Loddon and loads of room in the basin. We moored up in the middle and Graham went to check the electric posts. There wasn’t any credit to speak of, so we moved the boat on its ropes further away from the road.

The rest of the day was pretty lazy, as is usual for us.

This evening we just had the remains of the haggis cottage pie reheated, with a bit of broccoli on the side. It wasn’t a huge helping, so Graham had bought some sponge puds and a tin of custard in Co-op earlier. He had also bought some Alpro choc puds for me, but I was full anyway.

We watched the fish course finals of the Great British Menu this evening, having missed the starters finals yesterday evening.

[YnysMon]

Wednesday 20th March

Another dawn start this morning. We were planning to make it to Beccles today and wanted to arrive before the Harbour Master’s office closed (open mornings only until the end of March) as we wanted to purchase some electric. Also, high water at Beccles was due mid-morning, and I didn’t fancy slogging all the way up the Waveney against the tide.

Yet again, we had a gloomy start to the morning, so no spectacular sunrise. It is still lovely starting off early though.

We were surprised that the Reedham Ferry was operating so early.

Once through the Reedham bridge Harry and I kept our eyes peeled for deer, as we’ve spotted deer a couple of times in a garden just downriver of the bridge. Whilst we didn’t see any deer, we did spot an otter near Reedham Marina, running along the bank.

We cruised all the way from Loddon to Beccles today without passing a single boat (apart from a few that were moored at Reedham, Somerlayton and North Cove – and that was a very few). I always appreciate getting through the New Cut without having to pass other boats. It’s so nice to be able to go down the middle and not worry about the posts.

As we were approaching Somerlayton, we took down our canopy, as high tide was almost due. We got through without needing to drop the windscreen though.

We travelled all the way up the Waveney with the last of the incoming tide, arriving at Beccles just before high tide was due there.

 

Once we were settled on our mooring at Beccles, Harry and I walked up to the town centre. Part way up Northgate, we pondered whether this was the entrance to Diagon Alley, but as Hagrid wasn't with us, we'll never know.

Harry wanted to visit a hardware/DIY store as we have a recurring problem with the 3-pin plug that connects our canopy to the electrical system. Even if you remember to unscrew it before lowering the canopy the weight of the connecting wire tends to put pressure on the connecting end. Today the end that I had unscrewed from the connection actually fell off. Graham has rewired it several times, but there’s an issue with one of the grub screws that secures one of the wires. Part of the head is missing, so it’s very difficult to screw it tight. We enquired in the Cooper's hardware store in the centre of Beccles. They recommended we visit a specialist electrical store, City Electrical, opposite B&M.

Before going there we went to the butchers opposite the Kings Arms and got ourselves a nice looking steak, and then visited Tesco's.

On our way to the electrical store we passed this...

So that's why Pound Lane is called that. I never knew.

The electrical store didn’t have what we were looking for either, but recommended we visit ASAP marine suppliers. That wasn’t possible on foot, as it’s located east of Beccles, nearer to Worlingham. As we were making our way to the electric store we passed the Harris and James chocolate factory. There was a really delicious smell of chocolate emanating from one of their vents as we passed. A very deep chocolatey smell that suggested high quality. We must look out for their chocolate! Apparently they sell it in Twyfords Café in Beccles. 

Back on the boat, I made us a rather too large brunchy lunch. Sausage, bacon, black pud, mushrooms, tomato, egg for Harry and I, plus a reheated sweetcorn and courgette fritters each. Graham had the same, but without the sausage, bacon and black pud, but had some griddled halloumi to compensate.

After lunch we vegetated for a while before going for a walk around Carlton Marshes. We followed the river bank as far as the old swing bridge near Aldeby, then cut inland along the route of the old railway.

The old swing bridge. 

Shortly after I took this photo, Harry called Pozzick over as I wanted to take a photo with the dogs in the shot. When Harry got hold of his harness, Pozzick pulled away, looking quite distressed. He flattened himself on the ground. We are convinced he thought Harry was going to chuck him in the river, and are even more convinced this is what happened to him previously before we rescued him from the river bank. 

There were some structures on the Beccles Carlton Marshes side of the river that looked like the remains of a platform of a signal box. Apparently, there used to be one close to the bridge (similar to Somerlayton).

The dogs had fun and games with a 'stick' on the way back to the boat.

By the time we were nearing the Yacht Station it was getting on for sunset.

I didn’t fancy doing much cooking again, so Graham and Harry went off to Lidl to get a pizza. We looked at the Oakfired menu, but decided on a cheaper option. I regretted this later during the night, as dairy plus early spring hay fever is not a good combination.

Tired dogs.

 

It's been another lovely day. 

[YnysMon]

Thursday 21st March

Originally, we had planned to return north on Friday, but decided against this for two reasons:

a)      Slack water at Yarmouth on the Friday would probably mean that we’d end up night nav’ing before we even got as far as Stokesby or Acle and

b)      The starboard push pit rail was due to be taken off the boat to be sent off for a repair, having experienced a bit of a prang during a visit to Boulter’s a few weeks back when it was particularly a windy day (people familiar with Boulter’s won’t be surprised) so we needed to get the boat back to Horning either tomorrow or Monday. 

Anyway, we decided it would be better to return north today, aiming to pass through Yarmouth sometime between 3 and 3.30pm. We set off from Beccles shortly before the turn of the tide, but that didn’t really matter as the tide turns earlier downstream.

We took it easy. Luckily, we didn’t need to drop the canopy for Somerlayton or St Olave’s bridges, and moored up at St Olaves BA moorings late morning.

We took the dogs for a walk. First, we skirted the edge of the Waveney Forest, following a route that’s marked as a public footpath on the OS map. This walk started off well, but the further we went the more difficult it became as there were branches across the path. I don’t think this footpath has been checked and maintained for quite some time.

The path seemed to be frequented by deer, so we put the dogs on their leads.

Looking out on the marshes that lead down to the river.

We got to a point where the path skirting the forest joined a track leading into the forest. There was a gate across it, but it was easy to skirt around the gate. I was a bit worried that we might be trespassing, but a minute later we met an elderly gentleman walking his dog, who seemed very familiar with the forest. He said that he used to clear the footpath, but that it’s too much for him now. From there on it was much easier going. A lot of the tracks seemed to be used by trail bikes.

It’s very noticeable that there’s a lot less bird song within pine forests than on the edges where there’s more variety of tree species. I used the Merlin App on my phone again whilst we were skirting the forest and picked up the song of Robins, Great Tits, Blue Tits, Wrens, Chiffchaff, Chaffinches, Lesser Black-headed Gulls, and Siskins.

Pesky dogs! Just as we reached the track that led back to the boat they both got themselves very muddy again.

Back on the boat we had a sandwich lunch and then waited until the time that we thought it would be good to start off, if we were to get to Yarmouth at the time we were hoping to. We set off shortly after 1.30.

We took it easy and didn’t increase our revs across Breydon as we could see that the tide was still flowing out, not lessening until we got to the far end near the bridges.

We only passed one hire boat, plus the Spirit of Breydon sporting flashing lights and accompanying a BA barge.

The tide on the Bure was still flowing out when we turned at the yellow post.

So it was a bit of a slog, as usual, up the Bure.

We didn’t get to Acle until around 5pm. We had been hoping to get to our home mooring in Horning this evening, and we could have done, but I was feeling tired and didn’t fancy trying to stern moor in failing light when I was feeling so tired, so I persuaded Graham that we should stop at Acle overnight. We should have turned the boat around though, as we had to contend with noisy bow slap overnight.

There was a rather cheeky duck at Acle, plus a glorious sunset.

By the way, I must point out Graham's solution for keeping the saloon extra cosy. It's just an IKEA throw with a channel created with safety pins that a small curtain rod holds up. It doesn't half make a difference to the temperature in the saloon. You really feel the difference in temperature when you pass through to the galley!

[Mouldy]

I’ve found a similar issue with the Aweigh App, where when it’s first opened, the data doesn’t always display correctly.  Closing the app properly (and I’ve no idea how to do that with a Google phone) and reopening it seems to make it behave for me.

It may work for you too!