Mousey Housey

Its been a very strange weekend.

As I mentioned in an earlier bloggette, the boat is sitting on its bum in a drydock, smelling of paint.

We have moved back to our house temporarily and naturally, have brought the two cats back with us.

Now, I've talked about Moo quite extensively in the past, but her brother, called Blue (or Boo) is as much a character, albeit in a different way.

For some reason, our garden always attracts a lot of wildlife.

Possibly because our grown up kids don't go out there and we are never home, so they get left alone in the Jungle.

Last night, we were watching TV late and there was a noise at the patio door.

It was obviously one of the cats wanting to come in, so the First Mate opened the door a foot without taking too much notice.

In comes Blue, complete with small brown mouse in mouth.

"He's got a mouse" she says, rhetorically, so suddenly there is a lot of noise and movement.

Blue, who is the archetypal cowardly lion, panics and drops the mouse on the carpet.

Now, it must be said that Blue is a lover not a fighter and never kills anything.

So, said mouse is very much alive and starts charging arround the room at great speed.

What follows, would be prefectly acceptable in a 1920's silent slapstick comedy.

People jumping on and off chairs, heads trying to follow a brown streak of lightning chasing round the skirtling boards, the sweeping of a broom Tom and Jerry style (Thomasssss !!)

When told to finish what he has started, Blue just decides he wants petting and then its very late, so it must be time for bed, Zebedee - boinnnng.

To cut a long story short, we hunted everywhere, saw it a few times, but couldn't catch it.

Last night, we went to bed with a lodger.

This morning, the unwanted visitor has been in the kitchen helping himself to the cats food (how ironic is that) and as I write, we have him cornered in the lounge, trying to drive him back out into the garden without hurting him. We have towels stuffed under the doors to restrict his movement.

Blue is nowhere to be seen.

 

Bobby Dazzler

The Hertfordshire Constabulary are the first police force to offer an enhanced level of policing to local tradespeople,  in return for cash.

Apparently, they have offered a 2-man team to patrol 20 businesses in the town of Royston for a three month trial.  

I can see the adverts now.

Want that extra care at the dead of night ? Worried about drunks smashing your shop windows - just ring this freephone number and ask for our copper-bottomed service !!

So, Royston has broken new ground.

Or have they ?? 

Bobbies began policing the Norfolk Broads in 1820, but stopped in the 1980s because of funding shortfalls. 

About ten years ago, Broadsbeat was started, funded by local businesses, who paid for two full-time officers, a fast response boat and a 4x4 vehicle during the summer months.

Broadsbeat this year is sponsored by Hoseasons, A.R. Peachment, Royal and Sons Ltd, Norfolk Broads Authority, Roys of Wroxham Ltd, Norfolk Yacht Agency, Navigation and General Insurance, Broadland Owners Association and Blakes Holidays.

How long before British Waterways catch on and start adding an additional security charge to improve boat security, keep motorcross riders from racing along the towpath and prevent yobs from terrorising infamous inner city locks ??

Busmans Holiday

With Willawaw snuggled up in a boatyard, awaiting her drydocking slot, we moved back to the house for some R and R, away from narrowboats and inland waterways.

I arranged to meet up with an old friend, for a pint at the Old Ship pub in Heybridge Basin, near Maldon (on the east coast).

As we sat outside in the summer sun, supping our beers, he uttered those immortal words.

One of the most foolish sentences that can come out of a man's mouth.

"I've bought a boat - I only got it yesterday - do you want to see it ?"

It turned out that he had bought a 20-year old Microplus GRP cruiser.

When I was a teenager in the mid-seventies, my father bought us a Microplus 502 and it was my first proper boat.

That was it - I had been hooked, reeled in and landed !!

His co-owner turned up and it transpired that neither of them knew much about boats.

However, fortune must have been smiling on them when they parted with their cash.

They had fallen on their feet - for the money they spent, they got a good deal.

Before we knew it, somebody suggested we went for a spin.

We started the Yamaha 50HP outboard, cast off and headed up the Chelmer Navigation.

I taught them how to handle lines, gave them tips on boat handling and then, when we came to our first lock, I showed them how to safely work a lock.

A chance meeting ended up with them getting a boating lesson and me reliving my youth and happy memories of boyhood boating with my father.

Anyway, some 5 hours later, after helping them with anchor rigging and a few other things, I wended my way home. 

I can think of much worse ways to spend an afternoon.

Take That and THAT

At the weekend, we went to Wembley to see "Take That" in concert.

I have a confession to make -

- it was my first ever live pop concert.

A few things struck me from the experience.

Firstly, the sound quality was terrible. The music was distorted, presumerably due to the number of speakers involved and the fact that they were all at different distances from where we sat. I was surprised - I didn't expect that.

Even when Gary Barlow and company talked through their microphones, it was hard to understand everything they said.

However, the atmosphere was fantastic.

Every time one of the fab four moved, the crowd of 80,000 went wild and the resultant noise was a physical wall of sound, that boxed your ears, leaving them ringing in the aftermath.

The event was akin to a religous experience.

In a time when churches and organised religion are reporting falling attendance numbers on Sunday's, it seemed that the worship of music was taking its place.

The cathedral of Wembley Stadium was well attended.

Thousands turned up to worship Jason Orange, with their hands raised in supplication to the cloudless sky, visible through the open dome.

The loyal following wore the clothes, made the moves and moved their lips to the familiar prayers of Take That.

The technical show was awesome. A huge, 40ft high, robotic elephant rose from the ground and sashayed its way to the big top, with the group riding on its back.

The Circus theme was maintained throughout the whole show, supported by lasers, wall screens and a cast of big top performers.

The drumming toy soldiers sequence in the show could only be described as tribal, with the beat making the whole stadium throb to a rhythmic, staccato heartbeat.

However, the fickleness of the public is sobering.

It transpired that the lads from the boy band, JLS, who appeared on X-factor, were sitting about ten feet from us. As people started to become aware of their presence, they were mobbed with spectators starting to photograph them and seek autographs.

For a moment, Take That were ignored and all eyes were looking towards the rear of the stadium, with a sea of backs being turned to Gary and the boys.

Then the moment was gone, the security closed in and JLS were forgotten again.

Fame is as brief as a candle flame and flickers equally unpredictably. 

The concert finished with a big finale and TT sang "Rule The World" as their final gift.

They said their goodbyes and the last night of their UK tour was over.

As the stands cleared and the 80,000 ants trickled away to the streets, the audience was already whispering about the forthcoming Oasis gig, with memories of Take That fast receding.

Moths to the flame indeed..

Fame and riches ? - I wouldn't ask for either.. 

 

Can You Have a Garden on a Boat ?

As Willawaw is in the boatyard, waiting to have her bottom scraped, we are living ashore for a short while.

Yesterday, we went to the Ware Festival on the River Lee.

The theme of the festival was Gardens.

Many of the boats at the festival entered into the spirit of the thing and displayed their very own rooftop gardens.

Ware combines its annual carnival with a boat festival organised by the local branch of the IWA.

The event was well attended and the moorings in Ware were largely "double-banked" by members of the local clubs like the Stort Boat Club (S.B.C).

Personally, I find these boat festivals a little bit suffocating. 

The "boatees" all moor up on top of each other and they always seem "cliquey" to say the least - I once had a run-in with the commodore of the fleet of the S.B.C, but that's another story. 

The Ware-do was interesting, as all the young people were on the other side of the river from the boats, sitting on the grass in the priory, drinking cans of beer and listening to live bands.

You can just make this out in the background of the "beer garden" photograph above.

With my overactive imagination, the boaters remind me of the white settlers with their circle of wagons, in those old western movies, being circled by whooping red indians (sorry, first nation people). 

Personally, I found the music much more interesting than the static, bunting adorned, boats. 

A local music shop and music school called "The Academy" have a big hand in this.

We were delighted to see young teenagers playing drums and electric guitars to a packed audience in the park, each of whom had paid only £1 to be there.

The Academy offer music lessons and are very active with local kids, keeping them off the streets and coaching them to be rock stars for as little as £6/hour.

It was great to see youngsters getting the chance to show their talents to a real audience and one of the groups called Nightmare did a great rendition of the Guns and Roses' hit Sweet Child of Mine. 

The Academy/Play Something (www.playsomething.co.uk) have been grooming and filtering would-be bands for the forthcoming Rock In the Priory Music festival on the 26th July.

For more information, click here:

http://www.playsomething.co.uk/The_Priory

 

Green Shield Stamps With That ?

So much is written about red diesel and how British inland waterway boaters are"hard done by", I thought you might appreciate this.

This is a leisure boat fuelling station at a marina in Croatia.

Croatia is not a member of the EU and they don't have red diesel available for leisure boaters.

They sell only road diesel here and the price is the same as it is in the auto service stations in the town - around 70p/litre.

Now I appreciate that their fuel is cheaper than ours, which is now over a £1 a litre for road diesel, but they get no concessions for the fact that the fuel is going into a boat or is being used to provide heating or power generation in a marine application.

By the way, their fuel might say Euro diesel, but its exhaust gases smell very rough indeed.

There seems to be a lot of differences in fuel quality around Europe - apparently, the fuel is both cheaper and better quality up the coast in Slovenia !!!

Opatija Dusk

I've just spent a couple of days working in the port of Rijeka in Croatia.

Luckily, Northern Croatia was a little bit cooler than the UK has been this week.

Last night, with the work finished, I thought I'd go to the seaside resort of Opatija for an ice cream in front of one of the old Edwardian hotels.

So, dusk saw me taking some photo's and eating a double helping of Rum Punch ice cream.

I like Opatija - it has class.

In the evening, people dress up to stroll the promenade, amidst Italian-style cafe society.

The absence of any meaningful tide means that Opatija has little sea water swimming pools, that are nothing more than diving boards and steps perched on the rock shore.

I returned home today using the Ryanair service from Pula.

I don't usually fly Ryanair and regular bloggites following "Revelations" will know that I usually fly with EasyJet.

Ryanair has made a few changes since the last time I used them, namely the introduction of passengers printing their own boarding card.

Initially, I thought this might be a good thing.

You log on to their website, answering all those tiresome questions about whether you packed your own bag, are you carrying drugs for anybody else and so on.

Then, hey presto, you print your own boarding card.

Great, I thought - smooth sailing.

Except, when you get to the airport, you still have to queue up, so the baggage drop-off girl (the very same girl who used to be the check-in girl) can check your passport and tag your luggage.

In actual fact, this only seems to save them the time and tedium of printing your boarding pass for you.

Another example of Ryanair getting you to do more, so they can make more money.

Anyway, I boarded the flight at Pula and found myself sitting next to an Irish mother and daughter combo.

As we started taxying out, I had one of those surreal moments that seem to occur with regular frequency in my life.

The eastern european trolley dollies were going through their safety drills in heavy accented Czech-English.

Why do they say, "if there is a loss in cabin pressure, the oxygen masks will fall from the ceiling. Pull them towards you to start the flow of Oxygen, place them over your face and breathe normally" ?

If the cabin depressurises, the plane driver will push the stick forward and lose as much height as possible, in as shortest time as possible.

The last thing anybody will be doing is breathing normally.

Their heart will be hammering in their ears and their breath will be coming in some very deep panicky gasps I would imagine !!!

It's like saying "don't panic - normal service will be resumed shortly" which means you should really start worrying now as we are patronising you.

Anyway, as usual, I digress.

As we taxied out, we passed some very overgrown, disused, concrete military aircraft shelters.

I realised that Pula must have been a military base, many years ago.

The numerous, gaping black mouths of hardened shelters hidden behind mounds of earth gave the sunny holiday airport, a very sinister feel.

Apparently, I have now discovered that Pula was controlled by the Yugoslav Army from 1954 to 1967.

Shades of communist tyranny and Marshall Tito seemed even more poignant, when the two Irish ladies next to me, crossed themselves nervously, lips moving in silent prayer,  as our 21st century Boeing accelerated down a runway formerly used by eastern bloc Migs. 

Happy days.