Making New Plans

Now we have the task of making some new plans for our summer holiday. We are on Plan C now. We must be running out of different plans by now!

So Plan C is the Norfolk Broads. It will be strange for us turning up by road and not by sea. So first up is choosing the slipway. We think we have settled on the slipway at Sutton Staithe. Ideal for nipping around to Stalham to stock up the boat from the very handily located Tesco supermarket and the excellent butchers on the high street.

We don't need to plan too much more for this break really. We know the Broads fairly well and we will just potter around for the two weeks. We know it will be super busy at it is the school holidays so we won't make any concrete plans and will just amble along until we find somewhere nice to stop for the afternoon or evening.

Yet Another Change of Plans

With Sydney setting into boating far better then we could have ever imagined he would, we have had yet another change of plans for our summer holiday. We are now going to be trailed to the Norfolk Broads for two weeks instead.

We don't feel that it would be fair to subject him to the four to five hour sea trip just yet and this way we can get to spend the whole two weeks on the Broads rather than our usual seven day whistle stop tour.

We know that the Broads is very dog friendly so we think it will be a nice place to take him for his first real holiday onboard Naughty-Cal.

West Stockwith May 2018

Captain Sydney telling Skip the way

Out onto the Trent for the first time with Sydney

The only other boat we saw on the move.

Heading downstream,.

Time to open her up.

Charging around the bends

Through Gainsborough

Tucked up in West Stockwith Basin

A walk along the River Idle

Back to the boat for a BBQ dinner

A Sunday afternoon walk to the pub.

The Red Hart in Misterton. This is a lovely friendly pub.

Misterton church

Early morning start back to Torksey

Cruising back upstream

The sun breaks through as we get back onto the Fossdyke

Baby grass snake at Saxilby. He was put into the woods out of harms way.

Heading Home

Sadly today we have to head back for home. We have had a great couple of days in West Stockwith.

The narrowboats are already firing up and heading out onto the river. We can have a more leisurely start to the day as we don't need to be on the river until 8am otherwise we will outrun the tide.

Chilling

We had a great day in West Stockwith yesterday finished off with a cracking bbq in the sunshine. We had a visit from a very good friend in the afternoon.

Today we are having a walk to Haxey before joining friends on their narrowboat for Sunday lunch.

Early Start

We arrived at Torksey with plenty of time to get through the lock last night but the cut moorings bottom side were packed so we opted to stay in the basin for the night and lock through this morning. Which meant an early start but it is a lovely morning on the river.

Our ETA at West Stockwith is around 9am so we will have all day to play with in and around the village.

Working Better Then Ever

We had a fine evening on the boat last night pottering around and finishing off a few odd jobs. The most important job was refitting the transom gate which thankfully this time works a treat, in fact it works far better then it ever has and is very smooth to operate.

Next up was trying out the new 240v vacuum cleaner. The little handheld rechargable unit we had was of now not up to the job with four extra furry feet onboard. So we have found a small 835w 240v unit which will slot in a cupboard just nicely and work on the inverter when we are out and about. I would show a picture of that but the amount of dust it picked up was embarassing considering we only vacced up last weekend!

Lastly we had to make sure that Sydney's new life jacket was a snug fit and that he was comfortable wearing it. It took a bit of adjusting to get all of the straps right but in the end we got there and he seemed happy enough stutting around on the pontoon showing off his new jacket.

So now we are back in Sheffield but after work we just have to dump the shopping onboard and then we can get away and hopefully catch Torksey Lock before it shuts for the evening at 9pm.

Sneaking Another Night In

Today we are sneaking another night in on the boat. 

We need to head across there tonight to refit the transom gate which broke a couple of weekends back. We had attempted to refit it last weekend but the new stainless steel bolts that we had welded to the hinge were not long enough when it came to time to refit the gate.

So it was off with the new bolts and the old ones have been cleaned up and welded back on again so this time they are certainly long enough to do the job.

It means we will have an early start tomorrow morning as we need to be back at work but it also means that we can have the boat ready to rock for tomorrow evening so that we can hopefully catch the late evening locking at Torksey and then have a bit of a lie in on Saturday morning before catching the morning tide to West Stockwith.

Funky Fungus

We have seen some weird and wonderful things on our evening walks in Sheffield with the dog. This weeks highlight so far has been this funky fungus display in Millhouses Park.

We believe they are chicken of the woods bracket fungus but perhaps someone more in the know could help with this identification?

Some Odd Jobs

Before heading out on our glorious sunny weekend in Saxilby we had carried out a few odd jobs on Naughty-Cal beforehand on Saturday morning.

First up we refitted the bathing platform which Liam had repaired. You may remember there was a small accident a few months back when we towed Huwey Louis back from West Stockwith and his anchor ran into the platform. Well that is all repaired and back on the boat now.

Unfortunately the new bolts fitted to the transom gate hinge were not long enough so we will have to head back to the boat on Thursday evening to get that fitted back on the boat ready for our bank holiday trip to West Stockwith this coming weekend.

We also put on some fresh bedding, had a tidy up in the cabin and refilled the fuel tank. 146 litres this time so we had not run it down as far as last time. We will now have plenty of fuel for our trip to West Stockwith and probably won't need to fill up again until we are ready to head up the Trent in July.

Sunny Weekend

Well we certainly can't complain about the weather this weekend gone. It was beautiful and we had a lovely weekend with friends and good company. Here's to may more just like it.

The canopies off for the first time this year.

Sydney learning to swim in the slipway.

Heading down river to Saxilby.

Making the most of the shade

Almost there.

The visitors moorings were full so we moored on the green.

Setting up camp.

In the shade.

Too much sun Steve?

Captain Sydney at the helm

Huge carp sunbathing in the shallows.

Heading to the Pyewipe for Sunday dinner.

Take Two

It looks set to be another stunning day so we intend to make the most of it. We had a brilliant day yesterday in Saxilby. Today we will head back but not while later when we will take Syd swimming again before having dinner in Woodcocks.

What a Beautiful Day

What a beautiful it is. We have done a few odd jobs this morning, filled up with diesel and are now on our way to Saxilby for a BBQ in the sunshine.

While waiting for diesel we decided to see if Sydney would swim from the slipway. He has now gotten over his fear of water and loves swimming. In fact he didn't want to get out when it was time to go!

Leisurely

We think that a leisurely weekend is in store. We have a few bits and bobs to do to the boat before next weekends bank holiday weekend trip so tonight we will stay in the marina so that we can get the odds and sods jobs done in the morning and get filled up with diesel. We have run very low on fuel again. But we don't need to worry about that now we are not going to the Thames, we can keep it as full as we like now we are not being towed anywhere.

We will have a steady run to Saxilby, we will really have no rush, provided we can get moored up somewhere, which we always can, then we will have somewhere to BBQ and relax.

Whistle Stop Alternative

The Norfolk Broads were where our love affair with boating started many moons ago now, first with an array of hire boats and in more recent years with our own boat. 

Whenever we visit with Naughty-Cal it always seems such a rush job. Our two week holiday always entails a two day rush down to the Broads followed by a seven day whistle stop tour of the Broads and then a battle to get back home by sea again, which almost always decides it is going to rough up for us on the home leg and make life interesting for us.

We have been discussing this and have decided that the next time we visit Norfolk, we will do so on the trailer. This way we can get the full two weeks down there and have no worries about sea conditions for getting back home. It will take all of the stress out of the time on the Broads and give us plenty of chance to visit all of the places that usually only get a fleeting fly by on our whistle stop tours of the area.

Now to decide when we will go again.

Play Time

We have lived at our current home for over eleven years now but have never really appreciated just what lovely countryside we have on our doorstep. Until we came the custodians of Sydney that is. In the past month we have spent more time in our locals woods and fields then in the last eleven years put together and we are all really enjoying it, Sydney included.

Crack out the Coals

We are rather hoping that the weather forecasts will be right for the rest of this week as we are hoping to break our BBQ duck this year and crack out the grill and coals at the weekend.

We have just not been on the boat yet this year for any weekend nice enough to crack out the gear. Hopefully this coming weekend will be different.

Who know's, we might even break the BBQ out at home this week when we get an evening to ourselves. Mind you that is easier said then done at the moment with a young, energetic dog around the house!