Up the river

This years Christmas river trip was a subdued affair as most of the usual suspects were absent for one reason or another.
We carried on regardless and it became five drunks in a boat.

Just around the first bend in the river is a nice view of Beccles church. This is quite unusual as the tower has been built separately from the church and only has clocks on three sides. The side facing the river doesn't have a clock as the land was considered unusable for anything other than growing marshes and damp things so why put a clock on it.

I though I would join Dive on the wobbly water pics crusade.
The sun was just over the yard arm but looked remarkably low in the sky considering it was only 12:30.

This is what Norfolk looks like.

This is just for Vic.
I saw this and thought of you.

We tried to get some comment from these two but as they were mute swans they just did some contemporary mime and then fucked off.
They did make some more wobbly water.

This is the final destination, The Wherry at Geldeston.
Log fires, good beer and a dartboard, just what we needed.

It was a good trip and we didn't need to break any ice on the river which has happened in the past. We always make the trip whatever the elements throw at us.
Roll on next year.

Yo Ho Ho.........

That's my contribution to the festivities out of the way.

I'm off down the river on Boxing day and it's into the City on Saturday for a lunchtime session round the pubs and it all ends up on New Years Eve with our fancy dress pub crawl around Bungay so I should have something to post.

Merry Xmas to you all and Yo Ho Ho Blah de fucking blah...............etc.

Gone to the dogs

Life is always interesting in the magic kingdom and to keep our spirits up, a few of us formed The Curry Club.

It consists of Mikey, who is the supervisor for composite and body manufacture, (glueing & sticking), little old me with my mini empire in process engineering and paint, (colouring in) and five of my process guy's.

Every 5-6 weeks we all get the train into the City from our various starting points at around 18:30 and meet up for a few beers.
We then move on to a curry house for several courses of anything that takes our fancy, washed down with a few more beers, then we wander back to the station with the occasional stop for a few beers and get the last train home around 10:15.

All harmless fun and it makes a big difference at work too.

We thought we should have a change this Christmas so we booked for a night of greyhound racing at Gt Yarmouth Stadium.

Greyhounds are not the only dogs you find in Gt Yarmouth as I know from gigging there with Big Bro for many years. These ones were o.k. though.

We just booked for a normal race night but we got ourselves included in the Christmas party season so we all ordered big steaks and got turkey with all the trimmings as a bonus extra meal. Sirloin with turkey, Brussels sprouts and roasties is an interesting combination but what the hell, we'd had a few by then.

This fine figure of a man is my graduate, "Honest Phil".
He has a degree in mathmatics and statistics and has just got his first real girlfriend who he met at church group. I think Fresh needs to give him the St Patricks Day treatment to clear the cobwebs for the lad.
We had a bunch of draw tickets and he won a festive bear for his true love.

We were merciless with Honest Phil and his little bear.

As the evening wore on we got into the racing.
We had a waitress for our food and beer and a tote girl to take our bets and our lewd drunken suggestions as to why she should come home with us.

I don't have too much of a clue when it comes to betting and odds and the like but we all bunged a tenner into the pot and also made our own bets depending on how strange the dogs name was or which one had a crap before the race etc.

This was what I got from a £2.00 reverse bet on 1st & 2nd. £120 ish plus change. Not bad considering I didn't have a clue what I was doing.

I think I won around £200.00 for the night and the Curry Club cleared around £500 so it was a pretty good night. I ended the night with around £100 more than when I left home and this is what that feels like.

Mikey broke even on the dogs but we can't all be winners and this is what that feels like.

Next year Curry Club will be off to Newmarket for a Friday afternoon horse racing meeting and we'll all loose our shirts.
They have a gig in the evening so we are going to book for Jules Holland in the summer.
Next Curry Club will be a standard City job so I will try to get some piccies for another post around early Feb.

To Alice

I've been inspired recently by the pictures which Kate has been posting and it will end up costing me money, as I have to replace my old faithful Nikon with one of those new fangled digital jobbies.

Anyway, as Kate is about to get the decorations dusted off and everyone is preparing for the Festival of Greed in their own way, all your posts prompted me to pass on one of the memories of Christmas that will stay with me forever.

I was down at the boatyard which is owned by one of my oldest friends and he asked if I would mind nipping over with him to see his mother and deliver some garden furniture.
His mother's name was Alice, she sadly passed away a couple of years ago, and she was a wonderful character. She was from an old Romany family and had a real twinkle in her eye, a superb dry sense of humour and a real warmth, calmness and wisdom that made you think "well that's o.k. then".

We loaded up the truck and drove the five miles to Alice's house, un-loaded the garden table and struggled with it down the side of the house and into the back garden.
"Where do you want this Alice" I asked, and that's when it started.

Alice - "You see that bit down the bottom by the hedge"?

Us - (carrying the table) "yes"

Alice - "Well don't put it there because it only gets the sun in the morning. That grass by the apple tree....."

Us - (carrying the table) "yes"

Alice - "I don't think I want it there....."

This went on for a bit and the we said "don't tell us where you don't want it Alice, it's too bloody heavy to run around the garden with"

We settled on the perfect spot in the end and Alice suggested we had a cup of tea and could we help her sort her decorations for the tree.
We were greeted by 2 large boxes of baubles and tinsel and 2 large boxes of tree lights which looked they had been dragged through somewhere that lights shouldn't be dragged.
A nice cup of tea and 45 minutes later we had un-tangled the lights and checked through every single bulb to make sure they were all tight and would not pose a fire risk.
30 minutes later we had to admit that we couldn't get any of the damn things to work and did Alice want us to get her some new ones.
All this time Alice and her neighbour had us in hysterics with their stories and were watching us getting more and more frustrated at our failure to fix the lights.

Alice - "That's o.k. they didn't work last year either so I got some more, do you want another cup of tea"?

It always makes me smile when I think of that morning over at Alice's house and it's a shame that the spirit of friendship, family and good humour is lacking in these days of consumerism and selfishness.

We will raise a glass to Alice again this year as we meander down the river to the Wherry Pub for our annual winter trip and remember the laughs we shared for so many years.