The Yare Boatique riverside shop at Brundall now demolished
The Yare Boatique riverside shop at Brundall now demolished

Cruising from Berney Arms on a breezy and warm day to the Norwich Yacht Station via stops for lunch at The Beauchamp Arms at the defunct Buckenham Ferry and at The Yare Boatique in Brundall. We found an old friend in the Norwich harbourmasterwho had fallen recently and badly bruised his knee. No luck with fishing here and great fun with escaped maggots. US troops take up position in Saudi Arabia, Iraq closes its borders to foreigners trapping thousands of Westerners in Iraq and Kuwait. 

We were back to our normal routine on for the long cruise upstream to Norwich. We stopped for lunch at The Beauchamp Arms at the defunct Buckenham Ferry. We noticed, as we moored, that quite a breeze had got up, but it was still very warm and dry today even so. All the grass everywhere is parched and dry and turf being lost to erosion as we have not had rain for some time now. This was particularly noticeable at this stop as Buckenham Ferry is a particularly sandy place and might have been a ford with a sand bar in times gone by. We have already had the driest spring for nigh a hundred years and now all this heat and dryness is a cause of such worry. At least the Broads are all right for navigation and the water levels are reasonable.

** "Read More" BELOW for the complete story **

We had nice food and service at The Beauchamp Arms (which has had a new dining room extension built on since we were last here) and the children enjoyed the climbing frames in the pub garden. Then on up the River Yare until we stopped for water and provisions at The Yare Boatique, one of Diana's favourite riverside shops. We then completed our cruise for the day by continuing up to the Yacht Station at Norwich, where our old friend, the harbourmaster, recognised us immediately and found us a reasonable place upstream for the night. He has recently had a nasty fall whilst trying to jump from boat to boat but continued to work whilst he recovered from the severely bruised knee. The weather was very warm and close tonight. Diana did some ironing and Daniel played the amusements and made a telephone call and, with me going for a walk as well, both Daniel and I got into trouble with Di for wandering off without telling her where we were going. I read Della a story tonight to cheer her up and then tried fishing with her, but we caught no fish in the very clear water of the Wensum moorings. Today was also notable for "The Great Maggot Escape". I had failed to put the lid properly on the maggots and we spent quite a time finding them all over the boat which caused quite a stir amongst the family but did not worry me. US troops take up position in Saudi Arabia, Iraq closes its borders to foreigners trapping thousands of Westerners in Iraq and Kuwait.