Our first day in Norwich walking through the Cathedral grounds, swimming and diving in the pool and then having lunch before exploring The Castle Museum, viewing the natural History section and then taking the tour of the ramparts and dungeons before putting the children to bed and taking Di to the pub nearby for our meal out and then Daniel to the cinema before the rains came again. The German Grand Prix is dogged by racing car retirements, hundreds of people are dying in Greece from a heatwave and the stock market is jammed with small transactions after the BAA share offer.
Not a bad night’s sleep for the first night on the boat, though it started a little badly with a number of drunken boaters having rowing races past our moorings late at night. We don’t think that it rained last night, but it was cold with plenty of condensation and we did get a leak over each bunk, but it did not cause us any problems. Slowly into some sort of morning routine and we manage a breakfast of poached egg and toast fingers, which is quite civilised. Everyone washed, dressed and ready by this stage for a trip into Norwich town centre. We took the children on the same route as last night’s walk, through the Cathedral grounds and into the town centre.
This time our destination was the Tourist Information Centre. A sleepy city, Norwich, and virtually dead on Sundays – but we got a taxi to the ‘Baths’ and found an hour of swimming was possible in the indoor & heated pool. We had a morning drink in the integral cafe first, as it was another chilly and breezy morning. A strange changing room procedure, as both men, women, boys & girls shared the same changing area, though cubicles were provided. We got a family cubicle and changed together, putting the push-chair up on the top of the lockers. A nice warm pool of good depth and area, in which Debbie enjoyed jumping in off of a spring diving board over and over again. More reserved swimming from the rest of us, though I did brave the diving board twice and so did Daniel once. Back to the town centre by a taxi that we phoned for and then to the Wimpy Bar for lunch. A nice meal, ate slowly, as we now had time to kill before the Castle opened at 2.00pm. I found out from the waitress that the nearby Chapel Field Gardens had a children’s playground and so we walked up Rampant Horse Street and settled down there for an hour. The weather had improved. When the sun was out, it was quite hot, but still the airstream was cool. A good enclosed and interesting playground, and picturesque & novel surroundings. A bandstand (alas, with no band), a mechanical feature clock and open air chess board and 3 ft chess pieces of wood being played by Sunday enthusiasts. Also a refreshment bar, where we bought more drinks before walking up Castle Hill to the museum. Admission all and to first see a comprehensive Natural History section with stuffed animals, birds and reptiles in profusion. The deer, wolf and lions attracted the girls admiration, but just about all creatures (many extinct) were shown. Then more historical exhibits before we had our afternoon drinks in the cafeteria. After, we got in the 3.45pm tour of the ramparts and dungeons. First the views of Norwich from all four sides of the tower – quite breathtaking and worrying, in view of the girls. Next the claustrophobia of the gloomy and dank dungeons, with the compliment of mantraps, manacles and other paraphernalia of human confinement and torture. The guide put out the electric lights for 10 secs and we were all thus briefly incarcerated in style. Out, down and to McDonalds for the children’s tea, whilst Di and I had just a drink each. Back to The Lady, stopping at the Yacht Station office on the way to book another day of mooring so that we could see the shops tomorrow. As we walked along the quay, Debbie dropped her purse in the river. Stripping off my hat and jacket, I lunged and just got it out of the water, very nearly slipping in the water in the process, before being hauled back onto the path by Di & Daniel by arm and leg. Di bathed and put away the girls to bed and then Daniel watched over them whilst Di and I got ready to go across the road to the pub opposite for our dinner. I also got time to seal a few cracks in the aft cabin with sealant before the rain came down again. Then Di ate a ‘fried place salad’ and me a Cromer crab and garlic oyster salad, which we both enjoyed. Back to the boat and this time Di had an early night and I took Daniel to the local cinema in Prince of Wales Street to see ‘Police Academy IV – Citizens on Patrol.’ Daniel enjoyed it and I quite liked it, though it was rather zany and a poorer fare than the first three films were. Home with umbrella in the light drizzle and, once Daniel was abed in Little Lady, I made myself a Bournvita bedtime drink and then wrote my journal and watched the German Grand Prix highlights on TV. Nigel Mansell’s car broke down (as did nearly all of the field with only 6 finishing) and teammate Nelson Piquet won and now leads the driver’s championship. As I went to my bunk, the cabin repairs seemed to be holding against the continuing drizzle and all was quiet. The news tonight was evidently of a heat wave in Greece, where hundreds of people have died in temperatures from 100deF to 120degF; crops are ruined and life has ground to a halt. I have noticed how hot the sun has been this year and am sure that the earth’s pink ozone atmospheric layers are being eroded. A prominent Egyptian businessman is killed in his house by armed attackers after robbing him and his family. A direct result of the privatisation terms of BAA share offer is the creation of a ‘log-jam’ of unsettled transactions, putting a tight squeeze on stockbrokers. Selling in volumes to institutional investors and buying in large numbers of small transactions from private buyers creates an imbalance needing finance and in a falling market borrowings have to be high to finance the delays in relation to securities held.