Wild Weather

As we begin to recover from another stormy weekend, I am led to think about how to make the best of a bad weather weekend away from home. Indeed, it’s a hard one for me as I tend to shy away from venturing out in unsettled weather, but there are plenty of people who are more than prepared to do so.

Bad weather whilst being holed up in a boat, caravan or motor home is something you sometimes have to get used to or simply be prepared for. Last year, I wasn’t remotely prepared for two days of rain whilst at a festival and simply spent most of my time in the motorhome rather than getting out and enjoying the music. I moped about and had a thoroughly miserable time. It was mid-summer for crying out loud!

First Boats of 2020

This weekend sees the first holiday cruisers of 2020 on hire for us at Freedom Boats. Of course, with gale-force winds, the instructions to all those on boats was to moor-up safely away from trees and wait-out the storm; if there’s a pub and other facilities nearby, all the better!

But what do you do all day?

There’s the TV of course, but in bad weather, putting a TV aerial up on the roof is inviting trouble. But also, the chances of signal interruption increases too. At home, we couldn’t watch BBC1 last night as the signal quality was awful. DVDs then. A good few films will while away the time faster than you could appreciate.

Of course, most people have phones and tablets for entertainment these days, but these tend to be  more isolating rather than inclusive (though, to my mind, it’s not always so different to watching a group of people in a library just reading and interacting only when someone coughs and then only with a tut or an icy stare).

Card games are always good for inclusion and there are hundreds of options with a standard pack of cards alone. Other generic games like UNO and Dobble are favourites amongst our children; particularly our eldest who’s ability to see the contents of a Dobble card almost instantly is legendary; how she does it I have no idea but she usually clears up at least twice as fast as anybody else. If you haven’t see Dobble, they are circular cards with icons in various sizes; the idea is to match the card you are holding with the card face up on the pack; sounds easy but it seems, at least to this father, it is a game for young people or at least those who have retained all their faculties.

Jigsaws are another option, but the size of them makes it harder on a boat as there is restricted room. Perhaps one of those mats that allows you to roll the jigsaw up would help. Books are an obvious one and why not have a good read?

You could, of course, just roll into the pub and enjoy the hospitality and each-other’s company for the afternoon. Teas and coffees are on offer along with beers, wines and spirits and many pubs also have real fires to enjoy too.

Just Explore

A rainy day doesn’t stop you exploring either. Head out in decent wet-weather gear and go for a walk. If you’re near a bus stop or railway station, get a ticket to Norwich or Great Yarmouth and explore here too. Norwich is a great place to visit with its fabulous undercover market which has been held on the same site for over 900 years and is thought to be one of the oldest in Europe. The Norwich Lanes hide a wealth of independent shops and one of the retail operators in the country, way surpassing the likes of M&S and Sainsburys. Jarrolds, is celebrating 250 years in business in 2020. Of course, there’s also museums, cinemas, cathedrals and an incredible Norman castle sitting high on a mound looking over the city. Sadly, Norwich is often ignored by boaters; it absolutely should not be.

Great Yarmouth is the second largest seaside resort in the UK (Blackpool being the bigger). Its promenade offers the usual seaside fayre, there’s a pier, great beaches (though probably not so great in the rain), decent shopping, cinemas, a circus (I kid you not, the Hippodrome is a real jewel) and a few very good museums with the Time and Tide charting the town’s history, especially as a major fishing port and is housed in one of the few remaining herring smoke houses that used to litter the town. There’s Anna Sewell's house (the author of Black Beauty) which is currently a "Cakery", a historic museum ship in the Lydia Eva and a Theatre too. Incidentally, Black Beauty was first published by John Jarrold Printing in Norwich in 1877.

Navigation

Very windy days will prevent navigation on safety grounds, but rain shouldn’t so why not just make a rainy day part of your journey and head off to another location; maybe another pub stop for the night.

Really, like any other situation, bad weather just takes a bit of preparation and planning. If you’re like me at a festival and see only the downsides of the situation, you’re probably destined to be bored, maybe even a killjoy. Watch the forecasts, pack accordingly and just go with the flow.

Your turn

What ideas to you have for enjoying rainy days on a boating holiday?

Ready for a rut - the role of stag and hen parties on the Norfolk Broads

Why Stag and Hen Parties are important to the hireboat industry.

Each year you will see people moaning on social media about a group of men on a boat having fun. Sometimes that fun is at the cost of someone else’s enjoyment, probably by bad behaviour and occasionally through being drunk in charge of a vessel.

You rarely read the stories about the 20 or more groups of people that go out most spring and summer weekends from the likes of Herbert Woods, Richardsons, Barnes and ourselves at Freedom who cause no problems whatsoever and who are thoroughly nice, normal people. The fact is that nobody wants to hear about normal; abnormal is what makes us get on our soap-boxes 

In fact, reading some facebook groups, forums and such might have you believe that the Broads is awash with badly behaved people hiring boats and getting up the hooters of others. This isn’t the case at all and, in the grand scheme of things, it’s fair to say that Stag and Hen groups cause relatively few problems on the waterways and in the pubs.

I would argue that rather than malign these groups, we need to embrace them. My experience of hiring boats to these groups for over a decade is that they are generally courteous, decent people looking to create a memorable celebration for a friend. They are rarely yobs but more commonly respectable people and the Broads needs them just as much as it needs family groups.

The boat yards need parties of people to hire their larger boats and these groups are typically away with friends for a weekend away; rarely are they particularly large family groups. Stags and Hens generally keep our larger boats in regular use and are responsible for a not insignificant amount of revenue.

The pubs and restaurants need them too. A round of drinks for 10 people will come to at least £40 and a sit-down meal will produce vital revenue that a seasonal business needs to survive and be there for seasons to come.

The Broads needs them too. A huge number of people visiting the Broads in a group have been before – as children. Their memories of childhood holidays on a boat are brought to the fore and the likelihood of them coming back with their families increases.

We are all guilty

It is easy to sit back and have a moan about a rowdy crowd; we have all done it. But how many times have you done the same about a couple of children who are running around without any parental guidance? What’s the difference?

You might say that the children don’t know any better and are just being children; you might be right. However, the parents should know a lot better and for whatever reason aren’t properly looking after their offspring. But here’s the crux of the argument; you don’t see people making a point on Facebook about this or local newspaper headlines like “twins, aged 11 and 13, run amok at the Saddlers Arms” (that’s the kind of journalism we have come to know in these parts, by the way). 

I think people choose to malign Stag and Hen parties because they are easy targets. Some of us have forgotten how to have fun (and I think some of us never really learned). Some of us are always looking for peace and quiet and don’t want to be disturbed. Some of us want to have a good time and are vocal about doing so. In this world, we can’t please everybody all of the time and as much as many of us try, letting our hair down occasionally is always likely to have a negative effect on someone. That is a fact of life and just because you are on holiday, it doesn’t give you a right as such. Life is about a bit of give and take, surely.  

There are, of course, lines that shouldn’t be crossed and when they are, steps need to be taken to curb bad behaviour and they are. Did you know that Broads Beat asks all boatyards to inform them of stag, hen and single-sex parties arriving for boats? Or that most boatyards take a significant deposit from such groups? These measures are mostly precautionary but give the law enforcers a head’s up should anything go wrong.

What’s more, as a company, we want to know about bad behaviour. There have been many cases where we have intervened and re-read the rule book to people that have strayed into areas of unacceptable behaviour and do you know what? Most of these cases involve family groups or others that you would not necessarily expect, rather than Stags and Hens.

If you are organising a Hen or Stag party, we have some Hen and Stag Party guidelines on our web site that you should take a look at.

Your views and comments are welcome as ever. 

Stag image credit:  Tj Holowaychuk