No Direction

No Direction is our 70ft Narrowboat which is now home to my wife Jayne and myself, it was launched on 4th February 2008.

We spend the Winters in a Marina and cruise in the warmer weather.

Saturday 30 July 2011

Little Boats and Vikings

Friday/Saturday,29/30th July 2011
Moored at Shobnall.

The Festival opened at noon on Friday but the crowd numbers appeared to be on the thin side, but this is a big site so it may have been fuller than it looked.

A lot of the local clubs and societies have taken the opportunity to show people what they do, the Burton upon Trent Amateur Radio Club have erected a huge aerial which was winched  vertical, they then sit in their tent and jabber away with microphones.

Up goes the Aerial

It's up.     Ground Control To Major Tom.

The Viking's are here as well, the group goes by the name of Regia Anglorum and they take it very seriously. They did 2 shows today in the arena and will do another 2 tomorrow, (that's if theirs any of them left) The first show is called "Warrior training" and the second one is the "Battle".

 They made a lot of noise and waved sharp pointed sticks at each other.

We heard the Noise of a of a working boat approaching yesterday evening but when I looked out of the side door all I could see was "mini boat" Eagle towing 2 men in a canoe, the one in the front was holding the remote control unit and the one in the rear had a double paddle to keep the Canoe straight, we recognised the remote control operator as Rob Goodman who moored his Narrowboat Grace (full size) next to us at this event when it was held at Wolverhampton in 2008, Rob had fitted out Grace himself and the quality of the fitout was so good that his boat won best in show and best amateur fitout, beating many professional boat builders, he has now turned his skill to very accurate models.

Mini Boat Eagle, there's a 3 metre rope attached towing the Canoe.

As well as looking correct with miniature sacks in the hold it also made the right noise which decreased when it slowed down and yes it had puffs of smoke from the exhaust.

There are lots of Awards given out at the Festival for various achievements and displays so I have awarded the prize for the saddest looking rear fender to the boat moored opposite us over the weekend.

And the winner is !!

Got to go now as it's 10.15pm and the flower boxes need watering.

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