Lord Noel Says 'Let Them Eat Kayak!'

Whatto! Everyone....

Lord Noel here....

One of the lovely things about living here in the heart of the Norfolk Broads....
...is being able to take to the water whenever the mood takes you.

This weekend we were joined by Baron Colonicus Maximus and his girlfriend Matilda Merkin...
....who said she was very keen to assist me to 'float my boat'....

Soon we were all out on the open water....

...enjoying the solitude that open water offers...

Matilda and Colonicus seemed to find it immensely amusing that Lady Jacqueline and I were zig zagging from one side of the river to the other for quite some time.....
...using our tried and tested 'meandering method'....
...which (to the untrained eye) appears that we are seemingly unable to hold a steady course.... 
....and all entirely without the aid of any kind of intoxification! 

....at one point Matilda was laughing so hard....
....that we we all thought she was going to have 
...A SPASMODIC ATTACK!

Luckily the feeling slowly subsided.....
....and we managed to travel several miles further without incident.
Finally going ashore at a little village named Barton Turf.
We began walking towards the centre of the village....
....to see if we could find a watering hole of some kind.....

...we asked some locals where the nearest pub was....
....and they told us it was about a mile and a half down the road! 
As we walked along in our wetsuits and buoyancy jackets....
...we became increasingly aware that our attire looked more and more out of place.
Then my accute hearing noticed the delicate sound of leather on wood...
...followed by a polite smattering of applause.....
....and we were relieved to realise that there was a cricket match on!

For both Baron Colonicus and myself immediately knew...
....that where there was cricket....
...there was usually.....
'Refreshments'!
And we were right!
After introducing ourselves to the bemused Club members....
(I told them we were dressed like this because we were expecting heavy rain later)
...we spent several extremely pleasant hours drinking in the clubhouse and watching the cricketers in the sunshine.
Eventually it was time to return to our boats once more.

....and I was relieved to find that none of our boats had been either stolen or tampered with in our absence!
(Inner City dwellers eat your hearts out!)
We decided to try a different combination on the return leg of the journey....
...where Matilda and Lady Jacqueline tied their boats together and they, in turn, were tied to the rear of ours....
....effectively allowing us to TOW them along behind us.

So we set orf again....
...completely refreshed from our liquid lunch....
....keeping our spirits up by singing well known sea shanties...
....(by ABBA and such like) along the way.

It was only after quite some time.....
...that Colonicus and I suddenly realised that actually the two Ladies behind us....
....didn't seem to be doing very much at all.....

....other than smoking....
....and posing....

....and generally...
....bally well enjoying themselves!

Colonicus and I soldiered on manfully...
...dragging our gorgeous cargo peacefully along behind us.....
....until I spotted the almost imperceptible signs in the reed beds nearby that humanity was close by once more....
....little things like the sight of the rare Gaymer flower!

Eventually we reached the Staithe and struggled to extricate ourselves from our trusty crafts.

Once we were finally ashore...
...Colonicus and I began dismantling our kayaks....
...ready to transport them back home again....
...and as I turned to the ladies to suggest to them that maybe we could visit an attractive nearby hostelry for some more refreshment...

I found....

....they had already made themselves very comfortable indeed...
....in the bar.



Tallyho!
Best Wishes - Lord Noel