I love the ability EACC has to take over moorings,
squeezing 12 boats into a space for 3, moving in on the space like a murmuration
of marauding starlings at a bird table. Even better, as I discovered last
night, is when we take over a pub and make it wholly our own for the evening.
This is stacks of fun, with an atmosphere like the tent at TMOR but with
real toilets. In fairness, there wasn't actually much resistance or
marauding needed, because the venue for the joint social with our friends from
the Yare Sailing Club was The Lord Nelson at Reedham which has reopened after a
comprehensive refit and was otherwise pretty quiet - but this is mid January and
the weather warnings had been wholly discouraging. It suited us very
nicely, however, because we more or less had the place to ourselves so we spread
out and mingled, meeting old friends and making new ones.
The pub isn't doing food yet, but they were happy
for us to bring in so we had a fine fish supper courtesy of the Reedham
chippie. Around 50 people turned out, which is fantastic, and lovely as EACC
members are it was great to see some new faces and, in my case, forget some new
names. Apologies to Denis, Bob and John! The idea of a joint social arose from a
conversation with Margaret Kilner (YSC Commodore, RCC Vixen) at Joe Farrow's (RCC
Corsair) wedding in September and it worked very nicely. The YSC are looking to
do a bit more cruising this year and will come north in July, so expect to see
more of them.
A word about the pub - I have always felt The Lord
Nelson should be one of the best pubs on the Broads as it's a lovely building in
a great location, with good moorings outside, and usefully situated for Breydon,
Oulton and the upper Yare. The renovation is tip top, the beer and drinks
are good (and well priced) and the atmosphere very convivial, with a roaring
fire too. They're not doing food yet, but don't let that put you off -
remember when pubs didn't do food and we didn't expect them to?! We had a great
night there and I recommend it highly.
Cally Smith, EACC (RCC Sun Glory)