The Badgers can be seen from 7.30pm. We will be feeding them between 8-8.30pm
Walking around the lake I saw another Moorhen who had just hatched a clutch of three eggs. I also saw the other Moorhen who had two chicks a couple of weeks back, she had one swimming with her. There may have been two as she was in the reeds. The Moorhens do seem to be the most successful at breeding on the lake.
One of you got a little concerned that Lady and Willow were not in their stable last night, when I quickly turned the camera over. This time of year they are out in the field as much a possible. When I turned the camera over I was hoping that had left the stable door open and that Branston was in it. A Lady wanted to see him. It turned out that for some reason she was unable to see the webcams.
Val brought back memories of when some years back I use to holiday in a small Houseboat at Oulton Broads. I don’t know what it is like now, when I was there it was a very nice. One memory I have kept with me all my life. Being that we were holidaying on the water I decided that I would take up fishing with my elder son. I spent a fortune on all the best equipment that money would buy, unfortunately the money I spent didn’t make me a very good fisherman, all that I ever managed to catch were elvers, who either swallowed the hooks so far down, they were impossible to remove or they managed to tangle themselves in the fishing line, that caused me to spend most of the time untangling them.
On one occasion whilst trying to fish from a rowing boat on the Broad, with my ex wife and elder children in the boat. I threw out a handful of maggots as ground bait, I could not believe what happened when I threw them, my wedding ring went with the maggots. I must admit that the wedding ring was very big and heavy, it really was like a ball and chain, and quite loose, it flew a fair distance from the boat.
The wedding ring was 22 carat gold and had cost a large amount of money to be made, by a jeweller Bill Pugh, Bill worked from home in the East End of London, where I lived. He did a lot of work for three very well known West Ham football players. Trouble was Bill did like his beer, he would start work at about 8.pm in a dingy dark back room on the first floor of his house. The curtains always drawn to obscure the view of the East London Cemetery that backed onto his house, working through the night, getting drunker and drunker when he produced his best work. He always offered to share his beer with you, but you knew that he didn’t mean it. If any one did accept his hospitality, you knew that his wife would have had trudge back to the Off Licence to get more of his nectar.
Back to the ring that had managed to finish up in the reeds, it was a good distance from the rowing boat. I wouldn’t be the best swimmer in the world, but decided to lower myself into the water to try to retrieve my ring, with my ex wife encouraging me so that I could continue wearing the ball and chain. I lowered myself fully clothed to just above my chest, but could not feel the bottom of the Broad. It took my breath away, so I decided that being that the Broads are tidal I would try to find the ring at low tide next day. I pushed a fishing rod into to ground below the water, to mark a rough area where I thought the ring may have landed.
The next morning we rowed back to the area, the water was a lot lower, but would still have been waist high on me. I decided that before I went into the water, I would try tapping the end of my fishing landing net handle on the ground under the water first. In under a minute I had tapped what felt like a metal object. I slid my hand down the pole, with most of my head under water my finger just slipped into the ring. It was quite unbelievable, more so as the water was tidal. Standing in an exaggerated pretend gesture of jubilation, I shouted as loud as I could, only to frighten a Swan who was nesting in the reeds, just out of site from us. It flew towards me most definitely in an attack mode, moving quickly to try to get out of the Swans way, I fell over the side of the boat into the Broad, nearly tipping the boat over with my ex wife and children sitting in it.