Going back through the records, there appears to be some dispute about exactly how many joint socials the East Anglian Cruising Club have enjoyed with the Yare Sailing Club - is it six or seven? Do online ones count? It's a minefield. If, as we suspect, it is the seventh, then we have a copper bottomed reason for pulling the wool over your eyes (good cryptic clue there).

And 'wool over eyes' was indeed evident as some of us sought a location we could have found blindfolded by river, but that proved something more of a challenge by road. The River Garden, a fine hostelry well run by proper pub people, is not to be confused with The Townhouse, also known as the Stonehouse Pizza place (a Pub and Paddle river stop), or the Canton Chinese (formerly the River Something) or the Rushcutters (rushes = river) or the Fat Cat & Canary which, obviously, has nothing to do with the river, but is none the worse for it, and is a pub I DO know.

Nevertheless, everyone who was expected DID find the extremely welcoming and proper pub-like pub and, after a very decent spot of grub, settled down to the quiz run for us by the landlord Glenn, formerly of The Pleasure Boat. Around 30 river sailors took part, splitting into teams of 4 - 6 people. It's just as well we are river sailors not sea sailors, as there was quite a lot of confusion about fathoms, furlongs and nautical miles, which doesn't bode well for accurate passage planning, but if you can see the opposite bank it doesn't really matter. After some banter and a couple of protests lodged with the committee, there was finally the excitement of a tie breaker to find the winning team. Congratulations to Scraping the Barrel!

Well done to the YSC and Julia and Margaret for a great evening. Next time I visit I’m going by boat.

Cally Smith, EACC