Riverboat shuffle

I and some chums from the Norwich Ukulele Society went on a riverboat trip along the Broads this evening and this lady was one of the other passengers.  The boat - the 'Southern Comfort' - makes regular trips during the summer months and the three hour journey is a great opportunity to spot all kinds of birds and other creatures along the way.

The boat can also be hired for private functions or fundraisers and this evening some folk from another uke society based in Norwich organised this trip as a fundraiser for a school in Nicaragua.  We were advised to bring a picnic, our ukes and to print off a specially compiled songbook as the organisers wanted everyone to join in playing and singing, which would be a really nice way of involving people who didn't play uke.

Sounded brilliant, so we booked our tickets weeks ago and when we arrived we were pleased to see that there were people from uke societies based not only in Norwich but in Yarmouth and Wymondham.

The significance of the headgear worn by the lady in the photo is that she plays with a group based at a pub called The Green Dragon in Wymondham, and everyone thought she looked rather splendid.

Unfortunately things didn't quite work out as planned as by the time the organising group had got settled there wasn't any space for anyone else in that part of the boat.  They were on the top deck and they hadn't got the PA sorted out properly so that people downstairs couldn't hear what was going on upstairs.  If they had done, it wouldn't have been a problem as those downstairs could have played and sang along.  Instead it just felt like there was a private party going on with those upstairs playing and singing songs they all knew.  The opportunity for everyone to play (or sing along to) the songs in the songbook we'd been asked to print off came about 35 minutes before the trip ended.

In summary: it was a different way of spending an evening, I was in good company, we had lots of giggles, it was in aid of a good cause and the final birdcount was four herons and we lost count of the number of grebes. 

There's a photo of the boat as an 'extra'.