Finding the boat

I had friends coming over to lunch and a group coming in the evening this week. So I said I would be somewhere south of Ely.  They wanted me to be more precise. OK I said I’ll be at Little Thetford.  That should be simple to find and an easy place to park a car.

'I might come on my bike which side of the river are you on?’

‘Do you have a post-code for my satnav?’

‘If I put The Fish and Duck Inn into my tomtom I think I can cross the railway line (looking both ways) walk a short way along the track and you will be there?’

‘No. Your tomtom is lying to you.  The Fish and Duck Inn fell into the river about six years ago, the road is a private road to the marina, it is on the wrong side of another river, and when you have crossed the nearest footbridge it is over a mile walk along a very rough track.  Although the good news is that you wouldn’t need to cross the rail way line.’

It might be a good idea to issue better instructions.  ‘Take the A10 towards Ely.  Take the right turn marked Little Thetford. Go through the village until you can go no further. Cross the railway tracks (looking both ways). Walk along the track until you see steps ahead of you.  Climb steps.  Go down other side and I will be there.

‘Oh Little Thetford I thought you said Thetford, I wondered how you’d got a boat into Thetford Forest’

‘If I look on Google Earth I can see The Whytces which runs into Main Street and then becomes Holt Fen is that the right or does Google Earth need updating?'

‘That’s probably right but I don’t know the street names’ 

‘I know where she is I’ll meet you at the railway crossing.  Bring flat shoes and a torch’ 

Clever girl.  I forgot about the practical things like sensible shoes and torches.

So they arrived and I managed to arrange glorious summer weather and we had a good evening. 

It seems that Google Earth thinks there is a Fish and Duck Inn in Little Thetford.  I did a bit of research and there was a Fish and Duck Inn listed until 1909 in Little Thetford but an old photo shows it sitting on the riverbank in what looks like the position of the more recently deceased Fish and Duck Inn not in the village centre where Google Earth thinks it is.  So the mystery of the missing pub remains.  There are plans to rebuild the Fish and Duck Inn at Popes Corner in the newly refurbished marina. Early this year residents at Popes Corner, many of whom had lived there for years, where turfed out with a months notice so the marina could be updated and given over to non-residential and higher priced boats.  I’m happy to say the riverbanks along the marina are still mainly empty and the marina is sparsely populated.