MASTS AND FLAGS

This is a little quiz. What is the memoire that the following aide memoire helps you to remember?

My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas (or Pears, Puddings, Pies etc, anything so long as it starts with a P).

(Answers at the end of this post)

Today will be my last day in Brinklow Marina. Tomorrow we head up to Rugby for a bit of shopping, and thence up to Hillmorton, where 'Rosy' is to have her bottom blacked. Last autumn I was in the Hillmorton boat yard to have 'Rosy' repainted. At the time I had no intention of leaving the UK, so I had Rosy's SSR (Small Ships Register) Numbers painted over. Now I need to get the painter back to paint them on again.

I also have the boat insurance bandits wanting a hull inspection done sometime soonish, so I can have that done as well.  Ah yes! There is also a lot of water sloshing about in the bilges which needs pumping out and finding out where it has all come from. I assume it is the result of all that rain, but how is the rain getting into the bilges? I think there is far too much water to assign it to 'condensation'.

Also last year, I ditched Rosy's mast and tabernacle. I don't think a mast in compulsory in Euroland, but it is a boating etiquette to fly the national flag of the host country from the starboard cross trees. This is tricky to do if you do not have a mast. At the stern, of course, the flag of ones country of origin is flown - the Red Ensign for Brits. So we need a new mast and tabernacle - though, with luck, the old tabernacle might still be lying around. A 'tabernacle' is a fitting, screwed onto the deck, into which is placed the bottom of the mast.

I used to fly, in lieu of the Red Ensign, the flag of the Army Sailing Association. I was entitled to do this, but only in exchange for money. Certainly the flag was a talking point, but swapping a fancy flag for a bit more French red wine seems to me to be a better use of scarce resources! Visitors thought so as well, very much preferring a glass or 3 of wine  than an inspection of a flag.

I am finding it tricky to locate a source of decent, white string. I had some on 'Rosy' but it has disappeared. I need some to lash a short length of tubing onto the back of the rising length of the tiller, and into which is placed the bottom few inches of the Red Ensign flag pole.

(Quiz answer: Each initial letters is also the initial letters of a planet (e.g. E = Earth). The aide gives them in the order of their distance from the sun: Mercury being the nearest, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto).