Dress sense

So, today my colleagues and I had an all-day meeting at the offices of a large marketing company that is doing some work for us. We were way too early and they have a rather nice café in their foyer so we all sat drinking coffee and catching up in e-mails.

I love watching people. I can do it for hours. I wonder who they are, where they have come from and whether they’re happy. Whatever comes to mind really. It was the start of the working day so there were lots of people coming and (not so much) going. You do see all sorts of odd things. The café is in a sort of atrium and the two or three floors of the building border on the atrium with a balcony. One woman had clearly left her pass behind. No problem – just call your friend who comes to the second floor balcony and drops her card over the edge. Problem solved!! Great security.

But as I watched some more I noticed something rather interesting. The women were all, to a woman, dressed well. Their hair was carefully coiffed, their shoes were lovely, they wore clothes that they had chosen with obvious care. The men on the other hand were – well – scruffy. Not quite to a man, but almost. Sneakers, jeans and t-shirts. Many hadn’t bothered to shave possibly because they think that two days’ stubble looks cool. I think that if I were a woman the last thing I would want to do would be to snuggle up to two days of stubble!

Maybe these men think old t-shirts and sneakers are cool office wear. Perhaps they’re trying to do the bohemian thing but I think that went out in the early 1960s. I couldn't quite work this out. Were the women completing with one another? They couldn’t possibly have been dressing to impress their male work colleagues who I suspect probably wouldn’t even have noticed the effort that they were making. I sort of worried (not a lot – it’s more that it crossed my mind) that these women were completing with one another. If they are then that’s a great shame.

At the end of the meeting, as we were leaving, I mentioned to J (their project manager of the work they’re doing for us) that I had noticed how well dressed the women were and how poorly dressed were the men. She commented that there was some discussion about whether it was OK for women to wear sneakers.

I couldn’t get this out of my mind as I travelled back home. What on earth is going on here? Are these women intimidated in some way to dress so beautifully? And is the cultural taboo on sneakers a consequence of that intimidation? How does this come about? I don’t know the answer to these questions. Maybe no one does.

But I ended up forming a view that the men were the problem here. The women were dressing presumably as they wished (possibly not) but the men just weren’t dressing at all. They were just scruffy and I ended up wondering if they really cared. Was there some male arrogance here that needs to be squashed out of my gender before the glass ceiling gets smashed?

Maybe I am an old fart. I am old fart. But I will be straightening up my act. It’s about respect I think – not so much to women (or at least one’s co-workers) but respect for the job you do, the difference you make and the value you place on your contribution.

Day 20: Home ... thank heavens

I can say nothing about today except that home is the place to be.

We fought our way through immigration and baggage claim. I invested in a bottle each of Morlach and an 18 year old Glenlivet. I never used to buy duty free but since I have been a whiskey collector I have found convenient. I probably should have bought another bottle to tax out the 2.25 lite allowance or whatever it is. 

We retrieved the car from the long stay car park. This was a good thing to have done. It's a walk of only a few metres from the arrivals hall to the car park. We drove home. I hadn't really slept but I felt pretty good. Once I got home I started to slow down. The G slept for 3 hours but I was determined to make it through to some sort of sensible bed-time.

The lake was still there when we returned.

And that's it. The 2016 UK holiday. I am pleased to say that all cars started satisfactorily on our return.

Day 19: Dubai ... again

We flew into Dubai: I will not speak of the flight. We were booked to stay at the Regency Hyatt where you get a room for 24 hours with breakfast. This is a good deal: you turn up absolutely buggered but you get a breakfast fit for a person who can eat an incredible amount. Of course when you are completely buggered you cannot eat an incredible amount. And in any case, at my advanced age, eating an incredible amount has consequences that it did not have when I was a younger man.

Our friend Neville, a man whose hospitality seems to know no bounds picked us up after breakfast for we were to drive to Abu Dhabi to see the Grand Mosque. I was completely knackered and I think I may well have slept most of the way. I had chosen to sit in the back of the car where my nodding off was less noticeable. The G seems to keep alert at all times and seemed to keep up a ceaseless flow of conversation with Neville.

The drive to Dubai is about 100 miles and takes one along a fine highway that is completely flat. It takes ages to get out of Dubai. I would have expected there to be sort of outskirts of Dubai where the buildings would be less tall and there would be more evidence of residential areas. But this did not seem to be so: the tall buildings went on and on, it seemed almost interminably.

Once out of Dubai we passed the Al Taeelah Power and Desalination Complex. Any right-minded man worth his salt would be fascinated by this. This is a big facility but, aside from the fact that it produces power in large quantities and desalinates seawater in large quantities, we need not be detained by it. It disappeared in the rear windscreen soon enough.

So far as I can make out this processing wonder is called the Taweelah B which was commissioned between 1995 and 1997, comprises six identical units; a unit being made up of a steam raising boiler, a condensing steam turbine generator, with steam extraction to a multi-stage-flash seawater desalination distiller. The B Extension was commissioned between 1999 and 2001, comprises two gas turbines (operating in either simple or combined cycle) each exhausting into a heat recovery steam generator raising steam to drive a back pressure steam turbine generator which, in turn, supplies steam to three multi-stage-flash seawater desalination distillers. The New B Extension was brought into commercial operation in 2008 and has 3 Gas Turbines, which operate in combined cycle mode (two of which can operate in open cycle), each Gas Turbine of which exhausts into a heat recovery steam generator raising steam to drive a back pressure steam turbine generator under normal operation.  The steam is then fed to four multi stage flash seawater desalination distillers. You cannot say you have not been told. 

There is little or nothing else to catch the eye until the buildings of Abu Dhabi appear in the skyline. Abu Dhabi is the second most populous city in the UAE: the first is, of course, Dubai but only just. The 2008 figures I found show populations of 1.935m and 2.106m. Human habitation of Abu Dhabi can be traced back to the 3^rd millennium BCE and until the early part of the 20^th century the economy was sustained by fishing and herding, the production of dates and pearl diving. Oil was first found in 1958. The then sheikh, Sheikh Shakhbut Bin-Sultan Al Nahyan, was cautious about the value of oil, fearing that its benefits might be short-lived. He constructed Abu Dhabi’s first paved road in 1961. He was kicked out, with the support of the British and replaced with his brother Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. The UAE became independent in 1971 and oil wealth continued to flow to the area and traditional mud-brick huts were rapidly replaced with banks, boutiques and modern high rises building. And the rest, as they say, is history.

I assume we took some circuitous route into Abu Dhabi but belore long we were confronted by the Grand Mosque or, ore properly the Sheikh Zayed Mosque. To say that this building is magnificent does not really do it justice. I will leave you gentle reader to look up all the details of the mosque. It was constructed between 1996 and 2007 and is a intended to be a structure which unites the cultural diversity of Islamic world, the historical and modern values of architecture and art. We parked up and entered. The first thing we had to do was to ensure that The G was attired commensurate with her gender. That means covering head, wrists and ankles with an abaya. These are available to borrow but there was some weird deal that meant that a man had to be with the woman when she borrowed the abaya. This involved a driver’s license which Neville had and I didn’t.

Anyway the mosque is spectacular as you can see from the pictures.

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PICTURES

The view of the mosque as you walk up.

Absolutely white as a white thing ... looks stunning in the Arabian sunlight.

Beautifully decorate pillars brought to mind the carvings at the Taj Mahal.

The men's bathroom appropriately decorated.

The faithful can wash their feet in these wonderfully made foot washing facilities.

Somewhat disappointingly the loos were ... well, just loos really.

I am not sure what the inner courtyard in a mosque is called. I should know of course but I don't.

Your heroes pose before a magnificent wall thing. I look a trifle large here: I think that the camera lens was playing up. 

More handsome carvings and decoration.

There are three of these massive and colourful chandeliers. Neville told us how much they each weigh. I seem to recall 36 tonnes.

The mosque sports the biggest and perhaps most intricate carpet in the world.

Here's another piece of carpet.

We drove into Abu Dhabi where we took refreshment in a rather nice café with a model dog on its counter. The coffee was good and there was air conditioning. We left Abu Dhabi to drive back. Neville is completely at home weaving his way through Arabian traffic, which mercifully no longer includes many camels. He knows his way around.

The cafe we went to displayed this magnificent beast, Unfortunately The G's handbag was not quite big enough to slip it into. But you would surely want this gracing your home. Surely.

We saw the Leaning Tower of Abu Dhabi, properly known as Capital Gate. This is the world’s furthest leaning man-made tower leaning 18° westwards. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is only 3.99° by comparison.

Capital Gate: why does it lean? Because it can. Will it fall over? No.

I wondered as we drove what is the fascination that the UAE has with breaking records. There’s a website that lists 150 world records claimed by the UAE. These range from the slightly bizarre to the more understandable. In 2014 scuba divers plunged the depths of the city’s ports yesterday in an attempt to break the record for the world’s largest underwater clean-up. Also in 2014, two Frenchmen, Vince Reffet and Fred Fugen, leapt off the 828-metre Burj Khalifa to claim the world base-jumping record.

Another site is dedicated to Dubai's most extreme world records. These include the world’s largest fireworks display, the world’s largest mall, the world’s tallest building and the world’s longest graffiti scroll. Wait a minute: the world’s longest graffiti scroll? It must be important to someone.

The world's longest graffiti scroll. Mmmm … make mine a cinnamon scroll. Far more useful.

As we entered Dubai we hit the standard urban traffic sprawl you find in any city. The Dubai driver is a good deal better behaved than the Delhi driver. There is less lane changing and blowing of horns.

I know how interested you are in minutiae. Here’s some I found. They bored me and now they can bore you too.

Mind you there are some benefits to sitting Dubai’s traffic. We sat in a jam next to a Maybach 62 (left). You don’t see many of them. To my eye they are hideous but the 1939 Maybach SW 42 (right) is a thing of great beauty.

We went back to have a drink at Neville’s place. A nice pad with some marvellous artwork on the walls. Neville is a host par excellence – he is peerless in this regard and we were sorry to say goodbye.

The view from Neville's balcony: like seaweed fronds on a ocean floor. Or perhaps not. But impressive nonetheless.

The man himself: host extraordinaire. Neville with The G enjoying a glass of something. The G has the bottle of course.

Neville and his partner were off to see Sting which was clearly a better option than spending the evening with a pair of old people like us so we headed back to the hotel. The hotel was but a few kays from Neville’s and should have taken 15 minutes. The Dubai traffic, however, had other ideas and it took us almost an hour and a half. We had a very average meal in the hotel and repaired to bed.

Day 18: Homeward bound

The English are always talking about the weather. Or at least that’s what people seem to think. Probably the reason for this is that the weather is a reasonably neutral topic, a topic in which you can disagree without causing a diplomatic incident. “It is commonly observed,” wrote Dr Johnson in 1758, “that when two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather; they are in haste to tell each other, what each must already know, that it is hot or cold, bright or cloudy, windy or calm.”

The thing about the weather in England is that, while it is almost always unutterably awful, every now and then it creeps up behind you and delivers you with an experience that is breathtaking. We awoke this morning to what I could only describe as a perfect English late winter morning. The temperature during the night had clearly dropped some way below freezing and by the time I went outside the sun was up, the sky was blue and the temperature would have been about 4°C. The grass was covered with a silver sheen which positively sparkled in the morning sun. The air was cold in the lungs: this is an English day.

On a day like this you appreciate your surroundings. For all that it is flat as a pancake, the East Anglian countryside has a beauty about it that is undeniable. The trees all stand bare of their leaves but give you an idea of what they would be like at the height of summer. The sound of English birdsong is radically different from Australian birdsong, gentler on the ears.

It was a fine frosty morning. Everything looked wonderful.

It was a day to inspect the Caterham 7 that Peter Scott has been building. Both Peters have long since been into racing and Peter Scott’s son, David, is by all accounts a particularly good driver. The Caterham 7 was complete and roadworthy except for a problem with the indicator unit. Peter Mac, however, was equal to the task I am sure the problem has now been fixed. As comfortable means of getting from A to B the Caterham may well be wanting, but as an exciting and exhilarating means of getting from A to B it may well be without parallel!

Peter’s Caterham 7. A fine machine.

I will not dwell of the parting of the ways. Suffice it to say that none of us knew if we would all be together again. It was a teary departure at least for me. These were men that I grew up with. I shared the follies of my younger years with them. We knew of each other’s loves and disappointments and enthusiasms. We laughed together. But although life took us in different ways with different experiences and helped us succeed or fail in our dreams, getting back together was as if those years hadn’t been. Grey hair, no hair, dick knees … none of that matters a tuppenny damn.

Four old blokes.

We had thought we would go to Cambridge but we thought that might be too difficult so we decided on Saffron Walden instead. And we were glad we did because we found a town that we rather liked. I am certain that I have not been there before but every Englishman has heard of Saffron Walden though I expect none can tell you why. I certainly couldn’t.

Saffron Walden is a medieval town with some lovely streets and buildings, I learn that there has been a market there since 1141. It s first charter was granted in about 1300 when it was called Chepying Walden (meaning Market Walden). In the 16^th and 17^th  centuries the saffron crocus was widely grown, and the industry gave Walden its name.

Saffron Walden, or t least the bits that we wandered around, really do look a bit like this.

We ambled around and made our mark on the local economy through the purchase of a pair of cuff-links and a tie. We lunched at the Cross Keys Hotel. They serve a handsome meal there and it’s the sort of place that we would like to stay were the occasion ever to arise. The G enjoyed a ham sandwich and I had the bubble and squeak. I had not had bubble and squeak for about 100 years and I am sure that when I last had it, it was nothing like this!

The G took a ham sandwich [L], which was garnished with the ubiquitous chip, and I took the bubble and squeak [R] which was served with a pork sausage.

We hit the local church which is apparently the biggest parish church in Essex and also the tallest. It is not, to my mind. Particularly remarkable but it must sport some handsome bells as the walls are adorned with tablets proclaiming the skills of the Saffron Walden campanologists.

A Cambridge Surprise Major with 5,056 changes in just over 3 hours is an Olympian feat. And, oddly enough, when I got home I listed to a BBC podcast in which I heard that campanologist are campaigning for campanology to be recognised as a sport. Well, if synchronised swimming, why not bell ringing? And then whelly whanging … whatever next?

I think we could have sculled around S W for a while longer but we figured we should hit Heathrow in reasonable. The Satnav was set for “scenic” which meant that we took somewhat longer to get to Heathrow than we had anticipated but we were nonetheless in plenty of time for the flight.

We passed through the delightfully named Stansted Mountfitchet. Its name derives from the Norman baron who arrived with the Norman Conquest. The remains of his castle are apparently still visible. The name Stansted means “stony place”. Interestingly, Stansted Mountfitchet is home to the House on the Hill Toy Museum which claims to be the largest toy museum in the world. A trip to its website says that the museum is due to the passion of its owner and curator who, so far as I can make out, was so deprived of toys during his WW2 childhood that he went overboard when could finally get hold of some.

There is a windmill at Stansted Mountfitchet but we did not see it.

Soon after Stansted Mountfitchet we passed into Hertfordshire which its sign proclaimed as “county of opportunity”. It has a handsome website where you can go to see what these opportunities are. The drive into a through London was long and tedious but it did give the chance for The G to see what London living is like. There is a sequence of small aggregations of shops nearly all of which seem to be kebab shops or other fast food eateries. There are lots of people and many red buses. It’s difficult for us to translate the life we have into this; the noise, the people, the traffic, the dust and dirt. I should be able to make the translation for I loved for a while in Stoke Newington and in Dalston, both London suburbs.

We drove through the London Borough of Harrow. If you can tell anything of a locale from its council buildings then you will know what we thought of Harrow as we drove through.

We made the Hertz return at Heathrow and dropped off the Volvo bus. I have dropped so many cars off at the Heathrow Hertz place over the years. I wonder whether this will be the last time. The Hertz man asked me how the car was. This is a difficult question. It was comfortable and it got us from A to B but it had so many features and bells and whistles that sometimes I wondered who was driving, the car or me? I finally cracked the cruise control. It automatically slows down when you come up behind another vehicle. I thought it was dropping out but, no; this is a safety feature. I suppose that vehicle manufacturers are taking us along a gentle path to driverless cars. What a dumbed down world we live in.

I needed to get my VAT back on my various purchases. Last time I had foolishly packed my purchases into my checked baggage and because I could not prove I had purchased them (or at least had not purchased them on someone else’s behalf) I lost out. This time they seem to have changed the process because the whole process took place before check-in.

I will not labour the delights of the flight to Dubai. In fact, at just under 8 hours it wasn’t too bad.

Day 17: No crabs at Cromer

So far as I can make out The Fens are a scary place though their scariness was not evident to me as we set off to explore some well-known (to somebody but not to us, of course) places. A somewhat bizarre article in The Guardian (29 December 2010) entitled “Why a severe North Sea storm could spell disaster for the fens” says that modern farming methods and fen drainage have caused the land to shrink so much that what were once the beds of ancient rivers now stick up above the surrounding land.

As a result The Fens would be underwater were there to be a severe storm in the North Sea. The journalist says ,somewhat oddly, that this “would be classed as alarmist if published in a tabloid paper”. I thought that The Guardian was itself a tabloid paper. What he means is that it would be alarmist if it were published in The Sun or The Mirror. That it is published in a highbrow paper like The Guardian (always affectionately referred to by Private Eye as “The Grauniad”) removes all alarm.

Here is a picture of the Fens. This is, I gather, an avian paradise. It’s also pretty wet.

None of this was in our minds when we set off in the Volvo bus for a tour around selected fenland locations. Five of us set off: Peter Mac, Julian and Margaret, and The G and me. All five of us returned.

Peter and Helen had told us of crabs to be had at Cromer. The lure of a crab is more than mortal man can resist so we plugged Cromer into the Satnav and set off. Our route took us west through a place called Wicklewood. We passed a cemetery which was advertised as “a cemetery for our time: a woodland burial”. We thought this was odd. It was all top-of-mind because we had been skirting around the subject of death the previous evening. Julian recounted a tale of staff at a bus station referring to senior citizens who qualified for, and used, free bus passes as “coffin dodgers”. Since we were all (except I hasten to say The G but by a small margin) over 65 we were delighted to think of ourselves as coffin-dodgers.

I didn’t have time to photo the Wicklewood site but here is the Westall Park, Worcestershire natural burial site. You should get the picture: it’s not a bad idea.

I looked this place up later but I could not find it by my researches led to  a raft of references about “natural burials”. I found an ABC article which commented that “Australia has been pretty slow to adopt natural burial, but in the UK it's really taken off”. Natural burial means no headstone, no embalming, no fancy, furnished coffin, and no 'six feet under'. In the last 20 years or so more than 200 natural or 'woodland' burial sites have been established across the UK. So, now you know.

We skirted the edge of Norwich, home of mustard. The only sight of interest was Briar Chemicals, of which I had never heard. Its HQ is Sweet Briar Road, Norwich. I looked them up and found a 2014 Annual Report. They have revenues of about €1.5bn so they’re a decent size. They’re actually German-owned. Gosh that’s boring.

I think Norwich would have been worth a visit had we had time.

We didn’t see much of Norwich but we did note that its tagline advertised it as “a fine city”. We weren’t altogether sure what exactly was fine about it. Was it the weather? People have been there since Roman times so no doubt it has a proud history and no doubt some of it is interesting. You can look it up. It is important to note that 2012 Norwich was designated England's first UNESCO City of Literature. My friend The Wick tells me there are only 20 such cities worldwide. So that’s cool, really cool.

Because it’s all flat and pretty close to what the English are pleased to call “the Continent”, the Second World War saw the operation of a number of airfields. So it was not surprising to pass the City of Norwich Aviation Museum. This museum has a Vulcan XM612. I remember watching these planes when I was a boy in Portsmouth flying overhead (well, they’d have to be fling overhead). The first prototype flew in 1952 and they were retired in the early 80s. They seem to be sleek and cumbersome all in the same breath.

A Vulcan XM612.

We were all delighted to pass through Stratton Strawless, a name which we felt sure hid a tale of great excitement and interest. When I looked it up I discovered that the village was recorded in the Domesday Book. The “Stratton” derives from an old word that means farmhouse while the “strawless” is “an appellative from the poorness of the soil, producing little grain and less straw, but favourable to the production of timber”. But I am sure it was here that we saw a thatched bus stop.

As with everywhere in England (and the rest of the UK) interesting places are thick on the ground. We passed Felbrigg Hall which you will know is an unaltered 17th-century house noted for its Jacobean architecture and fine Georgian interior.

Felbrigg Hall. We could have gone here but we didn't.

The parish church of Saint Bartholomew in Hanworth dates from the 14th century and parts of the building date from an even earlier building. So it’s pretty old really. The church organ was built around 1865 by Father Henry Willis of the famous London organ builders. It originally cost £70 and is the only miniature Father Willis organ in Norfolk. Important stuff that: I had never heard of Father Henry Will so I dispute that he is “famous”. And I wonder how many organs of his there are in Norfolk.

Roughton church, St Mary's, is one of 124 existing round-tower churches in Norfolk. The tower is believed to be of Saxon origin. You might suppose that 124 examples mean this type of tower architecture is commonplace. Not so. There are only 185 surviving examples in the UK and they are found in areas lacking normal building stone, and are therefore built of knapped flint. Corners are difficult to construct in flint, hence the thick, round walls of the towers.

We thought that this round tower was unusual but it seems it's not.

The Cromer crab is a fine and noble crustacean. Cancer pagurus is its proper appellation. The World Register of Marine Species, affectionately acronymed (this is a made-up word) as WORMS, provides its complete taxon details. We had hoped an expected to find samples of this delectable delight on sale everywhere. We were wrong. The Chamber of Commerce website says rather hopefully that “Cromer [is] perched on the very edge of the north Norfolk coast, is famous for its tasty crabs, wide open beaches, a traditional pier complete with a theatre providing seaside special variety shows and is awash with small local independent shops”.

The Cromer Crab, a noble crustacean.

We closed in on Cromer through a hailstorm which had cleared by the time we got there. We set off in search of the famous crabs. We found ourselves at the seaside. We saw the pier and from our vantage point I can see why the Chamber of Commerce talks about perches. We could see the groynes on the beach. For we English folk this was no particularly strange sight but The G had never seen them before.

We did not find Cromer “awash” with small shops possibly because it was mid-February and they were all closed. Anyway I think that the word “awash” in this context is questionable; no doubt an overzealous marketing type was let loose on this piece of prose.

The Cromer crab we brought home
is a poor imitation of the real thing.

We eventually gave up on the crab hunt and settled into The Old Rock Shop Bistro which one review in TripAdvisor says has “good coffee but disappointing cake”. Pete was pissed off when he asked the dude behind the counter what was the soup of the day to be told that the answer was on the board behind him. What did it cost to just tell him? Too much we supposed. In the end the Old Rock Shop Bistro was rather good if not especially exciting. It was quite busy. Just two or three doors down the street was Peggoty’s which ranks #37 of 58 in TripAdvisor and is described as “cheap and cheerful”. It was completely empty. When we emerged from The Old Rock Shop Bistro a light February drizzle was falling so we decided to move on.

Julian had gone more than 3 hours without The Daily Telegraph crossword so Margaret was dispatched to buy a copy. She disappeared up the road in th erain while we loitered in the doorway of a local betting shop. The G and I went across the road to a souvenir shop and invested in a number of metallic Cromer crab fish magnets.

We drove out of Cromer on streets lined with late Victorian and Edwardian seaside houses of the type you see in many a seaside town in England. We entered caravan park city … I mean there were serried ranks of caravans almost as far as the eye could see.

Here is a static caravan park. This is clearly for people who like regimentation and order in their lives.

We drove along the coast and here we were rewarded by some stunning scenery. The rain cleared and a blue sky emerged. The landscape lost the drabness of winter and took on a much more inviting hue. You could see why hoards of people descend on Cromer each summer. It’s not probably because of the joys of Cromer but because the coastline is pretty. The beaches unfortunately are pebbly: no sand here. Just like when I was a boy in Portsmouth. It’s dreadful now but as a kid you seem to be able to walk on pebbles just fine.

We wended our way out of Cromer through West Runton, a place of no architectural merit that looked like an open prison, and passed through Weybourne. Weybourne has a handsome windmill which was built in 1850 and operated as a mill until 1916. There is a story here about subterfuge in the Second World War when suspicions arose in the village about the couple who lived at the mill. Rumour said that they were spying for the Germans. The man living in the mill was a Mr Dodds and his wife apparently had a strong foreign accent.

My Wikipedia source goes on: “One night two local policemen were walking down the lane from the old coastguard cottages towards the mill when they saw a light flashing from the top of the mill out towards sea. Apparently no action was taken - oddly, given the wartime conditions and the closeness to Weybourne Camp - but seemingly it bothered one of the policemen and he went back a couple of nights later and saw lights again. Some time later, Mrs Dodds left her bicycle unattended outside the tennis court. The bicycle fell over and a bag fell out of the basket. A local picked the bicycle up and then the bag. He took a look inside and found a radio transmitter. He told the police and a day or two later the authorities arrived and took the lady and her husband away”.

Well, you just never know, do you?

Weybourne Windmill where dastardly deeds were done.

As we drove on we could see a wind farm but this one was in the North Sea. We stopped at a pebbly beach and got out to look but, while the sky was clear, the wind was pretty chilly so, a befits a bunch of coffin-dodgers we got back in the car and pressed on.There is a limit to the excitement that the sight of an off-shore wind farm can offer the traveller.

There’s a wind farm in the sea. Did it escape there or was it built there? Perhaps you cannot see it: I do not know why all these sticks are there in the foreground.

Weybourne Windmill looking back from the coast. A lovely pair of fishing vessels in the foreground together with a tracked vehicle of uncertain vintage or operational readiness.

As we passed through Salthouse we observed what seems to be much evidence of wartime activity along the coast in the shape of large blocks of concrete lying around at random. I imagine that these were part of mighty defence installations and contributed to our winning the Battle of Britain and the war in general. What hands mixed and poured these concrete remains?

We stopped at Cley next the Sea (which we discovered is pronounced Cly). This was a interesting little place to wander around featuring, among other delights, a duckpond and the remains of an old (16^th Century) guildhall. Apparently Cley was once one of the busiest ports in England (hence, I suppose, the guildhall) but today its sleep 350 strong population belies any past activity. The G bought a trinket or two. Julian had retired with The Daily Telegraph to a nearby hostelry to do the crossword with the aid of the local brew. We joined him for tea and headed home.

A street scene in Cley next the Sea.

This is about as much excitement as old people can take. Take it from me. We headed for Swaffham but decided as we passed Little Snoring that we were also too tired for more driving and general hard work so we turned back to Peter and Helen’s. In fact the name of Little Snoring does not relate to the village’s somnambulistic capacities and capabilities. The “snoring” is derived from a past leader called “Snare”. There is also a Great Snoring.

We were booked for a valetudinary dinner at The Crown in Great Ellingham. Now, not many people know that The Crown used to be called The Bell and dates from the mid-1700s. Great Ellingham has a population of about 1,000 and apparently use to boast 6 pubs. This, I think, is less a testament of the bubulatory prowess of the old folks of Great Ellingham but rather an observation on the way Englsih village life has changed.

The Crown at Great Bellingham scene of the valetudinary dinner.

Today The Crown is what the Brits refer to as a “gastro-pub” like the Cromwell Arms we went to the other day. But whereas in days of yore you would be hard pushed to get a bag of crisps, the modern pub of today offers fine dining as well as a convivial atmosphere. We were a merry, if somewhat tired band of brothers and we enjoyed a fine meal but with the weight impending departure hanging over us.