Friday 2nd August 2024

I am a son of Norfolk, and glory is being so. And so I know Norfolk is big, and is filled with sometimes empty spaces, sometimes vast apparently empty spaces that were never filled with anything.

and yet there are many places that time has forgotten, the same all over the country I guess, really. But North and east Norfolk coasts have been on the retreat for centuries, and in Norfolk and Suffolk, towns and villages have been lost to the hungry North Sea.

Landowners have moved villages on, so to graze sheep or to have a fine view from one of the dozens of bedrooms in their fancy new country houses.

Economics mean that it was no longer viable for a particular farming activity to continue, and those who worked the land drifted away or even the land was needed for war preparations.

This book, on the lost villages of Norfolk, has been researched and written by my friend, Cam Self, and illustrated with dozens of shots taken from the air by another friend, John Fielding, with an introduction by a third friend, John Vigar.

It is a fine book, with views that most of us will never see, and stories of villages that have come and gone, and even the land itself has forgotten and lost all trace. For others there are lumps and bumps in the turf, a partially ruined church, or a lone finger post, pointing the way to somewhere that is no longer there.

A Norfolk Brigadoon, perhaps.

A wonderful book, already I am armed with new information and a list of places to visit next time I am in the fair county.

Friday.

And hot.

Damn hot.

So, up at half five, have coffee and again, once Jools left for yoga, put out the bins, fill up the feeders and have a second coffee and be ready for work at seven.

As hard as it is to believe, summer holiday season is not yet ended, and in meetings, half those invited are still away. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends.

When I stop for breakfast, I go outside, and feeding is a Peacock, so I grab the camera. The butterfly was so focussed on breakfast, that it didn't notice me edge closer to get shots.

Three meetings either side of midday and I was done.

Literally.

I am worn out with it all. I log off, pack the laptop away, pour an ice cold tripel and sit outside in the sun, reading the book that got delivered today.

Perfect.

We're playing cards on Saturday, so we have a quiet afternoon, and for me the quiz followed by cooking chorizo hash and beer.

And that was the end of the day, and beginning of the weekend.