Friday 5th February 2021 - Lull Before the Storm and A Means to An End

Yes, we have had some rain but on the whole the weather this week has been very pleasant. I have even been able to dispense with my gloves on a couple of Barney’s walks. The garden has had a tidy, still more to do though but this will probably have to wait until after the weekend and the forecast high winds and snow have blown through. Yesterday morning, The Sea Marge was bathed in sunlight; such a handsome house I just had to stop and take a photo. The roof of patched tiles brings me on to the commitment needed and the cost borne by the owners of the large houses in the village, to keep them from deteriorating. As for the Sea Marge the back of the hotel, which takes the brunt of the sea winds, has been retiled in recent years. I don’t think anyone would dispute; The Pleasaunce house and its buildings are in need of attention. You only have to take a walk down The Londs to see missing roof tiles, broken guttering and probably the worst, the state of the lookout tower with cracked rendering, broken panes and flaking paint on its window frames. I dread to think what Lady Battersea would say, if she saw her former home in decline, but then being a member of the Rothschild family she would have had the funds to keep the structures in good repair.

We went into Cromer town on Thursday for a dental check-up. This was Peter’s first for a year and, as I was in Bucks at my Mum’s for our last appointment in March, my first for eighteen months. The surgery was well set up for sanitising and with no problems with our teeth, we left feeling confident the practice had done all they could to protect both patients and staff. As we drove back home through the town it was sad to see the pavements pretty well deserted, and most of the shops closed but then, lockdown coupled with the max vaccination programme is hopefully a means to an end. The end being: the reduction in the number of cases and deaths from Covid-19 and the return of some kind of normality.