Thursday 4th August 2022 - Remains Brown, Beyond the Beaten Track and Car Boot Sale

The rain on Sunday filled some our water butts but has done little towards greening up the grass. Our lawns remain brown, except for where we have watered borders, beds and the vegetable plot and the water has permeated through to the grassed edges. According to the weather forecast we are not likely to see any more rainfall over the coming week. However, there must have been sufficient rain earlier in the year, coupled with irrigation, to swell the ears of the cereal crops. The fields we have seen have been harvested, leaving only stubble and bales of straw. What the dry and warm weather has enabled us to do is; sit out in the garden late in the evening, something which English summers don’t always allow. With a clear sky on Wednesday night, the stars were truly amazing. Peter suggested we buy hammocks so we can sleep in the garden under the stars. Yes, a good idea but I’m afraid it did not meet with much enthusiasm from me! The other evening a hedgehog passed through the garden, this is the first we have seen this year – a reminder to put out the cat proof feeding station and prime it with some food.

We eat at seven in the evenings but have had to stretch this until a bit later on Wednesdays. This is so we can listen to villager Scott Butler’s programme, Beyond the Beaten Track, on Poppyland Radio. Each week, between six and seven, Scott plays a variety of music from his personal collection. As his programme suggests, the tracks are not broadcast regularly on radio stations. Yesterday we listened to programme twenty four and as usual Scott provided interesting information about each track. Beyond the Beaten Track is repeated on Saturday and after this, uploaded to Mixcloud. Uploaded programmes can be accessed easily from Scott’s section on Poppyland Radio’s Our Shows page on their website. I should also add, Scott organises Folk on the Pier, which is an annual event in May except during the years of Covid, on Cromer Pier and now coordinates Folk on the Strand in September, over various venues in our very own Overstrand. Before I move on, there are a variety of other programmes broadcast on Poppyland Radio, something for everyone, but Scott’s is the only one which results in a later dinner!

There was an excellent turnout of stallholders at the car boot sale this morning. No major purchases but I did buy a novel, a glass vase for flowers on Barney’s grave (an upgrade from the current jam jar) and a CD. The CD is the third I have bought this year, all from the same stallholder who has taken the time to split them between folk, rock etc. and then alphabetically, all of which makes them so much easier to browse through. It’s impossible to capture all the car boot stalls in one shot, so today’s photo covers a small section.