Hunstanton was underwhelming. Empty pay and display car parks and caravan sites keeping you at arms length from tide full out muddy beach. I came and went.
Snettisham Beach was a big improvement. Drove down the single track, past the caravan park and slotted into the one remaining parking spot of four, right on the beach. The tide, as you know, was out and the dirty wet sand was being patrolled by oyster catchers and other long billed birds out for a feed. Bitterly cold wind made it feel sub zero.
Picked up some walkers and took a car load to the Feathers in search of a TV showing the Man City v Liverpool game. THG watched it on my phone whilst Chris Weston and I each had a pint of Guinness.
We were on one of our camping weekends away with the gang. Although we did a weekend glamping in the summer nobody camps under canvas any more especially in November on the East Coast. The party had three motorhomes and three “luxury” pods between the twelve of us. The pods were quite basic but were warm which I guess is the main requirement on a weekend the thermometer plunged to 1 degree Centigrade.
There are a couple of themes that permeate these outdoor weekends away. One is longish walks in the countryside and the other is the consumption of a significant quantity of food and drink towards the end of each afternoon. On this occasion several of the party for various age related reasons excused themselves from the walks.
This turned out serendipitous for when, after one hour forty minutes of bracing East Anglian sea air, the walkers hit the beach, a number of them concluded that the path of wisdom lay in travelling back to base in the cars that had arrived for a rendezvous at the Snettisham Beach Cafe.
Their collective decision was helped by the fact that not only was the cafe closed but every similar joint for miles around had also unsurprisingly decided to shut for the winter. This left only the Snettisham Beach Pet Shop open providing essential supplies to the canine lovers of the area. The woman in the petshop, where I had called in to see if there were any caffs at all open, described herself as Billy Nomates. It’s a lonely game selling dog food at a remote beach in Norfolk in the winter.
That is the point at which we made it to the Feathers. We also went there that evening having booked a table for twelve at seven pm. This proved to be a mistake. The food was pretty average and a number of us suffered from stomach ailments during the night. We shall not return.
So after an excellent stopover for Sunday lunch with Alistair Ward and Erica Ward we are now home, tired but happy. The heating is gradually moving the needle on the house thermostat from nine and a half degrees when we got in to the regulation twenty one degrees and the hot water is on for me to have a bath a bit later on.
A busy week in London lies ahead potentially involving an element of radio silence. It isn’t all work though. On Monday early doors I have a meeting at the Phoenix Arts Club to nail the menu for trefbash. Catch ya later…
PS message me if you want to come along to the Phoenix. 6pm meet.