Seasonally Affected Flora Disorder

Many of us suffer, to some degree or another, from Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD for short, when the lack of daylight disturbs our demeanour. But my small garden is suffering with SAFD, Seasonally Affected Flora Disorder, with everything growing at once after the cold and snowy snap relented to a month of March mildness. In the brief sunshine, between the rain today, I filmed the flustered flora.

Snowdrops

Flowering Currant

Daffodils

Hellebore

Forsythia

Tulips


All photos © J Reed

Super Site for Sub Station Spot Sceptics

Little Dunham Action Group has an extensive web site to support its opposition to the Dudgeon wind farm sub station including some 3D visuals of the impact to this beautiful part of Norfolk.

Second Swaffham Saloon Sale

After the tenanted freehold of the Kings Arms came up for sale earlier this year, now its close neighbour in Lynn Road, Swaffham, the Horse and Groom restaurant and hotel is up for grabs.

The Kings Arms dates back to the 1600s whereas the later Horse and Groom was once known as the Black Bull and is now an eight bedroomed hostelry.
To own or run an established establishment is today's day dream. 

Best British Beach Bestowal

© J Reed

It's official, Norfolk is better than Suffolk. Congratulations to Holkham for Coast magazine's Best British Beach award for the second year running whereas Southwold was only a runner up in the Best Family Holiday Destination category, well done anyway. At least, car parking aside, there is plenty of space for a few more visitors.

Steamer Successfully Sets Sail

Having jumped through all the hoops of a National Lottery grant myself, good news from Lowestoft as the only remaining steam powered herring drifter successfully honoured her pledge to travel unaided by the end of March. Lydia Eva and the Lowestoft sidewinder Mincarlo, the only surviving boat with a Lowestoft hull and engine, are two floating maritime museums in Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth run by The Lydia Eva and Mincarlo Charitable Trust Limited.

Down Memory Lane

Houghton Lane

I went for a walk yesterday down a pretty winding track with just a few large houses on one side with magnificent views on the other. I had been here once before, many years ago. Mysteriously, the houses were not numbered or named in the usual fashion. The first was called 64K, the next 128K, then 256K, then 512K, then 1gb, then 2gb. 
Yes, it was a trip down Memory Lane.

Docker's Duchess, Harbour Harlot, Cockley Cley Corpse Clue?

The investigation to solve the mystery of the headless female corpse found in Cockley Cley in 1974 has headed east to Great Yarmouth. Stories of a roaming lady around the docks area in the early part of the 70s, known to dockers and truckers as Duchess, may provide the key jigsaw piece to solve the crime. 

Profiling the water consumed by the exhumed body, from her unmarked grave in Swaffham two years ago, proved inconclusive. 

Thirthy six years ago the victim's badly decomposed headless body, concealed in weeds off the Cockley Cley Road near Swaffham, was found by a farm worker. She was wearing a pink frilled M&S nightdress and wrapped in a brown plastic sheet bearing the letters NCR, only six of which were made by a Scottish company between 1962 and 1968. The young woman seems not to have been missed by anyone and the identity of both victim and perpetrator remains unknown.

Google Maps Pickenham

I remember seeing the car with the camera sticking out the top.

Go to Google Maps or Earth, I find the former easiest to navigate, put PE378LF in the search box and drag the yellow man onto the map - hey presto. See if you can find Mick the Blue Lion landlord walking his dog in Houghton Lane.


We did better than some, Wells next the Sea was foggy!

Green thumbs up for Sheringham store

Although further hurdles may need to be crossed, the eco friendly Greenhouse Community Project, backed by Waitrose, has beaten a rival more traditional supermarket bid by giant Tesco in a decision by the local planning committee. Tesco has been trying to have a store in Sheringham for 13 years without success with local fears the store would negatively affect the unique mix of small, family run stores in the town. Although Sheringham residents have buzzing market town style traditional retailers, the nearest supermarket is next door in Cromer.

The GCP will incorporate new allotments, a compact store and a cookery school for locals and outsiders alike. A unique project for a unique county.

Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink

Here is one for the summer diary, lovely looking Geldeston pub is currently closed due to being islandised by heavy rain and northerly winds exaggerating already high tides.

Access is limited to boat travel, the hostelry doesn't have gas or electricity either. Cut off as well? No it never has any mains energy at any time!

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Saplings Supersede Speed Braking Bumps

No, this is not a story about the now contrite Casanova clubman 'down boy' Tiger Woods but a new highways scheme in Norfolk

If this is what comes to mind when trees, cars and road safety are uttered, think again. £70,000 trial plans are afoot to use the speed reducing properties of the tunnelling effect of roadside trees on the approach to 30 mile an hour village boundaries. The trees are to replace more urban traffic calming measures that have scarred city streets, such as speed bumps, maintaining the rural essence of Norfolk. Single track major routes that criss cross the county, passing through sleepy villages and joined by national speed limit roads, are a reality without motorways and few dual carriageways. Another unfortunate death when a car hit a JCB in an early morning collision on Monday, it is unclear if speed was an issue. The A148 is a major west east link, from King's Lynn to Fakenham and beyond, yet the map illustrates its rural nature.

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Whether reducing the maximum speed limit to 50 would help is unsure. Any reduction is likely to be unpopular in counties where large distances are travelled with no motorway alternative. A balancing act between speed and safety, no doubt the debate will continue.

Local Fast Food Fare Pedlar Perpetrating Fransham Filching?

Shocking news of a crime wave in nearby usually sleepy Great Fransham, just off the A47 between Swaffham and Dereham. Thefts and drug dealing have been reported in what you would think is the picture of Norfolk village idyll.

But what is this in the EDP on line today?

"Between February 23 and 24 a £450 galvanized 5 bar gate was stolen from Church Farm, while burgers ransacked a home in Beeston Lane between February 4 and 5, but stole nothing."

Surely they are not linking the affrays to any local fast food outlets!

The police are not only urging for help with past crimes, they also requests that any victim of a crime should always report the incident. To report a crime contact Norfolk Constabulary on 0845 456 4567 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

A reminder that 999 should only be used in emergencies.

St David's Day Daffodil Deficiency

A walk in the relatively warm seven degree centigrade sunshine on Welsh St David's Day, St David is an unusual patron saint for the British Isles in actually being a native, negates the snow of the last two months and the affects the colder than usual soil has had on our flora. The farmed daffodils that should be painting the fields all over the UK are a month behind and most are still just about in bud. Pickenham hasn't escaped the freeze, with an abundance of snow drops still around, my daffs have only just broken the soil, as I recorded today.

Perhaps rather than buy a bunch of the scarce narcissi, the national emblem of Wales, why not help the Marie Curie Cancer Care Great Daffodil Appeal to raise awareness and funds for the home helps. Archetypal English romantic Hugh Grant is taking a leading role charming a couple of ladies on the launch of the March long campaign.

Handsome hunk Hugh, born in London's Hammersmith, actually has a long line of Scottish military ancestry and it was the care his Scottish mother Fynvola received, in her last days, that first brought the charity's work to his attention. Palliative personal care at home is as near to a saintly vocation as it gets, David would have been proud.