Necton Co-Op Closure Confirmed

The end has come after reports at the end of last year that the local store in Necton would close.

Chris Downer/Geograph

The popular resource, including the adjoined Post Office, will aparently close on Saturday 10th March. The competitive pricing, local welcoming staff and conveniently lengthy opening hours will be much missed but the Co-Operative refused to countenance a 30% rent increase when the lease came up for renewal.

Snow came as predicted

What a difference a day makes.

© J Reed

But it'll be the sludge turning to ice which will prove troublesome.

Shocking Story

Hoping the resident pigs did not escape when electric fencing was stolen earlier this week between the Pickenham and Hilborough Estates.

Roger Gilbertson/Geograph

Rural crime is hard to spot unless you know that it is the wrong people doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, or a mixture of one or more of the three.

Sat Navs, Black Cats and Unscheduled Bus Snags

Summer is always a bit of a short news season, perhaps even more so in Norfolk. So stories of big cats, lost American servicemen and disastrous delays on the gorgeous north Anglia coast abound in this weeks splendid Eastern Daily Press.

EDP

Small country, have satellite navigation - surely the high flyers of the American air force elite can't mistake Mildenhall in the west country for the America abroad namesake airfield base in deepest Suffolk? The Americans deny having lost anyone permanently, perhaps the hundreds of miles detour embarrassment is not often admitted?
'John Desmond, the landlord of the Horseshoe Inn, a popular pub in the Wiltshire village, said personnel arrived roughly 11 or 12 times a year.' A strangely accurate estimate.
Guys, head towards the rising sun, not the setting one, but don't detour to any houses of disrepute.

EDP

If you read books about wilderness walks you will be aware of the idea of a monster in the quite woods actually being a squirrel burying its nuts. I, too, have been guilty of this misappropriation. In the woods behind Narford Hall I could swear I had spotted some stray domesticated pale lamas, in fact they were disparate delinquents from the near albino deer herd at Houghton Hall. Anyhow, the sighting of something large and black in the shadows of a bleak Breckland brook could be mistaken identity. A Black Leopard in Breckland? Perhaps.

EDP

Transport chaos? Well, in fact the incident started at 11am and, although the local road bound tourist train was impeded, the two buses were sent on their way by 12.45. This may sound petty, but as all locals know, Cromer really is a roundabout with three main arteries with no obvious detours. Still, a finer place to be stranded to consume fresh crab can't be found.

Haw Frost Replaces Snow

Thickest frost I've seen in years lasting all day as the previous night's low of -8C only decreased to -1C even with some early and late sunshine.

All photos © J Reed

Beautiful Breckland

Well, I managed to capture a little of the week long autumnal colour before the wind and rain turn everything quite wintry. 

This is becoming a more and more unusual sight now, a tree with leaves still attached.

The ferns stay beautifully fractal even whilst losing there greenness.

Now the sun and once warm ground no longer evaporate the night time's rain, most paths are slippery underfoot all day long.

All photos © J Reed

The fields are all but bare. Only stubble, beet and sprouting winter wheat sprigs lie in the fields. That and the waves of propagated winged wildfowl pending shotgun silencing by the well shod civilless servanted callous carnivores. 

Black and White Breckland

One of those days when knowing what to wear whilst walking warrants the wits a work out. The sun was strong enough to temper the overnight chill and make two light weight layers welcomingly luxuriant by lunchtime.

Breckland offers wide vistas and big skies at any time of year ...

... but autumn adds a low sun for luscious laboured light likenesses.

All photos © J Reed

Amphibians, buttercups, chamomiles and dogs

All photos © J Reed

Bazaar Bag Ban

Swaffham's historic Saturday market is to stop the handing out of plastic bags with your purchases, in an initiative from Breckland Council and Advance Swafham, from May 29th 2010. 

Norfolk Tourism

The next step would be to ape Modbury in Devon, the first plastic bag free town, and Aylsham in Norfolk who went plastic free in 2008. Most plastic bags take decades to degrade in land fill sites, although Co-op degradable bags disappear in 3 years, with the supermarkets as keen to save money on free disposable bags as saving the planet.

State Statistics and Pointless Pictorial Portrayals

Infographics, three dimensional swingometers and election straw polls will burden our lives until the general election on May 6th. Don't be bamboozled with flashy graphics that tell you nothing or figures that prove that women who wear bras are statistically more likely to suffer from hay fever than those that don't (or that girls are, in fact, evil).

Informative and fancy, though, is the constituency map by The Times newspaper. You can view each constituency with a brief description of the local topography and how the constituents voted in the past and the predicted outcome this time round.