I can’t help but notice that our weather forecasts involving the arrival of rain seem to be more accurate than those involving any suggestion of sun. Perhaps in an effort to boost morale, our forecasters have been speaking of sunny spells when sometimes only a single, and often very brief, sunny spell may actually arrive, the remainder of the sky being covered by clouds in a fetching array of various shades of grey. I sort of understand the positive attitude but it raises ones expectations which are often dashed. With the guessed at arrival time for today’s rain being 1:00 PM-ish, we hopped on our bikes to look around some local lanes.
We started off down more of Ludham’s back streets, ended up at Womack Water (very pleasant) and then struck out into the farming countryside past several desirable residences. Coming across a roadside dyke with a 90° bend and a few scattered water soldier plants, we hopped off our bikes for a quick gander. At first it looked dead but then I started spotting damselflies in the plants. A sunny spell arrived and I spotted at first one, then a second Norfolk Hawker (Aeshna isosceles). Being out mainly for a bike ride, we’d left several kilos of photographic equipment off our backs and were ill-equipped for dragonfly photography but Francine did her admirable best with Crappy Snappy, just for documentary evidence. Norfolk Hawkers may be rare enough for you to require a license to handle them but they seem locally quite abundant. I thought we were going to have trouble finding any but it seems not. Excellent!
On our return we made a detour into Potter Heigham. Potter Heigham is one of the better known names on the Broads, probably because of it’s unfeasibly small bridge which, I believe, you used to require a pilot to get your boat through. Other than its famous bridge, Potter Heigham is essentially little more than a collection of boatyards and Lathams, a shop which had the feel of a very large Pound Stretcher store. [I don’t if that’s one word or two – who cares?] This is one of those stores with strategically placed TVs playing those annoying pre-recorded adverts regaling you to purchase yet another useless kitchen gadget, always a pointless space-wasting uni-tasker, with a final voice over urging you to, “take your pointless, space-wasting uni-tasker to the check out now!”. This seemed to be where Mr & Mrs Polyester did most of their shopping. We left as rapidly as possible, skipping the checkouts and without our pointless space-wasting uni-tasker. Roys of Wroxham has little to fear from this quarter.
The rain arrived on schedule as we arrived back chez Guillaume. Well done Met. Office!
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