Just to complete the saga, our last day was a bit mixed with a fairly stiff breeze but occasional spells of sunshine (plus a rain shower).

We met with a friend who used to belong to our photographic club, who now lives in Norfolk, and introduced him to another boggy slice of his adopted home county, Alderfen. Having found Variable Damselflies (Coenagrion pulchellum) at How Hill NNR yesterday, I was keen to see if any had emerged at Alderfen, just for the county records.

After a VERY slow start spotting just two fleeing Large Red Damselflies (Pyrrhosoma nymphula), things looked up a bit when I spotted two Variables in a grassy patch just as Francine spotted two more beside a small inlet. They were keeping very low down in the vegetation to shelter from the wind and I don’t blame them. Male Variables generally have a broken antehumeral stripe, said to look like an exclamation mark. This one has such a broken stripe that it looks more like a full colon. Well, they ARE variable.

Further along the stream track at last a Large Red Damselfly posed long enough for for those of us who wanted to to get a crack at it; it  still kept low down but at least it wasn’t obscured.

Almost back at the cars an unusually cooperative Orange Tip butterfly (Anthocharis cardamines) sat on a particularly photogenic dandelion clock and that got all three of us excited. Francine even managed to catch a glimpse of orange with the wings partially open.

It had eventually been better than expected but ‘t was time to retire to the pub and reminisce over a pint or two. Well, the pub is right next door to our campsite.

After an absolutely awful day of wind and lashing rain that kept us firmly ensconced in our caravan, today’s forecast suggested 20°C accompanied by a good amount of sunshine. Well, after a pathetic spring like this, we’d take anything we could get. We would, however, have too be very careful about the ground which was already waterlogged even before yesterday’s biblical drenching.

One of the nicer wildlife havens in this neck of the woods is How Hill NNR, which we chose to head for. With spring being this late, there were only likely to be two species in evidence but after a desperately boring English winter, that was worth a go.

We managed to negotiate the single track approach road and were stunned by the amount of cars in the car park. We’ve never seen it this full. All the stir-crazy folk in Norfolk were out on an isolated sunny Sunday. Who could blame them? Mercifully, they all seemed to be picnicking on the grass rather than invading the wildlife reserve which you must pay to enter. We happily paid our fee in Toad Hole and left all others behind – just us and the critters. Well, us, the critters and a salted caramel ice cream for Francine.

No more than 10m inside the gate we saw our first customers and our second species of the season: Variable Damselflies (Coenagrion pulchellum). They weren’t cooperating well but it was great to see them, especially as they are as rare as rocking horse shit back home. Later on our circuit we did find a more cooperative female [don’t say it – I won’t if you won’t].

Our Wellington boots served us well as we squelched our way around parts of the reserve. This place can be boggy at the  best of times and these were definitely not the best of times. Half way around we hit the motherlode of Large Red Damselflies (Pyrrhosoma nymphula). Among a series of record shots, one of these was clearly a damselfly with a sense of theatre and struck for me a wonderful pose. Such things happen rarely but they are a joy when they do.

Nothing more of note happened until we returned to our car in the crowded car park. As we were changing back into comfortable foot wear from wellies, Francine announced that she had picked up a hitchhiker. ‘T was a beetle and a new one to us at that. I had, of course, packed away my cameras but this was worth getting them out again, wearing one wellie and one shoe. This chap (or chappess) rejoices in the name of Oiceoptoma thoracicum, a.k.a. Red-breasted Carrion Beetle. It apparently likes dung and carcasses so quite why Francine’s jeans appealed, I know not.

What a relief today was after the week we seem to have suffered. We even managed to barbecue some more of our local butcher’s well hung sirloin steak and, of course, some more of their excellent sausages.

A transcription of the Met Office app.

08:00 Heavy rain

09:00 Heavy rain

10:00 Heavy rain

11:00 Heavy rain

12:00 Heavy rain

13:00 Heavy rain

14:00 Heavy rain

15:00 Heavy rain

16:00 Light rain

17:00 Overcast

18:00 Heavy overcast

19:00 Overcast

20:00 Overcast

Just to relieve the monotony and to give me something to process while I’m stuck inside, here’s a Mute Swan from earlier in the week when I did have the right lens but didn’t have the Marsh Harrier.

Wha’d’ya know, a bright morning, though cold, of course.

I’m losing count of the times I’ve wandered along the river with the big lens hoping for a second chance at one of the resident Marsh Harriers (we’ve seen at least two). All to no avail. This time one did put in an appearance but it chose to stick doggedly to the far side of the marsh it was harrying.

Welcome brightness continued through the morning and Francine wanted to see the sea so we drove off to Happisburgh [pronounced “Hayz-br’h”, the the double-p being silent for some bizarre reason]. We paid-and-displayed in a car park at the top of the cliffs, between Hyz-br’h’s well known red and white lighthouse and an imposing church. We donned wellies and sauntered down a coarse sand ramp to the beach to get well and truly braced by the wind.

Now, about those cliffs. Despite a mixture of wooden, metal and concrete coastal defences, the cliffs are eroding and seemingly at a considerable rate. We didn’t notice the alarming signs at the foot of our sand ramp but then we began walking northwards into the wind. We were now on the beach opposite the position of the church. Taking your eyes off the beach and glancing up, this is the surreal spectacle that meats your gaze: long lengths of 4-inch soil pipes protrude from the cliff face for some distance into mid-air. Looking a little more closely, you then see narrower black pipes flexible enough to simply hang down the cliff face, some of them reaching all the way to the bottom. Some of these had fitments that made them look like water supply pipes, though some may have been electricity cables. What we couldn’t see was very much in the way of rubble at the foot of the cliff.

The truth became clear looking at a notice board bearing and old representation of the scene. In between the church and the edge of the cliff as was, was one of those dreadful mobile home/static caravan parks. What a place to site it, beside an otherwise impressive church. Nature to the rescue. Once the cliff erosion reached a critical stage, the static caravans had been moved to a new site further inland to blight another piece of landscape. The underground utility connections needed by the vans, of course, remained and now protrude from the revised-by-erosion cliff edge. It’s an intriguing sight in an untidy, macabre sort of way.

We left Hayz’br’h and its aerial plumbing in search of a pub lunch. Yikes! I can’t remember the last time I went to a pub, even before this bloody pandemic, but we felt like doing something to support a local business. The novelty and logistics of eating outside at a social distance wearing facemasks needed to be tried to get the full pandemic experience. We found space at the Lighthouse Inn at Walcott in some breezy coastal effect sunshine. Further inland the customary dark clouds could be seen gathering, some of which were clearly falling to earth. It was Friday, after all, so it seemed silly not to order the traditional fish’n’chips complete with mushy peas. It was a huge and excellent plateful (I told them I hadn’t tasted better), and went down very well with the aid of some Woodforde’s Wherry bitter.

We’d timed our lunch perfectly; soon after we’d paid and left, the dark clouds managed to overcome the coastal effect sunshine and it began raining, just for a change.

I had bought some fillet steak from our well-hung butcher – sorry, make that, “bought some well-hung fillet steak from our butcher” –  intent on making an evening beef stroganoff but, really, who could face another meal after that mega-lunch? Cheese and biscuits it would be, then.

Spring?

Today’s forecast was initially not too bad considering the track record but it worsened considerably overnight. We had been looking forward to something dry. We are now offered more or less constant rain with a high of … wait for it … 6°C, and that’s the real temperature, not the “feels like” which struggles to a high of 5°C.

Why am I here? Because I have a wet new air awning, that’s why I’m here.

For the first time in what must be two years, we began the day in an early bright spell by mounting our bukes and cycling to my favourite butchers shop up the road in Ludham. There’s a pleasantly quiet back lanes route to take. There was still a biting wind. It’s a mercifully short ride and it didn’t hurt as much as I expected.

Francine had seen a sign outside the butcher proclaiming “well hung steaks”. Well, red rag to a bull. I donned my required facemask and wandered in.

“My wife sent me to get her something well hung”, I began. “At least, I think she said ‘something’; I suppose she may have said ‘someone’”.

Their well hung sirloin steaks looked just the job. Armed with steaks, old English pork sausages and smoked back bacon rashers, we reversed our back lanes route and cycled back into the headwind.

After the traditional bright start, our forecast was for an overcast but essentially dry day reaching the dizzy heights of 11°C. We set off to investigate a boardwalk at Barton Broad, which a helpful man had mentioned when we met at Alderfen. We were both pleasantly surprised when the bright spells continued through the morning and much of the afternoon.

A well organized car park with toilet facilities was situated a short walk along a lane to the boardwalk. The one piece of interesting wildlife that I spotted, an Orange Tip butterfly, may have been struggling with the chilly conditions ‘cos it settled during a dull spell, promptly closing its wings. Orange Tips don’t settle often and they aren’t given to posing, either, even when they do. We watched intently while the dark cloud made its way across the sun, causing another walking couple to wonder why we were staring intently at the hedge. Always fun. I pointed out my subject, wondering if a bright interlude might encourage it to open its wings and bask a little. Sure enough it did; this happens rarely. It’s nice to document a settle Orange Tip with its wings open but I think I prefer the side shot from an aesthetics point of view.

The boardwalk itself produced nothing, zip, nada, ”pas un chat” as they say in France.

Sunny spells continued through much of the afternoon and more shopping, for something less well hung, this time. They ceased, of course, and the sky blackened alarmingly just as I was thinking of barbecuing. I wrapped up and went for it anyway. I appeared to have no support from other like-minded lunatics.

The well hung sirloin was excellent, as were the old English pork sausages.

As advertised, overnight we were pummelled by gusting 45mph winds and lashed by the horizontal rain that they carried. Our new air awning is still up and seems to have survived. I have had to engineer a solution to stop the padded sides vibrating against the van.

Regrettably the wind is also still up and the rain is still coming down – well, across, anyway. I must say that the materiel of the new awning seems excellent; very water repellent. We have had awnings beneath which you can feel a fine mist in bad weather. Nothing of that sort here.

These weather conditions persisted pretty much all day, save for a short lull in the lashing rain mid-afternoon when we braved the elements and went out to get blown to St. Bennett’s Abbey  before fighting our way back along the dyke beside the River Ant into a stiff headwind. Our walk certainly blew away the cobwebs but could hardly have been described as pleasant. Francine snagged the abbey on her telephone. Well, why not? Now, if I could just make a phone call on my camera we might have something.

The rain resumed its horizontal trajectory five minutes after we were safely back inside Guillaume.