I did a five and a half mile Steward Stroll to have a look at the new development in the village and then walk down the main road towards Norwich. One day I will walk all the way into Norwich. I have done it before and it took just under two hours. The problem is under the current guidelines I would have to walk back as well. But at least it would keep me on track for my aim of 150 miles by the end of January. At the moment I have completed just over 49 miles. With 23 days to go I will need to average of 4.4 miles per day. I'm sure that somewhere in amongst those days I will have to do a 10 miler (that will probably be into Norwich and back).
Today it was cold and grey and quite dispiriting. I ended up playing my silly mental games. Guessing how far a point in the distance is in steps and then counting them and trying to get within 10%. Or there's the other one of picking a car coming towards you and then picking a spot and seeing if you can get there at the same time as the car. All very pointless but quite therapeutic.
Anyway I felt strangely out of sorts on the walk. Not out of sorts in a leg aching sort of way but out of sorts in a "just when are things going to get better" sort of way? They keep talking about the light at the end of the tunnel but you only see the light when you are practically there.
I don't think that last March any of us envisaged this going on so long let alone being at a new peak virtually every day. Things seem to be getting worse rather than better. Of course we have the vaccine and it now looks as if three have been approved. More and more doses will become available and I wouldn't mind betting that eventually we will have too many doses available.
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I have been reading the book "Lost to the Sea: Britain's Vanished Communities: Norfolk and Suffolk by Stephen Wade which mentions the now destroyed village of Shipden. I have mentioned it before in these blogs.
Shipden was basically Cromer before Cromer existed. It became a victim of the encroaching sea and was destroyed by the waves. A whole town went under including a church. Shipden was mentioned in the Domesday Book but by the early 1400s had been completely subsumed by the sea, thus proving that coastal erosion is nothing new. The churchyard was washed away as early as 1336 and the church itself went sometime between 1350 and the early 1400s.
This is a fascinating subject and something I will delve into in the future. I want to find out exactly what happened, what the place was like, how the people lived and what happened as their village began to drop into the sea. I will post on this blog as and when I find some more information out.
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Once again today I didn't take any photographs but there are a few more taken by cousin Belinda Broad who has given me permission to reproduce them here. Here are the words to go with the photos.
A rather grey and very cold day today. Went on a walk with Anne Steward around Hethersett village where my great grandmother's family, the Tuttles lived for over a 100 years. Especially interesting is the village church St Remigius where so many Tuttles are buried and not one grave stone between them.
Today's photos are of, amongst other things, interesting fungi, yes you did read that right, socially distanced seagulls, a fluffed up pigeon, a hesitant heron and locations that the Tuttle descendants on here might find interesting.
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As always I have a list of things to achieve within the next seven days. Sorting out the garage and tidying it up I don't mind. I don't even mind having smart meters installed but as for doing my annual tax return (that's a definite yuck and will take some effort).