Over the past few weeks there have been a number of negative comments flying around about our village. Yes we have our problems like any village/town or city but the bottom line is that Hethersett has a heart that beats so strongly. I can't think of anywhere with a stronger community spirit.
Putting together my e-magazine Hethersett Herald for the past five years has allowed me to meet so many people and write so many stories about our village and the underlying theme has always been love, care, understanding and community spirit and I hope, in some small way, I have been able to illustrate and add to this.
The two other towns/villages in the final three are Cley-Next-The-Sea (pronounced Cly as I proved in an earlier blog) and Halesworth (that's pronounced Halesworth) in Suffolk. This shortlisting has recognised that we are one of the top two communities in Norfolk. The winner will be announced in early December. Watch this space as they say.
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Yesterday I mentioned coconut sweet mushrooms in my blog and that brought back a few memories for my older readers.
So it made me think about the other sweets I remember from my childhood. And that took my mind back to my grandmother's house in Rupert Street, Norwich. I remember she had a lodger named Brian and he used to take me to the sweetshop at the corner of the street and just a few yards away. It eventually became a private house, but I can remember it quite vividly although I wouldn't have been very old at all.
I remember Picnic chocolate bars that I believe were also called Lion bars at some time in their evolution. Then there were wagon wheels which were much larger and had much more chocolate than later editions. Sweet mushrooms of course and those wonderful flying saucers. These were and are rice paper thin shapes where the outer coating dissolves in your mouth bringing a burst of eye-watering sherbet. Hethersett Farm Shop stock those as well as the sweet mushrooms.
Then there were the evil sherbet fountains. I call them evil because the idea was to suck the sherbet up through a liquorice tube. Unfortunately the liquorice tube got very wet with spit and ended up being very nanky (is that a word?). The sherbet never made its way up the tube and got very damp as well and the whole thing ended up as a mess. Sherbet dabs were much better as you had a lollipop that you dipped into the sherbet.
Readers of my blog will know that I often try to tie together my comments and reminiscences with music. When I am writing about a particular topic, a song often comes to mind. This time it was rather an obscure song by an American artist by the name of John Grant.
Grant was originally in a Denver-based group The Czars before going solo. One of his songs would rank amongst my favourite ten of the last decade. If you haven't heard "Where Dreams Go To Die" it is well worth checking out (trust me). That song comes from an album entitled "Queen of Denmark". One of the other tracks is entitled Marz (that's Marz with a z and not an s and it has nothing to do with the planet). It's another lovely song about a sweetshop that Grant remembers from his childhood. Check out the lyrics:
Bittersweet strawberry marshmallow butterscotch
Polarbear cashew dixieland phosphate chocolate
My tutti frutti special raspberry, leave it to me
Three grace scotch lassie cherry smash lemon free
I wanna go to Marz
Where green rivers flow
And your sweet sixteen is waiting for you after the show
I wanna go to Marz
We'll meet the gold dust twins tonight
You'll get your heart's desire,
I will meet you under the lights
Golden champagne juicy grapefruit lucky monday
High school footall hot fudge buffalo tulip sundae
Almond caramel frappe pineapple rootbeer
Black and white pennyapple Henry Ford sweetheart maple tea
I wanna go to Marz
Where green rivers flow
And your sweet sixteen is waiting for you after the show
I wanna go to Marz
We'll meet the gold dust twins tonight
You'll get your heart's desire,
I will meet you under the lights
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My comments yesterday about fears over the number of charging points for electric cars brought a couple of interesting comments as well, including an optimistic one from Don Williamson who had the following to say:
Peter I can answer all your questions about electric cars! Had my 100% electric car for nearly a year and never run out of power. Been with new car to Cornwall and several trips to Liverpool. Can also "fill up" without even leaving home.
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Yesterday's Steward Stroll took in five miles of the fields behind the parish church and then through the village. That takes my total since the latest lockdown began to 76 miles - just 24 short of my target of 100 miles and there are still another 13 days to go. So I should complete well over 100 and be well on the way to 150.
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Finally today a warning to be careful on the cycle/pedestrian paths close to the village. We were almost at the centre of a potentially dangerous incident a few days ago on the path alongside the B1172 opposite Church Farm. We were walking in the direction of Thickthorn and moved across the path to ensure we were socially distanced from the couple coming in the opposite direction. They in turn moved across to their edge. The problem was a cyclist was coming very fast from behind us. We moved into his path and he had to swerve and slam on the brakes to avoid us and that saw him drop into the road. Thankfully no traffic was passing at the time and so no harm was done but it does bring to mind a couple of important points. Firstly for pedestrians to continually check behind them to see if any cyclists are approaching (I normally do this but on this occasion was more intent on moving out of the way of the couple approaching from the opposite direction). Also cyclists need to make themselves heard, although I accept this is very difficult to achieve at the side of a busy road with traffic thundering past. As they say, it was a lesson learned for us.