Cromer

We explored Cromer, once the fashionable capital of Poppyland .  It's a place of faded grandeur.

...but also doing rather well for itself now, perhaps because it is easier to reach from London than many other seaside places.

The church is unmissable, its tower prominent from afar.

Its a wonderful light, airy building.  Of course, we had to go up the tower.  Half-way up is a sign saying "Only 88 steps to go".

  

Extensive views in all directions.

We paid for the climb the next day, though.

Then it was on to the Lifeboat Museum commemorating Henry Blogg who rescued literally hundreds of people as Coxswain of the Cromer boat up to and including World War Two, by which time he was in his seventies..

One of our favourite programmes just now is "Saving Lives at Sea", perhaps because it is the perfect antidote if you believe the world is going to hell in a handbasket.  The daily selflessness and heroism of those lifeboat crews all around the country restores your faith in humanity.

Blickling

North Norfolk abounds in large estates surrounding historic houses: Blickling is a particularly fine example.  So fine, we went there twice.

  On our first visit we looked round the house and saw their current exhibition: The Word Defiant. This is an installation mounted by a theatre company looking at books from a number of angles.  Thus a copy of "Winnie the Pooh" shelved between other books, making the point that it remains a banned book in China. 

In an upstairs bathroom a bath and hand-basin were filled to overflowing with books.  In a cellar, books embedded in black ash to represent libraries burnt in conflicts.  

Most controversially, in the historic library a torrent of books flowing down from the shelves and pooled on the floor.  

This was certainly an exhibition which divided opinion.  Some found it thought-provoking, but for many it seemed that the sight of so many books thrown about and mauled was distressing, even books destined for pulping.

On our second visit we hired bicycles from the store and cycled round the estate through woodland and across parkland.

Then we looked into the church.  This is a house once occupied by the Boleyn family, although I don't think that Anne Boleyn was born here.  The church has a fine collection of brasses

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How about this couple with their numerous brood? That's eleven sons and five daughters.

And, of course, we finished with yet another National Trust tea.

Flinty

 What country, friends, is this?

 Rolling surf, usually attended by intrepid surfers, even at eight in the morning?

Historic piers, offering surprising end of pier entertainments?

And, everywhere, locally caught sea-food, crabs a speciality.

This is the North Norfolk coast where we chose to holiday this year.  Last year, Vienna; this year, Cromer.

Very distinctive is the local building material: flint, here deployed in orderly rows.

And here, tightly packed together.

Sometimes, very small beach pebble was used instead.

Or, flakes of flint were tightly packed into the surface, as here: Flint House.

Imagine the labour involved in this technique, which we have only ever seen used to protect the mortar between larger building stone.

We had lovely, late summer weather all week which enabled us to see and do lots of things.  More later.

Geiger 2

Pressing on with the knitting of this cabled design by Norah Gaughan.

So, now I have knitted both sleeves to about the sleeve head shapings.  I'm pausing them here so that I can check for length.

I've knitted the back up to the end of the first chart.  I've done the first set of waist decreases alongside the chart pattern.

This has not been a difficult knit so far, although the chart is so straightforward that it is easy to lose your place in it.  It's the sort of knitting that you can easily do while watching television.

It took me two tries to master the short row section, partly because I had not read the explanation of why they were needed on the back of the cardigan - it's apparently to compensate for the distortion caused by pattern-shifting.  So, the wonders of YouTube helped me to locate a very clear tutorial on how German short rows actually work.  They seem invisible on the right side of stocking stitch and less so on the reverse, which is what we have here, but it's OK.

I'm expecting to have to concentrate a little to get my head around pattern shifting, but it seems simple enough.  The sad thing will be if the whole thing does not fit well at the end after all this tailoring.