I woke that morning to a cloudy grey sky and more wind, and I'd just got back from the first dog walk when the fine drizzly rain started; there was no point going anywhere in that so I whiled away the time reading my book and watching a bit of tv. It was mid afternoon before the rain stopped, the clouds started to clear away and the sun came out but by that time it was too late to go anywhere proper so I just took Sophie and Poppie for a long walk through the heath to the next village and back. Coming back to the van I couldn't resist taking a couple of shots of the empty camping field just to show that I was the only one on there.
A while later I drove up to the local general store/post office/garden centre for a look round then on the way back called in at another caravan site to enquire about camping pitches; their current nightly fee just falls within my budget and also includes admission to the pool and the club on the site next door, so although it's a good few minutes walk to the beach it could be an alternative to my current site.
It was early evening before the wind finally dropped and I managed to put the tent up, knocking in the last peg just as the daylight faded, then with the bedrooms for storage and the loo, kitchen and larder units in place I retired to the van, only coming out again later on to take the dogs for their bed time walk. The sky was perfectly clear by then and I could see every star up there so I kept my fingers crossed that the late afternoon sunshine had been a sign of good days to come.
....everything that was going to happen during the next ten days I probably wouldn't have gone to the Norfolk coast for my end-of-summer holiday.
I left home at 8am that morning for the long drive down to my usual camp site at California, a few miles north of Great Yarmouth, and as I'd had no breakfast before setting off I pulled up at a roadside truck stop just over an hour into my journey to get a takeaway coffee. I had some bread rolls and bacon-and-egg sandwich filling in my coolbox so it was easy enough to make a snack to go with the coffee, however the coffee didn't last long enough to go with the snack - I'd only managed to drink a mouthful of it when I accidentally knocked the rest of it all over the floor of the van between the two front seats. Now I don't believe in fate but that one minor mishap seemed to somehow set the tone for the rest of the holiday.
A couple of hours later I made my usual stop at the Cheerio Cafe on the A17 to give myself a break from driving and to take the dogs for a walk along the edge of the field behind the cafe car park. That field usually contains crops which grow low to the ground but this time it was full of densely-growing maize which was taller than me; there was a bit of a path through one part of it so just for curiosity - and even though I knew I really shouldn't - I took a walk through the jungle for a short distance and snapped the first couple of photos of the holiday.
With no more stops after that I finally arrived at the camp site just after 2pm; I hadn't pre-booked but at this time of year the place is so quiet I knew I'd have no trouble getting a pitch, however when I went to reception I was hit by a most unwelcome surprise - the pitch fees, which had always been very reasonable, had increased substantially since last year and were now beyond my personal budget. Finding somewhere else cheaper at such short notice was almost impossible without internet access so I had no choice but to pay up, though I wasn't particularly happy about it.
When I got round onto the camping field I had another surprise - the toilet block and the two holiday cottages overlooking the field had been demolished, the land levelled and grassed and half a dozen new static caravans with decking were sited there. There was a small Portacabin toilet block at the end of the site and the original concrete footpath from reception to the camping field had been widened into a tarmac road with speed ramps; the end of this new road encroached onto the field and had parking spaces taken from the two pitches at either side. No wonder the pitch fees had gone up - I suppose someone has to pay for all these changes even if they don't benefit from them.
The pitch I would normally have used was now only half its original size due to the tarmac parking space so I parked on the next one, connected up the hook-up cable and sorted out my tv aerial. Unfortunately it was a bit too windy to attempt putting the tent up just then so as I was sleeping in the van anyway that's where I spent the rest of the day and evening, and with no-one else camping on the field my first night on site was just how I like it - lovely and quiet.
