My first stop was Asda - having taken only the most basic of provisions from home I needed to do some shopping and as I knew they had a photographic department it made sense to start there; however although they had some very nice cameras and the SD cards to go with them they didn't have the XD card I wanted, so it was on to Plan B and a look round the town. Boots didn't have what I wanted and there was no sign of a Jessops shop anywhere so my next stop was the specialist camera shop down towards the promenade, and yes! they had just what I was looking for but it came at a price - thirty five quid! How much??? Sheesh, I only wanted a camera card, not the whole darned shop! There had to be somewhere selling these things for less than that - I could get one off Ebay for less than £13 (new) - so telling the shop guy I would think about it I headed back to Asda for the van. There were a couple of retail parks just outside the town so I decided to try there, but yet again I had no joy - both Curry's and Comet had nothing, though Comet did have a great-looking camera the same make as my current one but with a better spec and a humungously huge zoom lens, and at a very good price, though using the SD card - so if I couldn't find an XD one anywhere then it looked like I would be buying a new camera. A bit of a drastic solution maybe, but I'd been previously toying with the idea of upgrading to a better model anyway and if the SD cards were much easier to get hold of then in the long term it might be the better bet.
Having exhausted all the possibilies in Yarmouth I decided to go back to base, have a brew, then go to see my friends Eileen and Ron out at Clippesby and continue Operation Camera Card the following day. I'd only been back at the awning about twenty minutes when I saw a police car driving slowly past along the access road through the site - it went up to the top of the touring area, turned round and drove slowly back again. How strange! Dismissing it from my mind though I finished my coffee, put the dogs back in the van and set out to see Eileen and Ron - except I didn't get very far. Round by reception there were several policemen, two ambulances, two unmarked cars, five police cars and two police vans all blocking the site entrance, and no-one could get in or out unless it was on foot. There was no clue as to what was going on, but this was a quiet camp site in a very quiet area and to see one police car, never mind all that lot, was a rarity, so whatever it was it must have been serious. Unless I went back to the awning there was nothing I could do except sit and wait, which I did, and after about half an hour the coppers all returned to their cars and slowly dispersed, leaving the entrance free once more.
On the road once again it didn't take long to get to Eileen and Ron's place, and with Sophie and Sugar playing in the garden with Joe the collie the three of us enjoyed a good chat and a catch-up of family news. As always, time flew by and before I knew it I'd been there a couple of hours - I could quite easily have spent much longer chatting but not wanting to delay their evening meal I gave Eileen a hug and said goodbye, promising that I would call again at the end of my holiday. Back at the camp site I connected the awning to the van and settled in for the rest of the evening, only going out again to take the dogs for their bedtime walk; it had been a funny old day one way or another and I hadn't really been anywhere or done anything, but my search for a reasonably priced camera card would resume the following day and hopefully I would be somewhere where I could get some nice photos.
