Wednesday - Oh I do like to be beside the seaside

Norfolk is an interesting place. Some towns or villages are so chi-chi and up their own arse that while you can buy fifteen different types or organic asparagus that's been hand-knitted by lesbians, you can't get a Pot Noodle. Case in point is Burnham Market, which has two delis, selling seaweed flavoured soap and hand knitted prawns and that sort of stuff and also features a queue of locals stretching out of the back of the fruit and veg van that comes round the village. This is a part of England that needs to be protected, the fruit and veg van is a sacred institution. Strangely, it's probably the chi-chi delis that are protecting the vans. I can't really see Tescos being able to survive commercially out here, not when a small store would cost millions to buy, it would mean they'd have to charge a fortune for their blue and white striped shite.

Sheringham though is a seaside town that has somehow managed to pull off an incredible trick. It has rock shops, seaside tat and a a theatre conveying end of the pier show style sensibility without actually having, you know, a pier - but it also has lovely shops, my favourite second hand book shop (staffed by either a lovely chap or his lusty, busty teenage daughter!) and the general air of being up market but not up itself.

Good to know you can get mucky postcards and organic flour from the same shop.