Postcard from Norfolk - Drink up

'Boat on Cley beach'  The right light, the right angle, a right old pain in the arse getting this shot.

My tip - support the local economy and buy one of the many postcards available with this shot...

but better.

Every year you read about some poor chap who is drowned trying to save his dog after the dog decides to go swimming.  As one of the dogs ran into the surf and suddenly found itself out of its depth, the headline ‘Heroic dog rescuer mourned’, together with a picture of the canine in question sitting on my gave looking properly mournful, flashed through my mind as I started to take off my jacket.  I needn’t have worried as the next wave deposited the dog safely on the shingle, while I wondered if anyone else could hear my heart beating as loudly as I could.

Once my hands had stopped shaking, I set about trying to take the perfect photograph of an upturned boat.  This is apparently easy, as there are many galleries showing variations on this image in just about every visual medium available up to and including modern dance.  My conclusion is that getting a decent photograph is a lot harder than it looks.  You have to wait for the right light, not easy when you have to keep one eye on a dog apparently intent on doing a Reggie Perrin, and you have to find just the right angle, which is, let me tell you, hell on the knees.

After such exertion the place to relax is the marvellous ‘Lobster’ in Sheringham.  Sheringham had just finished celebrating some sort of festival related to World War II, and many of the buildings had bullet holes painted onto them, it was as if the Arab Spring had happened in Norfolk, but with more booze.

The pub itself is an interesting place.  You walk in and there’s a spaniel sitting looking at its owner eating and thinking that maybe, just maybe, this time things will end differently and chips will be involved.  It’s also rather vast, and on different levels, but at the same time cosy.  Best of all, despite the latte and the food, it’s a proper boozer, where men can go in the middle of a long day for a sustaining pint.

I bet it bloody rocks in the evening.