"No one left and no one came on the bare platform" - Edward Thomas

Wednesday 7th August

We had an early start this morning. I don't like being ruled by the clock when we are on holiday, but we planned to visit the North Norfolk Railway and we wanted to get there early so that we could spend the whole day travelling between Holt, Weybourne and Sheringham. 

Surprisingly Robbie didn't make a fuss about getting up early, he got up,shaved showered and ate breakfast without any 'delaying tactics' - almost unheard of even on a work day! I more or less knew the way to Holt but more to prove a point than anything else I decided to use the sat-nav! It decided to take us on a different and rather contorted route via North Walsham so instead of the voice of the sat-nav sighing and saying "recalculating" I had Mr B at the side of me huffing and puffing because he didn't approve of the route and because he couldn't get a good enough phone signal to send an important email to his work. Norfolk is dreadful for phone signals and Internet access, Vodafone is better than 02 but it is still dreadful. If I drive to Stalham and stand on one leg on the middle of the Tesco car park I can usually get an 02 signal of sorts but it is rather hazardous and tends to attract attention!

We got to the North Norfolk Railway soon after 10am, in time to catch the Black 5 to Weybourne. I needed to visit the rather splendid toilets at Weybourne and after the early start I needed a nice cup of tea and a piece of their lovely cherry and walnut shortbread. A Class 31 arrived into Weybourne heading for Holt and I thought Robbie was going to burst with excitement. He was disappointed to find that they planned to swap it for a kettle off the shed at Weybourne on its return journey but at least he had a chance to see and hear it and take some photos. Apparently the kettle (GWR 5619) had failed that morning and the Class 31 had replaced it until the kettle could be coaxed into action. We watched it come off the shed and it didn't sound quite right (to my untrained ear) it was making strange 'trumping' sounds as if it was expelling air, but it looked rather splendid and I was delighted to see a woman in the cab. 

We travelled to Sheringham, had a look at the shop and bought a jigsaw and DVD for Robbie and a few postcards etc for me. then when the next train arrived we got a welcome cup of tea (coffee for Robbie) and travelled all the way back to Holt for a picnic lunch. Robbie positioned us in exactly the right place so that he didn't miss anything and as soon as there was anything to be seen or photographed he dashed over to get a better look.

More trips between the three Stations followed as well as a brief walk into Sheringham (which was horrible because it was far too crowded).For me the highlight of the day was the diesel, it looks amazing and sounds even better. I decided to pass on the very last trip of the day because I wanted to get some film of the train leaving and arriving. I made the right choice I got some really nice photos and video clips but there was something even better than that. I sat on a bench some distance down the platform towards the signal box enjoying the tranquillity and thinking of the poem Adlestrop. In our case the blackbird's song in the poem would have been replaced with the mournful calling of the wood pigeon, but the line "no one went and no one came on the bare platform" seemed to describe the late afternoon tranquillity of Holt station perfectly. I knew that the train wasn't due but I glanced along the line and I saw a slight movement on the other side of the line almost level with the signal box. As I watched a deer came into view and ambled across the line towards the signal box before vanishing into the undergrowth. I was not close enough to take a photo and I didn't have time to think of that anyway. It was one of those special moments that can't be preserved except in memory.

“Voyage upon life's sea, To yourself be true, And, whatever your lot may be, Paddle your own canoe”

Saturday 3rd August

The alarm woke me, I could so easily have turned over and gone back to sleep but I wanted to make an early start. I have looked forward to this holiday for so long and I want to make the most of every single minute. Surprisingly 'Sleeping Beauty' got up willingly and trotted off to make a cup of tea.

Usually Robbie finds every possible reason to delay us, but to my surprise we were packed and ready to go by 9am - perhaps the promise of a brief stop at Mc Donald's to get some breakfast helped to focus his mind. I am not a great fan of Mc Donald's but their hot chocolate is very nice as an occasional treat. Dave the cat was in a very bad mood he turned his back on me, refused his breakfast and wouldn't even acknowledge me when I said goodbye to him! Poor Dave, he hates it when we go on holiday but I'm sure My daughter will take good care of him.

I'd already had firm words with Robbie about the Sat-Nav. Last time we went to Norfolk he upset it and the poor thing lost the plot, it was a case of train planner v Sat-Nav and we almost ended up in a field! This time I'd had a good look at the map and I was determined that neither of them should lead me astray. Robbie did very well really, I was somewhat alarmed when I glanced across and noticed that he was using a Quail map but apparently he was just trying to identify a disused level crossing!

We made good time and arrived in Mundesley in time to enjoy lunch at the Beach Cafe, the food there is fantastic, I love going there. Robbie had his favourite lifesaver breakfast and I had fish and chips, it was lovely, beautifully cooked, and such a large portion that I wouldn't want anything else to eat that day! After a couple of hours in Mundesley we took a gentle drive towards Walcott, picked up the key and then at long last we were at the bungalow - I have been looking forward to this for so long, I love this place.

The car was unpacked, everything was put away, and before long it was just like home, our sanctuary for the next two weeks. At last we could relax, enjoy the sunshine and leave the worries of the world behind for a couple of weeks. The view from the back garden is awesome, just sand, sea and sky as far as the eye can see - it certainly helps to put things into perspective! 

Homeward Bound

Sunday morning dawned and I woke up much too early, for a while I just lay there listening to the sounds of the sea and wishing that I could turn back time. I wanted to see my son and daughters, but the prospect of returning to the real world with all its worries seemed daunting to say the least. Before long I was busy packing up our last items of luggage and our holiday was well and truly over. There wasn't very much to pack so I took time to take a little walk along the coast path to say goodbye to the sea. I stood for a moment to try to imprint all the sounds and smells of the beach on my memory so that when I look back at my photos I will be transported back to this time in my mind. 


All too soon it was time to leave the bungalow, but we had one last treat to look forward to, Sunday lunch in Mundesley with my mum and step father. It was roast beef, my absolute favourite, Robbie likes it too, but he is not too keen on vegetables, under pressure from me he made a token effort and added a teaspoon full of peas to his plate leaving me to enjoy a lovely selection of vegetables. After a last look around Mundesley Robbie set the sat nav to 'home' and we set off on our journey back to reality. 


The sat nav took us on an interesting and attractive route that was suspiciously like the route we took the previous week when we went to the North Norfolk Railway. Sure enough the sat nav led us to Holt and right past the turning to the railway, we didn't stop but Robbie had time to see the double decker bus that they have. He swears that it was just the way that the sat nav chose to take us, but I am not so sure. I think he has found an application that takes us past as many railway landmarks as possible. We passed level crossings, railway bridges and various other railway related points of interest - next time I will take control of the sat nav!

Every now and then go away and have a little relaxation. To remain constantly at work will diminish your judgement. - Leonardo DaVinci

Robbie had a plan to get up early and drive to North Walsham to catch the train to Sherringham to spend another day on the North Norfolk Railway. All this rushing around to catch trains is getting suspiciously like our normal routine, I would have liked our holiday to have been less 'timetabled' but I guess that life with Robbie means that almost everything is timetabled! I was very pleased when late on Saturday evening he decided that he would rather go out for Sunday lunch than go to the railway. Like Scooby Doo he will do almost anything for food..

It was a lovely sunny day and we had a leisurely morning listening to the Archers and enjoying the luxury of time. By midday we were at a restaurant in Mundsley having Sunday lunch. The vegetables were served in a dish, cabbage, peas, carrots and leeks, but Robbie rejected all of them and tucked into roast pork, apple sauce, roast potatoes, mashed potatoes and lashings of gravy. Oh well, at least I enjoyed the vegetables!

After lunch we decided to go for a drive and I surprised Robbie by driving him to Weybourne so that he could visit the station bookshop. I let the sat nav guide me to Weybourne, it was a lovely journey but there were lots of twists and turns and it was scarily narrow in places. We got a lovely view of a windmill and there were beautiful costal views.

Robbie spent an eternity choosing books and magazines and he darted around taking photos of the trains. He was like a kid in a sweet shop, books, magazines and trains, he didn't know what to do first! We came home with a bag of magazines, books, maps and catalogues, and Robbie has spent most of the evening reading.

Getting There

Robbie and I had both had a rather chaotic and distracted week in various ways. He had loads of work to get through before going on holiday and my week at work started badly and got worse so one way or other I seemed to be going round in ever decreasing circles. By Friday I was tired and unfocussed and packing seemed more of a chore than ususal. We were up bright and early on Saturday morning but buy the time we were finally packed and ready to go it was past 9am. It felt great to be leaving behind all the cares of everyday life to have a couple of weeks of freedom.

The sat nav behaved surprisingly well on the whole, there was just one non compliance when it told me to turn off the dual carrageway only to direct me straight back on to it! I love Saturday morning radio but we completed most of the journey without Radio 4 because we were chatting, it was really nice. This is the first time ever that Robbie and I have had time away on our own, it feels really odd, but very special. Laura and Sam have gone to Plymouth for a few days to visit family and Emily is busy with her new job - so that just leaves us to enjoy the peace and quiet of Norfolk.

We reached the bungalow by lunch time and once we were unpacked we were able to relax and enjoy the luxuary of time with nothing to do. There is nothing to compare with sitting looking out across the sea and listening to the regular pulse of waves lapping the shore, it is my idea of heaven. It really is special to have time as a couple with no distractions - well not many distractions anyway. Robbie is always interested in looking out at the ships and before long he had the laptop out and loged on to one of his favourite websites so that he could identify the ships and track their routes. It is a harmless passtime, but he was still at it on Sunday morning!!

We have has such a lovely time so far, it is doing us the world of good.

All Good Things Must Come to An End

On Saturday morning we made an early start and after packing the car we were on the road by just after 8am. It was refreshing to get on the road again after the very narrow (and sometimes scary) Cornish lanes. I was very sorry that our holiday was at an end, but since we had to go home I just wanted to get the long journey behind me.

It seemed to take forever to get to Exeter but eventually we were on M5 and Exeter was behind us. We stopped at the services and managed to lose Robbie. Sam Laura and I had all got back to the car, as sat there enjoying a long awaited cup of coffee and a snack I saw three trains go past, but still no Robbie. I thought there must be something seriously wrong if Robbie was missing out on trains, they were only FGW but even so trains are like magnets to Robbie. I tried to phone him but there was no reply, I seriously considered driving off without him because I didn't want to lose the advantage of an early start. Eventually he appeared and all became clear, he had been to Mc Donalds to by breakfast and there was a massive queue. He knew better than to buy anything for me, so I drove of as the others tucked into stinky breakfast snacks. I wish I could train Robbie not to hum when he eats, it really drives me mad but he claims he doesn't know he is doing it.

Robbie survived and we made steady progress towards Bristol and then on to the M4, we made a brief second stop at a service station, this time Robbie only escaped my clutches long enough to buy a Rail magazine before being escorted back to the car. The rest of the journey was uneventful, I got a bit irritated with the sat nav because it wanted me to go a different way and I knew that my way was better. That woman gets a real edge to her voice when I don't follow her directions, in fact I am fairly sure that she sighs when she says 'recalculating'. My ideal sat nav would have the voice of David Attenborough, I would follow him anywhere. To be fair the sat nav is a whole lot better than Robbie because it doesn't shout out when it sees a train, it doesn't fall asleep when it should be looking at the signposts and it doesn't time every journey according to rail times!

We got home safely at about 2.30pm, so we made reasonable time. Sam insisted on being dropped off at his girlfriend's house and as soon as we got back Laura went dashing off to uni to see her friend before she goes home. I was too tired to face unloading the car, we just took the essentials inside and after a welcome cup of tea I went to bed for a well earned nap - I love my bed. I had been looking forward to seeing Emily, but I had to wait until the evening to see her. Meg (the dog) and Dave and Oreo (cats) were pleased to see us, but I think it will take Dave a few days to completely forgive me for abandoning him, he thinks he is my shadow.

Ready at Last

Friday was a bit of a blur, packing, getting the car ready and filling it with fuel as well as last minute shopping. By 7.30pm everything was packed, the house was a tidy as I could manage and I tucked myself into bed to get some sleep before the long drive to Cornwall. I planned to get up at 2am so I needed a very early night. I'd not heard from Robbie but Laura was on standby to pick him up if he managed to get home without incident.

The call of the bathroom woke me up at midnight and as I sleeply emerged from the bathroom Robbie came bounding up the stairs wearing some new PJ bottoms, they had Batfink on them and they were startling to say the least. I went back to bed and reluctantly got up again at 2am. Robbie was still up, he was too scared to go to be because he knew he wouldnt get up again. I had to hurry him along because he was still running on Irish time and at that speed the holiday would be over before we got there!

I packed the flasks and food for the journey, then I packed the final items into the car while Robbie downed tools and made himself a bacon sandwich (at 3am!). Finally Laura and Sam and I were ready in the car and after sitting in the car waiting for Robbie for what seemed like hours we drove off towards Cornwall. By the time we reached the end of our road everyone else was asleep and I was left with an increasingly stressy sat nav for company. I knew the best way to go and each time I ignored the sat nav I could hear the edge in her voice as she announced that she was "recalculating".

Bluebottle Burgess?

Robbie had been warned not to molest the sat nav on the way home, so we had no more foreign languages, but Robbie wasn't bothered because he had found another use for it. He noticed that it shows when the road runs near a railway line and this caused considerable excitement (for him!). His unintelligible grunts, whoops of excitement and expressions of pleasure sounded like a one man remake of the Goon Show, but I'm pretty good at filtering him out when he gets on my nerves.

The state of the house left something to be desired when we got home and I knew the holiday was well and truly over! The girls are very bright, but when it comes to practical stuff they can be totally dense. The milk we left for them had gone out of date and they had bought more, but they had kept the old milk in the fridge, I thought we had gone into yoghurt production! When we poured it away and washed out the bottles it stank, but when asked the girls justified not getting rid of the milk because they didn't want to make the kitchen smell!!

To Go Or Not To Go.

When I was writing my list of annoying things that Robbie had done yesterday, I forgot to write about the most annoying thing of all. We were driving back from North Walsham along a narrow winding road and my attention was focussed on the road when suddenly Robbie exclaimed “Eh eh eeeehhhhhhhhhhhhh!” at the top of his voice (the noise made by Anne in Little Britain). I hate him making that noise and shouting out like that when I was driving made me call him some unfortunate names!

To continue the car theme, this morning we went to Wroxham and I asked Robbie to set the sat nav for me, he refused because he knew a better route!! I shouted at him so he grudgingly set the sat nav and it gave me instructions in a foreign language while Robbie whooped with laughter in the passenger seat. I told him off for resetting it to Polish and he insisted that he hadn't set it to speak Polish, then as an afterthought he said that it wasn't Polish it was Czech!

When we got to Wroxham I went to look at a big shop called Roys because I wanted to buy a new cd player because my old one is not working very well. I decided on the one I wanted, it was the kind that had a radio and could play tapes and cd's, but Robbie got really upset because he wanted me to have a different one, very similar in price, but not what I wanted. He just wouldn't give up on it, he kept going on and on about why I should like his choice better. I bought the one I liked, but he is still isn't happy!
Despite Robbie's peculiarities we had quite a nice day.

We had to take a walk to the shop this evening because the 'fridge police' had a tantrum in Tesco the other day when I wanted to buy more bacon and he wouldn't let me buy it, but as I predicted we had none left and Robbie wanted bacon. He doesn't like to be wrong, but he had more important things on his mind, he said that we should spend more time together. He then offered to take me to York first class, from Kings Cross on a Grand Central HST. I told him I wasn't fussed and I would rather have the money – he must think I am stupid, I know what is at York. He just wants an excuse to go to the NRM! He then gave me a long speech about us needing to do things together, I agreed but said that I would like to do non train type things and when he asked for an example I said brass rubbing (the first boring thing that came into my head). I have to give him credit for quick thinking because he said fine, he would look into it and find somewhere that we could travel to by train to to brass rubbing – no way! In the end I took pity on him and told him that I would quite like to have a day out on a train, but not on an HST, I want to go on a Virgin Train – he is not impressed.

Getting There

It is increasingly difficult to get Robbie up in the mornings these days, but on Saturday morning I think my determined tone scared Robbie into action despite the early hour. We got all our last minute jobs done and with a bit of difficulty we crammed all our luggage into the car and closed the boot ready to go. Then Robbie suddenly remembered two more bags of essentials that absolutely had to go in the boot, and Sam had a 'man stress' because I had packed his laptop and his rucksack in the boot and he wanted it in the back with him. Very reluctantly I opened the boot, retrieved Sam's possessions, re packed the boot remembering to pack Robbie's last minute luggage and I closed the boot defiantly. I did not intend to open it again until we got to Norfolk.

This was my first real journey with the sat nav, I could tell that Robbie was feeling a bit edgy about being replaced and he was fairly close to a tantrum, so for the sake of peace I took a detour via Mc Donalds so that Robbie and Sam could indulge their passion for junk food. I couldn't face it and I made do with a hot chocolate. We made very good time and the sat nav was a great success until Robbie took an excessive interest in it as we drove through Norwich. Suddenly the sat nav was communicating with me in Cantonese and Robbie and Sam were convulsed with laughter, in fact Robbie laughed so much that he turned puce and looked as if he was about to burst. A couple more clicks from Robbie produced instructions in Dutch and then Polish, so I gave him one of my looks and miraculously the regained the power of speech in English.

We arrived before 11am, too early to pick up the key to the bungalow, so we spent a couple of hours in Mundesley, it was lovely and sunny, a really beautiful day. As we walked down to the beach we couldn't believe our eyes, there were more ladybirds than I have ever seen in my life. Apparently they have ladybirds in plague proportions in Norfolk, they are everywhere, but I don't mind, I rather like them.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1204864/Plague-ladybirds-puts-families-flight-Holidaymakers-overrun-tens-millions-bugs.html

By the time we had driven back to the bungalow, unpacked the car and settled in, I was so tired that I fell asleep.

A Sad Goodbye

If it didn't work the first time, I really don't know why Robbie thinks the same old tactics will work now. Last night he mentioned that he was going to a gig tonight, I wasn't best pleased because he had promised to do one or two important jobs that he failed to do at the weekend (when he went out to play). He claimed that he had told me about it weeks ago and if I couldn't remember it I must be going senile. He must think I'm stupid, he hadn't told me and he knew full well he hadn't told me, When he saw that I wasn't going to fall for for that line he changed tactic and told me how terribly upset he was because his favourite venue The Academy is closing and it holds so many memories that he had to go back one last time. He has missed his vocation, he should write for Mills and Boon! He was extra attentive this morning, he may have thought he fooled me, but I knew he just wanted to get into my good books because he needed a lift from the station very late tonight. You can read him like a book!

I tried out the sat nav yesterday, it is good. The best thing is that it has a female voice with an English accent, so I don't get too upset about it telling me what to do. I couldn't resist the temptation to try to teach the sat nav a few short cuts. If I didn't turn when it said, it would announce that it was recalculating and then it would give new instructions. When I had ignored it three times in succession, I'm sure I heard it give a grudging sigh before recalculating yet again. I think annoying the sat nav could be almost as much fun as annoying Robbie!