Norfolk Corners

We were walking back from the Lifeboat house at the end of Cromer pier earlier this year when something on the cliff wall caught my eye. It looked like a slightly stunted arched window or even a doorway through the flints. Where could it lead? We wandered along the beach towards the lifeboat museum and I forgot about it. I kicked myself when I remembered the arch the next day. I looked online to see if I could find out anything about it but to no avail. The window in the cliff came back to me more recently as I considered what might count as a curious corner for a blog. Regular readers will know that I settled on quite a broad definition that could be fairly described as 'whatever I happen upon' but I resolved to return to Cromer to investigate soon. It was Halloween the next time we were there and the clouds blackened accordingly. The last time we had walked the promenade, huge waves were crashing against the thick, curved concrete walls, showering onlookers with

A gallery of photos that I took on a sunlit autumn afternoon following  a walk that we downloaded from Norfolk County Council 's Norfolk Trails . We stumbled upon a local fairy settlement. I hoped that they did't mind me sharing some photos of their architecture. One of them made it clear that he did. Some bees had been playing noughts and crosses while they waited for flowers to start blooming again. There were still some golden leaves clinging on but the carpet of brown foliage underfoot was becoming thicker. Without their leaves, the trees' characters were revealed. As our hemisphere starts to tilt away from the sun and our days get shorter, there is less time for the leaves to photosynthesise and it becomes uneconomical for deciduous trees to devote their energy to leaf growth. Instead they turn their energy to fruiting in early autumn and conservation as the weather starts to turn colder.

  On a clear but blustery day we visited Cley in North Norfolk for a walk. Cley is one of the most picturesque parts of Norfolk with its historic buildings and dramatic vistas. It's salt marshes are a haven for native and migrant birds who bring twitchers from across the UK. When we arrived we put on our boots, took in the scenery and I decided to photograph some gates. The village of Cley was originally a harbour at the seafront but visitors today will just be able to make out a thin strip of greyish blue on the horizon. So what happened? Since Norfolk is so flat, even fairly small changes in the sea can significantly affect it's coastline. As recently as 6500BC there was an additional expanse of land (known as Doggerland ) that stretched all the way from East Anglia to what is now the Netherlands. It was around 6500BC when the last glacial period started coming to an end. As the ice melted the cold North Sea rose and flooded Doggerland which must have been a nasty shock for t

  Bowthorpe is a largely residential suburb of Norwich on its western side. It has developed enormously since the 1970s and now comprises three major housing estates and a large industrial estate. You may have seen steam pouring from the Kettle Chips factory that is situated on the industrial estate or collected an item from the sorting office there. Other than that its not the sort of place that you might stumble upon unexpectedly. If you do ever make your way there it becomes obvious that the roads have been designed to keep Bowthorpe slightly detached from the rest of Norwich. For example if you lived on Earlham Green Lane and you had bought a TV from someone on Clover Hill Road you would need to drive 2.4 miles to get to their house even though there's a reasonable chance that you could see it from the front of your house.   If you are walking, cycling or taking public transport though its a different matter. Just make sure that you've got a big enough backpack for the T

The weather has been fine this week, providing lots of opportunities for capturing beautiful autumn reds, golds and oranges on camera. While I was out admiring the colours, I happened across this knobbly tree clinging determinedly on to the side of the road just outside Marlingford. When I showed my photos to a local literary expert (my wife) she was reminded of J.R.R. Tolkien's tree-like creatures, the Ents. The twisting, serpentine roots do seem to suggest that the tree has some mysterious other life where it moves around the countryside unseen by human eyes. Alan Stepping back from the roots, you can see that it is actually a healthy looking beech tree without any noticeable burrs or other indications of past or present diseases or stresses other than the land dropping away on the side where the road is. Sorry for leading you here with a misleading title knobbly tree fans but before you shut down your browser and turn away in despair shall we look at the knobbly roots for a whi