I fully expected the end credits to roll and a John Williams theme tune to accompany the scene.

Last week I was on a mission of re-discovery..... The re-discovery of our patio. Last year my son Stephen spent a couple of days peeling away a thick layer of muck from our patio with a pressure washer. As a result we found that our patio was red and not the grubby black that it appeared to be.

Well it is a year and a bit later and once again a black film has appeared on the self same patio fooling us into believing that the slabs are black. So I have had to get the pressure washer back out once more to attack the grubbiness.

As you can see there is quite a difference between the cleaned tiles and the dirty ones but it is not a fast job and each tile takes an average of 2 minutes to clean. A few of the tiles are very old and have disintegrated under the force of the washer and so I have some repair work to do but on the whole it is a really nice rustic terracotta patio. The big black manhole cover caps our Well. It is not the deepest Well (when I dropped a plumb line down it I measured about 8' deep) but under the cover it has the 'traditional' round Well shape and is very full of water. I like the trend of having a thick sheet of glass capping wells so that you can see into it whilst standing on it. However I think if I did that then it would become a serious slip hazard when it rained, so I'll let that one go this time.

Today the dry spell of weather broke and as I write this there is icy cold sleet falling in the darkness of the evening so it looks like the days of the wintery sunsets are done. However the last two days have once again provided excellent sunsets and so I have dragged different family members off to different places on the coast to see these. I don't think I have experienced so many stunning skies in so few weeks.

We went back to Cley and a Jet was flying high above in vast circles leaving expansive vapour trails which cut through the existing clouds seemingly smearing them as it did so. Meanwhile the sun had started to set and the circular trails began to turn red. The jet carried on with these large circular motions covering many miles returning every 5 minutes or so.

Meanwhile behind us the honking of hundreds of  geese was building up and from behind some houses a huge flock of geese appeared. I took the snap below and then I zoomed in with another and counted them all. Whilst it may not appear to be the case there are actually approximately 720 geese in this photo!

As we watched the sky colourize Claire suddenly whispered to me to look at something in the stream below. I missed it but she explained that she was sure that it was an Otter. A few minutes later it reappeared and swam across the open water right in the centre of this photo.











We saw further evidence of its movements as the still water broke into ripples when it swam along the bank of the pool.

The trouble is that there is so much else going on all pulling on our attention, the sun had set and the after burn was warming up as the sky reddened, There were Herons flying over every few minutes, there were all kinds of bird calls from the marsh and then a Hercules aircraft flew over us and disappeared into the sunset in the manor of a finale of a film. I fully expected the end credits to roll and a John Williams theme tune to accompany the scene as it flew into the embers of the nights action.

On Saturday Claire and I went to Wells-Next-The-Sea but this time there was so little cloud in the sky that the sunset was not going to stun us with her varied colour schemes. However we were in for an unexpected treat as we noticed swimming in this perfectly tranquil pool several seals and although it was getting dark both of us managed to get some photos of them.

There were a handful of people dotted around this vast beach, a few near us also watched them but others had no clue that they were there and had decided to call it an evening as the sun dropped behind the dunes.

 The seals seemed just to be having fun, splashing about and were unperturbed by us although as you will see they clearly knew that we were there and checked us out on several occasions.

Tête à Tête

I'm watching you too!

Boo!

 Claire and I sat on the beach watching the seals until it got too dark at which point they were just landing themselves, in their rather awkward way, on to the beach.
Again the backdrop of noise came only from the loud gull across the pool in front of us and the restless trumpeting of several hundred geese which floated on the still air from about a mile away as they were settling down for the night.

We returned to the car as the Moon shone down on us whilst Venus,Jupiter and Mars made their appearance in a totally cloudless sky.

I am writing this on Sunday night and the weather has changed significantly now. Outside I can hear the rain beat against the windows whilst inside the wind is howling in the chimney breast and the kitchen door and living room curtains are being gently blown back and forth. Every now and again the lights of the house flicker probably as a result of the electric cables touching as they are blown together in the street by the high winds. I feel we may lose power completely soon and so I am heading off to bed where it is of no concern if all the lights go out and I can dream of the next sunset instead.....

Perchance to dream...

Click on this photo for a slide show of the full size photographs.

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