Oh my days, it’s the end of February and it’s been a busy month. Whilst Clive has been maintaining Distant Drum, getting her ready for the year ahead, I cracked on with the chimney dismantling and after much dust and brick manoeuvres, and help from Gareth down the road, we now have SPACE in the kitchen. Quite remarkable how much space it has opened up. The lovely Ginger the Builder has plastered the little bedroom wall and one coat to go in the kitchen. I’ve been working on a design, graph paper is a marvellous thing, and I am hoping within the next four weeks I may have a new kitchen installed – a revolution. For the past three years Distant Drum has outstripped the cottage for kitchen design and storage. There was so much lost space, as the photos show.
Clive and I trekked up to Great Yarmouth on Wednesday for a mini break, meeting my old friend Harold who is accompanying the film crew and cast for Burning Men, the follow up to Blood Moon. A great team and the filming was fun along the sea front of arcades, all their machines pinging and beeping and flashing in an attempt you get you inside. The star of the film is this brilliant old Volvo car owned by Paul from Kentish Town.
The cheap and cheerful hotel we stayed in was like a sauna – their heating bill must be astronomical. The restaurants in the town seemed closed apart from a Casino, where we ate once the filming was over for the evening. A beautiful old colonial style building which was a favourite haunt for Edward VII who visited over a period of 30 years.
That night and the following day a forecasted mega storm hit the UK and we slowly drove back down the coast, stopping in Southwold for the brilliant Under The Pier Show, a superb arcade with games such as Whack the Banker, Mobility Masterclass (you’re given a zimmer, you select your age from 70 to 100 then try and cross and busy motorway), Pirate Practice (get even with the super rich), Art Apocalypse and many more. We both revelled in the pirate game, I took a Micro Break and Clive Whacked the Banker – we laughed so much we cried. A great tonic to the weather raging outside.
And then the mirrors….
It took a further three hours to skirt Ipswich inland from the Orwell Bridge which was closed, and we got home to Harwich about half an hour before I was playing crib and Clive was seeing a folk band at the cinema. After our excursions we heard that two small boats had sunk or disappeared out into the North Sea, and a huge warehouse storing timber in the Navyard, known as Eddie’s Shed, lost a lot of its roof.
Eddies Shed after the storm
Now on with cottage renovation, interspersed with Reiki days. And tomorrow we’re going to see Trainspotting 2, hurrah!
A very friendly squirrel in Castle Park, Colchester. He thought I had food….
distantdrumsailing 