BLAKENEY POINT

Firstly some news! Carol has been appointed to a school near Basildon in Essex as an English teacher starting in September. The school was most impressive with an organised and efficient administration and an enrolment of some 800 students.The school is about 25 miles east of London and only 14 miles from Southend on Sea a popular seaside resort of Londoners. There is every likelihood of school furnished accomodation which will make the move a lot easier. After the traumas of the school here, Carol feels that her teaching skills are now recognised and she will be pleased to wipe the dust off her Ramesy shoes. It will be a bit of a shame in many ways particularly leaving the golf club here which I have thoroughly enjoyed, but on the other hand, we have just about covered all of this area with our weekend visits and new vistas await us.

So this weekend we took off for Blakeney Point having been told about the facility for seeing seals and bird nestings on the National Trust reserve. We took our Canandian friend Ed Jay from Flat 1 with us, and drove some 80 miles north East to the coast. For 7 quid each we toook a boat ride out to the Point and saw a pack(?) of seals basking on the sandy shingles seemingly oblivious of the onlookers. Just a bit further away we saw the nesting Sand Terns which migrate here from Africa each year to breed. There were many hundreds of them and quite a few chicks making a tremendous noise. We were not allowed to land because this would disturb the Terns and they would fly away leaving their eggs at the mercy of marauding seagulls and oyster catchers.

We were then taken to beach further away and given an hour to wander along the foreshore. Here we found roped of areas when Oystercatchers had laid their eggs on the pebbles - see photo above. Carol had packed morning tea which we enjoyed sitting and taking in the beautiful scenery across the bay. There were dozens of boats running back and forth and as it was a lovely sunny day - the whole thing was very memorable.

Then back to shore and we drove to the village of Blakeney where we discovered the delights of fresh seafood from one of the many caravan cafes. Ed bought a tub of cockles and winkles which we ate with our crayfish sandwiches. I don't think they will be a commercial success! Carol had a dressed crab which was so fresh she was worried it might bite her. Then a pint in the local pub and wouldn't have called the king my uncle! On the river bank outside the pub, there were people fishing for crabs - it entails putting a piece of bacon on the end of a line (no hooks allowed) and patiently pulling the crab out of the water - seemed too easy.

We drove back along the coast to Cromer, another popular seaside resort with guest houses and hotels lining the seafront and amusement parks and all the paraphernalia that goes with an English seaside resort. People were actually bathing and or sun bathing on the beach(?) which goes to prove why Britain won the war!!

I have been having a difficult time with British Gas over our recent Gas bill for 250 quid. It is out of all proportion with our usage for this little four roomed flat, but getting any response is proving hard. I rang their help line three times with promises of action, and then resorted to emails which eventually drew a response to the effect that the bill was based on their usage estimate.They quoted a meter reading which had no relationship to the actual when I looked at it. Then they quoted a meter serial number which they maintain was for a new meter installed on 22nd December 2005.So happens we were in Vienna on that date and anyway the meter which we have looks like it was on the Ark.

Getting nowhere with my explanation of all this in another email, I finally sent an email in which I described their Service Pledge as being bullshit. This brought a reply that they did not respond to emails containing blasphemy or foul language! Heartened by getting at least a reply I then sent a resume of the whole episode and now, some weeks later, have still heard nothing!! At least I am not paying the bill until someone somewhere wakes up and looks at our meter.