The most surprising thing about being by the sea, in your favourite place, is the constant denial of the fact that time flies here much quicker than usual (you physicists, please, do something with this phenomenon): the weather yesterday was objectively dismal yet every bit of our activity was great and somehow purposeful, hence it felt too quick.
We visited both of our beloved art galleries and finally found that staple piece of Cromer memorabilia, which I’m going to put in the most visible place in the house—it’s, of course, the image of the Pier created using a bricolage technique (imagine Braque and Picasso meet Rodchenko but a hundred years later in Norfolk), when the place looks almost fictitious and dream-like… I went through other works, including the illustrations and posters of Sarah McMenemy, one of the main artists of North Norfolk, but I came back to that Arcadia-like creation of the Pier and we finally got it.
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The quirky bookshop—not Bookworms (thank heavens), but another one, where I bought my copy of MR James’s “Suffolk and Norfolk” and a few little vintage figurines, is sadly closed: the sign on the door says that you can book an appointment to trade some books in September, but what about that spontaneous move which gives you the kick of finding something extraordinary?.. Hope the old owner is doing fine.
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In the Art Cafe, one of the rare upmarket eateries in Cromer where you’re served a bagel with crab and bergamot cakes, there was a couple sitting next to us. I thought at first that they were husband and wife but then I had another quick look—a Mum and a son, very middle class, with that unmistakable Cambridge appearance. She’s in her late eighties, still with a perfect posture, slowly going through the menu. He, a man in his early sixties, looking at her with hidden tenderness, asking, “do you want soup, mother?”, and she nodded and gave us a brief look, judging our table manners.
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