Saturday 9th August 2025 - It's Open, More About Plums, Seasonal Plants and Plenty of Space

Far from exciting news but after I posed the question, in the heading of my last blog, as to whether Sainsburys was open, the answer is; it opened on Thursday 7^th.  Since then, there have been comments on the NextDoor group about the shortage of cashout tills (only two) with customers pushed towards self-cashouts or using an app to scan purchases.  Not having been to the store, I can’t verify any of this but a number on the group were not impressed with this arrangement.

Also covered in my last two blogs were cherry plums.  With our first picking, I bottled some, others were stewed, plus I kept back some to eat fresh.  We were impressed with the ones I stewed, so yesterday morning we picked more plums.  I stewed most of these in a sugar syrup for the freezer and the rest are in the fridge to be eaten over the coming days.  Nothing like food for free, that is apart from the sugar, water and fuel to cook them with.

We go to the village’s car boots each week.  Over the past couple of weeks there have been a lot of sellers.  I rarely come home without having bought something, usually a plant!  Now our garden centre has closed, the car boots are a valuable source of a range of seasonal plants, saving having to drive to the garden centres either at North Walsham, Aylsham or Holt.  As for the now closed garden centre on the Mundesley Road, this is a sorry sight.  With weeds growing in the car park, it looks dejected and unloved which of course, is exactly what it is.

The car park in Pauls Lane was absolutely rammed this afternoon but looking down on the beach, this looked far from busy with, as can been seen in the photo, plenty of space and no overcrowding.  What a pleasant contrast this is to other countries beaches, where they have sunbeds lined up regimentally, row on row and side by side.