Thursday 24th July 2025 - What's Changed?

As I mentioned in a previous blog, I started writing blogs, or diaries as I called them at the time, in July 2010.  Doesn’t take an expert in mental arithmetic to know, this means I have regularly been putting fingers to keyboard for fifteen years.  My blogs were a spin off from writing diaries during our visits to Greece.  Having given up travelling abroad; after our last trip in 2009 we knew on our return, we wouldn’t want to stray far from Overstrand again.  The thoughts then came to mind; shall I start writing about our lives in Overstrand and would I have the discipline to keep writing?  Come July 2010, I thought I would give it a go and if I could keep writing regularly for two months then I would set up a website where I could post what I’d already written and carry on from there.  Yes, I did have the discipline and in September 2010 set up my first website.  Since then, I have changed website providers as well as my URL and expanded my site to cover information and photographs about Overstrand. 

I have just had a quick read through July 2010 diaries and discovered, somethings have changed, others haven’t.  For starters, we had a very hot spell during the month, when our water butts were almost empty, only to be followed by rain – sounds just like July 2025.  Then there are recollections of our chickens, Beckie and Cate, and Barney our dog, sadly all no longer with us.  On the plus side, it made me smile reading how, first thing in the morning when I let Beckie and Cate out, they tumbled out of their coop and started pecking at the grass I had freshly raked, and walking along the beach, watching Barney enjoy a cooling swim in the pools at the end of the groynes and chasing gulls. 

I also noted, the Residents Association had been placed in a state of suspension until new members could be found – they never were.  The Conservative Club was not in a good place with the Secretary of the time sending a letter to members titled ‘Use it or Lose it’.  Unlike the Residents Association, the Conservative Club, now operating as the Overstrand Club, carries on.

There were other comparisons to be made between July 2010 and 2025 but I’ll leave it with those I’ve mentioned, in the above two paragraphs.  Over the past fifteen years there have been many changes in Overstrand and depending on your stance; some are for the good but not all for the better.  One thing for sure is, for us it was definitely the right decision coming to live in the village.  We vowed to downsize, which we did.  With less to clean and maintain, this provides us with time, to do what we want to do.  Although we would have preferred a more remote location to live in, a place where grass grows up the middle of the road, this would not have been the sensible thing to do.  We knew, over the coming years we would need to be nearer to services and facilities – Overstrand fitted our criteria.

Will I still be blogging in another fifteen years-time?  Not sure I can answer that one!  Instead, I’ll leave you with a photo I took in July 2010 looking back towards Overstrand, as we walked in the direction of Mundesley.