Tuesday 31st March 2026 - Was it Kaput?, Council Changes, Reading the Plan and Easter at St Martins

Continuing from my last blog.  I was back home from the Overstrand Coast Transition Plan Launch, in time for my pre-arranged video call with our youngest son.  Connected and ready to chat, but as I went to increase the volume, the screen on my laptop went black.  No point carrying on, so I quickly changed to my phone.  Call completed, I looked for possible causes of the black screen, bearing in mind the sound was still functioning, which indicated my laptop wasn’t entirely kaput but pretty useless, all the same, without a working screen.  I checked out a couple of possible solutions, suggested on the internet, with no success, before deciding to leave it overnight.  Thinking about the problem, during the evening, I had in the back of my mind that while changing the volume, I may have pressed another setting which had caused the black screen.  I very rarely use the ‘F’ keys but perusing them the following morning, I saw F12 increases the screen brightness.  A couple of taps on this key and up came the screen.  Yes, I had accidentally touched the setting above the volume on the taskbar for the screen brightness, reducing it to zero.  Huge sigh of relief from me and mental note to take care in future, what I’m pressing!

The abolishing of District, City, Borough and County Councils, announced last week, to form just three Councils in Norfolk, won’t affect Parish and Town Councils.  How they will deal and re-act with a larger government body, remains to be seen and in Overstrand’s case, how Overstrand Coast Community Transition Plan will be progressed when NNDC and NCC, are no more?  A link to the plan, is now available on the Parish Council’s website.  I have downloaded the plan and yesterday, started reading it.  Lovely to see artwork from the Belfry School on the cover, however I did think one of the drawings presents a bit of an embarrassment for the school. I have only read as far as page thirteen but noticed on page eleven, there is no mention of the village shop (how on earth did this, probably the most valuable village asset, get missed off the list!) or the Parish Hall (a meeting place for the Parish Council, clubs and activities, such as yoga) or The Conservative Club (social and weekly quizzes etc. throughout the year).  Also, the Overstrand Women’s Institute, listed under Community Groups, closed over three years ago but there are other clubs e.g. Overstrand Gardening Club and Poppylanders which have not been included.   I’ll carry on reading and hopefully, I won’t have any more omissions or mistakes to highlight.

Finally, with Easter on the horizon, today’s photo takes the form of a poster, providing details of the Easter Sunday Service at St Martin’s church.

Happy Easter, Everyone