Another day of ancestral church visiting, this time in the vicinity of Great Yarmouth. Having driven through a torrential storm, we arrived at our first church, Stokesby, in the sunshine. This is a thatched church pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Next stop Filby. The inhabitants of Filby are obviously gunning for a Britain in Bloom title and boy do they deserve it. I think that every begonia in the country must now be in Filby in a very impressive display.

As we weren’t far away, we decided to call in to Caistor. In some inexplicable manner, I managed to leave a fair amount of skin on a sand-covered concrete walkway by the beach. No idea how or why I left the vertical but it was a spectacular five point landing, two palms, one forearm, one knee and my ribs. This sounds impossible to achieve but achieve it I did. I even managed to escape with just a small scratch on the casing of the new camera (see below). Ouch was a rough translation of what I said. As I was now dripping blood fairly dramatically, we returned to the car and I attempted to wash my wounds in some handy toilets. Not actually in the toilet, that would not be hygienic, although urine is of course a steriliser. In this case it may have been more effective as the taps required me to press down with my palm, which was injured, in order for a meagre trickle of water to appear. Never fear, there will be a first-aid kit in the car. Indeed there is a first-aid kit in more than one car in our possession, just not this car. I wonder if facemasks, of which I have several in my bag, might be adapted for the purpose of staunching wounds. In the end large, cleanish handkerchiefs managed to stop me dripping gore over the car for the journey home. Glad I have never taken to tissues.

We abandoned the idea of going into Great Yarmouth itself and a final church on the itinerary was elusive due to a diversion that basically had us going round in circles. The journey home was also hampered by a twenty minute delay due to roadworks.

Having washed half a beach out of my hands, we went for a short walk in the forest, following the ‘Desert Rat Trail’, with interpretation boards telling the story of the Desert Rats who were stationed here in World War Two. An evening meeting, the sixth in the eight days that I have been away, reminds me that I really should look up the definition of ‘holiday’.

With my left hand still oozing interestingly and a distinct pain in my side, suggesting that all may not be hunky dory in the rib department, we nonetheless set off for Pensthorpe Natural Park. This is a great place to photograph birds. It was also where I realised that the damage to the new camera was a little more extensive that I hoped. The Zoom function no longer works and the camera automatically shuts down with a ‘lens error’. So the bird photography left a little to be desired but we still had a lovely day wandering round the site at a pace that my ribs would allow. There was a good array of woodland birds on display, as well as the wildfowl. Pensthorpe have a breeding programme for red squirrels, which are then released in the wild on Anglesey, where competition from grey squirrels is not a problem.

Back in the van, I unsuccessfully try a few self-help suggestions for rectifying lens errors, refraining from the more invasive, which basically seem to come down to hitting it. Just to add to the not going brilliantly theme, we receive an email to say that our October caravan holiday has been cancelled due to work on the site. We manage to come up with a more expensive and less convenient alternative. Still worse things happen at sea, as they say. Not sure who ‘they’ are and it is a pretty stupid expression but I am well aware that many people are worse off than I am. Onwards and Upwards!