Monday 9 December 2013

High Tide 02:30 (2.60m)
Low Tide 09:07 (0.60m)
High Tide15:43 (2.30m)
Low Tide 21:05 (1.00m)
Sea temperature: 6.9/7
Sea conditions: calm
Weather:freaky
Joined by: The Poet and TBC with Sara on the shore
Topics of conversation:
The last few says have been eventful and we are still feeling the impact of the floods.The village was well prepared and we are counting our lucky stars and thanking the forethought of the agencies involved in creating our sea defence structures from the 1960's onwards. The surge hit before the high tide, and the wind speed dropped before the surge itself, meaning that although the water reached just below the top of the concrete defences we didn't have the force which was predicted. 

The river banks were breached and all of the low lying land was flooded. One of two houses were reached, but they all had time to prepare and put in their flood boards. All the wooden buildings on the harbour were below water on and off for 36 hours and the north side of the river was almost as badly hit as it was in 1953. The Harbour Inn landlord brought in a lorry and emptied the building, which ended up 5 ft deep in filthy water, but he's aiming to be open again by the end of the week. The owners of the wooden buildings here have already started their clearing up process. On a personal note we were extremely lucky with our beach hut, 75% were either flooded, damaged or even uprooted and moved into the fields, ours may be tiny and a bit tatty, but it is on the highest ground on the shore and was left on a dry island, with the sea rising in front and the flood waters from the river and marsh rising behind. http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/region_rallies_around_flood_hit_coastal_communities_as_edp_launches_norfolk_and_north_suffolk_flood_appeal_1_3089499
Reeds washed down from the marsh caught on the bridge 




Dunes devastated

Disorientated adders

The disruption to normal life was not sufficient to deter me from party plans this weekend though and on Friday friends started arriving for birthday celebrations, which lasted till Sunday afternoon. Although it's not actually my birthday till Wednesday I'm away on a course this week so Saturday was my 'official birthday'. I've had the most wonderful time with all my girlfriends here, I feel blessed, privileged, tired, hungover and emotionally drained - in a good way! My BGF excelled herself, collecting together  songs and messages from important people from my life so far and we listened to them all on Friday night so that I could get the crying out of the way before the party proper. DK compose a special birthday song for me a Beth pulled out all the stops, her voice silenced the entire group - no mean feat. There were gifts galore, including these amazing wellies all the way from Legs, in the US and Phillips baked me the most delicious cake, with home made crystallised rose petals and lavender. 

My present from Mertz was that he picked up the bill and shipped out for the weekend, he returned to a house full of hungover and happy women, to make us brunch, a brave move, especially as he'd spent the weekend with one of his oldest friends and was probably more hungover than the rest of us put together. The other brave person was DK's Son, now known as Il Faccino, who worked as butler, waiter, DJ and cleaner upper for the evening - he was magnificent, and even agreed to pose with the team.
His look says it all...
When I get a moment I'll do a little clip reel and post it here, in the meantime if any of you are reading this, THANK YOU!!! This morning I woke up and realised that the only way the weekend could have been any better would have been if I'd been born in the summer and then we would have been able to be on the beach and everyone could have felt the benefits of Dr Sea the morning after the night before, as I did.


No comments:

Post a Comment