Norfolk

'Often times within the circle of your sight there is neither house nor man visible. A grey church tower or windmill, or the dark brown sail of a wherry in the distance breaks the sense of utter loneliness, but the scene is wild enough to enchain the imagination of many'. 

(George Christopher Davis 1884)

'If this were the time or the place to uphold a paradox, I am half inclined to state that Norfolk is one of the most beautiful of counties'.

(Virginia Woolf)

Norfolk

'I am a Norfolk man and glory in being so'

(Horatio Nelson)



'Oh rare and beautiful Norfolk'

(John Sell Cotman)



Norfolk

'Some counties vaunt themselves in pies and some in meat excel; For turnips of enourmous size fair Norfolk bears the belle'

(Old Rhyme)

'There are few places in England where you can get so much wilderness and desolation of sea and sandhills, wood, green marsh and grey saltings as at Wells in Norfolk.

(W H Hudson)





Allotments

To dig one's own spade into one's own earth! Has life anything better to offer than this?

(Beverly Nichols)

The highest reward for man's toil is not what he gets from it, but what he becomes by it.

(John Ruskin) 





Lydia and the Anemones

Draw everywhere and all the time. An artist is a sketchbook with a person attached.

(Irwin Greenberg)

When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college-that my job was to teach people to draw. She stared back at me, incredulous, and said 'you mean they forgot?'

(Howard Ikemoto)

Norfolk Trees

In that country of luminous landscapes and wide horizons where the wind runs in the reeds and the slow rivers run to our cold sea, a man may still sense and live something of the older England which was uninhabited,free and natural;I am still reeling with the delight at the soaring majesty of Norfolk.

( John Betjaman )

As the poet said 'only God can make a tree' - probably because it's so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.

( Woody Allen )



Five ducks and a Heron

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands.

( Douglas Adams )



Filet of Heron: Having killed some gray herons, pluck them, skin them, and from each bird take out the two nice fillets of meat which are found on the breast. The rest of the heron is only nerves and bone.

Either roasted or in a game ragout, the breast of gray heron yields nothing in delicacy or savor to that of the wild duck. This recipe from the Somme can also be used for the purple herons of the Camargue, which are still more delicate in taste.

( Toulouse-Lautrec and Maurice Joyant. The Art of Cuisine )

Hastings

Billy:  The fogs just lifting. Throw of your bowline; throw of your stern. You head out to South Channel, past Rocky Neck, Ten Pound Island. Past Niles Pond where I used to skate as a kid. Blow your air horn and throw a wave to the lighthouse keepers kid on Thatcher Island. Then the birds show up: black backs, herring gulls, big dump ducks. The sun hits ya-head North. Open up to 12-steamin now. The guys are busy; youre in charge. Ya know what? Youre a goddam Swordboat captain! Is there anything better in the world?

( The Perfect Storm. Sebastian Junger )

Chief Brody: You're gonna need a bigger boat!

( Jaws.Peter Benchley )