Meet Up with Vivien, Delivery to Norfolk Hospice Shop & A Great White Egret!

I met up with Vivien at 10am this morning at our family home to have another sort out. We had left a number of boxes of bric-a-brac and unwanted books in the hall, which we had intended on selling at a boot sale, but neither of us could be bothered with the effort of doing one. We kept a few things back to sell, but donated all the rest to the Norfolk Hospice Shop in Hunstanton, which resulted in two car trips! The ladies in the shop were very pleased and I think we filled their little back room to the max! We have already donated tons of stuff to their shop and they remembered me when I walked into the shop. We were probably donating things that our mother had bought in there over the years!

Vivien had a very emotional start to her day. She arrived at the house at 9am, much earlier than she had intended. On her arrival she was shocked to see the cat (as in mother's cat that was) sitting in the front garden! For those of you that don't know, or can't remember...... the cat originally belonged to the village pub, the pub had a fire many years ago and 'Missy' (the cat) had escaped and never returned – my mother found her sleeping in the snow by a tree, many years ago and adopted her – my mother never knew this cat had belonged to the pub. After my mother died last year, we returned the cat to the pub landlady and they were happy to take her back. We heard through someone that works there, that Missy was very pleased to be back with her brother (another cat in the pub) and apart from a few visits back to the house initially, we havn't seen Missy for a long time now. So you can understand Vivien's shock, when Missy greeted her like she had never been away and meowed to go into the house! Vivien did the right thing and plonked the cat on her front car seat and drove her back to the pub. The cat was not overly happy with the car ride, but looked 'ok' Vivien said, when she was returned to her new home. I have been extremely emotional lately about the loss of my mother and I would have been in tears if I had seen the cat, so glad I wasn't there, but felt sorry that Vivien had to deal with the situation. I can't believe that on the 7th August it will be a year since our dear mother died – it doesn't feel like 12 months at all and I miss her so much.

In between our trips to the Hospice Shop, we had fish 'n' chips from 'Sunny Hunny' and later had a 99 ice-cream and a flake. There were tons and tons of people along the promenade for the last night of the Sunset Festival, just east of the pier (that was).

We finished our sort out by mid evening and went to Holme Marsh Reserve NWT for a short while. We saw three Marsh Harriers, a Mute Swan, Mallards, Coot, Wren, Reed Warblers zipping around the reed mace, good numbers of hirundines in the skies and a Grey Heron was seen. Star of the show was a Great White Egret, which I spotted flying over the marshes distantly at 7pm (no pictures I'm afraid). I was horrified to see on the BBC Weather, that a heatwave is going to hit us tomorrow and all week – it will be dripping hot at work! Oh dear!