I was looking through my mother’s pictures when I came on this one of my Aunt Vi, taken when she was 12. She’s now in her 90s and living in Cape Town.

Yesterday was bright but very cold – bitter wind. We defied it to get our photos taken in the station and then walk up into the city to get our bus passes. We then got a bus home. How exciting is that?

In the afternoon we went to Reepham to get our hair cut. In other directions there were many closed roads and cancelled trains because of overnight flooding following a 1953-style storm surge, with very high tide and high winds. Nowhere near as bad as predicted, but still Walcott was hit badly, and there was extensive flooding along the rivers at places like Brundall. Pull’s Ferry was flooded, with a lone bench sitting in the middle of flood water. Banks overtopped elsewhere. Apparently the tide was eight inches lower than predicted and the surge didn’t quite coincide.

Today was very wet and unpleasant – so grey that it was hardly day at all. Dot went to the supermarket while I reduced the size of my in-tray and wrote a bit about Hingham, based on a phone call I got from a resident. Then I took Dot to a YFC meeting in the city, and am now awaiting a call to pick her up.