SHERINGHAM DIARY 7 ~ What Will The Next Thing Be?

September is a significant month for Jnanasalin and I. On the 22nd Sept five years we had our civil partnership, and two years ago on the same date we had the 'upgrade' to a marriage. Though a fifth anniversary is, I believe, traditionally marked by a gift of wood. we chose to mark it differently. First, by going to see a broadcast of Yerma at the Sheringham Little Theatre, which was brilliant! and  then a curry at the Taste of India restaurant in Holt, which was notable for being distinctly average.

This year, another thing makes September a time of note, it's our sixth month since we moved to Sheringham.  When we first moved to Upper Sheringham we made a list of things for me to refinish for the house. I'm currently halfway through refurbishing an old chest of draws for our bedroom, which, once done, will mean that list will be completed. We've moved, settled in, found jobs, so, now what happens next ?

Well, I appear to have become a Star Trek addict. I wake up early, so once up, I make coffee for both of us, and then watch an episode or two. So far I've completed watching the Voyager series and am now on Series 4 of The Next Generation. After an extremely dodgy first series, with badly written scripts and everyone acting like the wooden tops, it has improved immensely. I've grown fond of the handsomely bearded Commander Riker, constantly beaming whilst standing stiffly, head bent to one side. Deanne Troi, still wooden after all these years, with her supposed supernatural powers of telepathy and piercing insight. Every time her mouth opens, out spills the dullest of perceptions, she ought to have been called Deanne Trite.

We've officially entered Autumn, and whilst I'm not yet a fully fledged paid up member of the Monty Don Fan Club, I have been getting soil under my fingernails and discovering caches of snails concealed inside bushes. Last week I gave our small gardens, front and back, a bit of a short back and sides tidy up and attention before the colder months land on our doorstep.  Plus, we've found where the best local garden centres are ( Holt and Overstrand ) and  have been buying plants to bed in over the Winter.

Jnanasalin and I both got in contact with our inner bloke, and dug out a couple of Leylandii bushes that seemed to be on a mission, to not just gain territory, but achieve total garden domination. We've also created a herb garden in pots and planted a rhubarb patch. There is a plan, not yet fully fleshed out, to plant a range of decorative grasses in our front garden, and attempt to remove the ugly satellite dish that we have no earthly use for. We're trying to block out the basic structure for the garden improvements now, so we can further develop them in the early Spring.

As yet, I've not been able to find alternative work to my present job. First, there isn't much to apply for, and second, when I do, I'm not getting selected for interview. I don't know for sure, but being sixty and male, could be factors in my not reaching interview stage. I have the relevant experience for the jobs I'm applying for, and do my best to tailor my CV to be appropriate. In North Norfolk employers appear to be looking for more of what they've had before, which quite often is a female part-time worker. Anyway, I'll keep trying to find my way out of the 'glass cellar' I appear to have become locked in. Meanwhile, though I'm losing weight, I also feeling constantly tired.

Jnanasalin is really enjoying being able to drive, since he's gained approval from the DVLC he's like a new man. Apart from making his daily commute to work much easier and shorter, we've taken to visiting a wider range of places, to discover and explore North Norfolk a bit. A couple of weeks ago we went to Dalegate Market in Burnham Deepdale, which was disappointing, but we discovered Creake Abbey Farm Shop on the way back, which we will no doubt return to. With his work, he's gradually getting to the end of sorting out the organisational and staffing mess that he inherited. At present he's on the cusp of starting to enjoy it. For weeks he's been redirecting or quelling the mix of ambitions and loyalties going on between female staff and volunteers, and heaving large plastic bags of clothes around a warehouse, the upside of which is he too has been losing weight!

What will Jnanasalin  and I do with ourselves of an evening, during the upcoming darker winter months? Upper Sheringham, as you might well imagine, has no nightlife bar the occasional Fun Quiz at the Village Hall. Sheringham has its pubs and restaurants, and the Sheringham Little Theatre, where you can see great broadcasts of live theatre, and a pleasantly inoffensive choice of films  mostly four or five months passed their release date, that wouldn't frighten a cackle of blue rinsed pensioners. Cromer has the Regal Movieplex Cinema, which sounds like a grand modern multi screen affair, but its all a bit more cosey and homely than that. Some of its screens can't be much bigger than our front room. However, if you want to see less genteel films and current releases, then that's the place to be.

We've been able during the summer months to make the most of living right on the doorstep of Sheringham Park, a National Trust estate, taking walks there in the early evening. After a strenuous day working inside a laundry the size of a cupboard, or sorting charity donations in a dusty warehouse it's great to be able to breath fresh outdoor air. We promenade on the seafront with an ice cream or a bag of chips in hand, or make a flask of hot chocolate, sit by the boat pond and read a good book, until our fingers get too chilled to turn a page. We've also taken to just reading in the evening, or myself to writing articles for this blog, or occasionally we do a jigsaw together! Which may sound like we're turning into the sort of fuddy duddy gay couple who'd soon be taking up knitting and crochet, if we hadn't already done so! We're just finding more enjoyment in quite ordinary everyday things.

After six months, its turning out to be a full but simpler life than we had in Cambridge, with fewer opportunities for distraction. Whilst we've been preoccupied with setting up our life here, adjusting our way of being to this, and the change in pace, hasn't quite been at the forefront of our minds. Now we move on to whatever the next stage in settling into life in North Norfolk is.  The most pregnant of questions being 'what will the next thing be,' with regards to Cottonwood Workshop and our 'cafe project'. As yet, whilst fervently saving as much money as we can, its still not certain in our minds exactly what direction to take, and hence what the money will be put to realising,  What our first steps need to be, is still dark to us.