SHERINGHAM DIARY No 95 - A Day Of Deluge.

There exists an existential vein of unreality that runs through the realm of North Norfolk. With its idyllic countryside, high numbers of expensive second homes, knapped flint houses and dramatic skies. It can be a great place to live, and easy to imagine you are being featured on BBC Countryfile, in your waders and waterproofs chasing that first rare bird siting of a chiv-chav-chuck.

One time recently, we were casually walking around Holt. Doing the best type of window shopping in its high end shops, with not the slightest intent of buying any of it. When, we pass by a woman, typical of the Holt type, hair roughly scrunched up, with escaped straggly bohemian strands hanging from beneath the flaps of her large woollen hat. Bundled up in wellies and a capacious well worn green trenchcoat. And she is talking very very loudly and insistently in high imperious tone, into her mobile, these immortal words - ' No, no, no.....I told you...I've fed the alpacas'

On our recent holiday in North Yorkshire. I was not particularly on the look out for good shop names. But its in the character of the beast that they come to you.

Whilst in Helmsley, there was a very niche designer styled hairdresser, every inch of it, painted and accessorised, done out in uniform grey. Thus was it also suitably minimalist by name - Partings.

On our way out through the back end of Malton, on our way home, we drove through a poorer suburb of the town. Unlike its ultra trendy food obsessed centre, this Malton shop was quite straightforwardly and without a hint of irony, calling a spade a spade. In bold black letter typeface jauntily arranged, declaring who owns it and exactly what it provides - Barney's Sarnies.

Well, it seems we chose the right week to take our holiday. The Courtyard where our shop is, was deathly quiet all the week we were away. So those who bore with it, reported. The week of our return had the forecast of storm Babet hanging over it. So as the quiet days progressed towards its projected arrival date, the streets became cleared of people, as though anticipating gun fighters coming into town, to bloodbath the elderly. 

Even the normally reliable Met Office lost its ability to predict with certainty - what time would it rain? How much rain? And for how long?  It started out with a forecast of three days of wall to wall solid rain, which turned out to be a day and a bit. We came into town on Friday, the day of the deluge, just to check everything in the shop was OK. Decided - take the day off you fools. Even an idiot wouldn't be coming out in this to buy a scented candle.

The eruption of Israel-Gaza is a truly distressing world event. Even when observed from a distance. After the Hamas atrocities, you could guarantee Israel would respond in kind, because that is what they have always done. One can empathise with how they feel, even whilst you shake your head at the irredeemably cyclical nature of this conflict. This has never ended well. It will be no different this time.

There is no supremacy between one country's suffering and that of another's. No ranking for pain from mildly bothersome to distorted in agony. Both tje atrocity and the bombing of civilians is regrettable. Having been gifted the moral high ground by Hamas's brutal attack, then to descend into the gutter of mindless slaughter with them, immediately diminishes ones empathy and their moral credibility. 

It's hard to express your feeling for the suffering of others in a nonpartisan manner. When all around you folk are saying they deserved it, and you feel its not allowed to speak otherwise.