summer in november

yesterday was a rambling day on foot, instigated by a new friend, named summer...she earns her name with her warm enthusiasm...

got the call at 11:45, "do you want to go to the beach at noon?" a rare, clear sunny day made up my mind for me. already i had done a loop around the overgrown, moody norwich city cemetery nearby. fifteen minutes later, we were off, straight across the city, to the train station; 1.7 miles according to google maps.

we seemed to walk right on a train which then seemed to immediately leave, sending the picturesque norfolk countryside whizzing past. shortly, we appeared in cromer.

then, .5 miles to the beach from the train station. we descended the switchback ramps down the cliff to the beach and walked southeast till we were half as tired as we thought we should be in order to make the return trip. on the way, flint chunks made for fun stacking columns across the low tide sand flats! we even saw three lads, probably on a dare, run and dive into the water in their boxers! the air was 45-degrees. the water was most likely less. summer said that jumping in the ocean is a british tradition on boxing day [the day after x-mas]...i guess they were training for december 26th.

cromer didn't seem to exhibit that sad, seaside decay that seems to be a specialty of old shore towns, particularly in america, more particularly, in new jersey. in other words, the town had a life and identity outside of the summer hordes. plenty of people were out and about; shops were open, families were crabbing off the pier, dogs barking and running up and down the beach. i was cynically thinking that this was because of the slight difference between the british climate in july and november.

after repeating the above in reverse order, we decided that a film was in order. at the library we chose a film neither of us knew, wim wenders' 'the american friend'...perhaps in keeping with the spontaneous meaningfulness of the day...what a bizarre noir movie! like a dream....or was that the 10-plus mile day on foot talking?