Strumpshaw Fen...

On a blazing hot Bank Holiday Monday, I didn’t want to be stuck for a couple of hours in a coast-bound traffic jam, so I headed inland to Strumpshaw Fen, an RSPB reserve I’d visited a couple of years ago. There weren’t so many birds, but it was good to be sitting in a hide with a few like-minded folk, far from Bank Holiday craziness. We saw one bird of prey: like a peregrine, but smaller. The heat had brought out the insects, and the insects had brought out a hobby. It went after dragonflies, dismembering them in flight, and was soon joined by others. For a mesmeric couple of hours we watched marsh harriers drifting lazily over the reedbeds, and hobbies which, in flight, looked like large swallows. They’re beautiful birds.

I’m staying tonight at the Waveney River Centre, near Burgh St Peter, which incorporates a campsite. The situation is fantastic, right on the river… yet there’s something missing. Booking a pitch took ages, with an unsmiling operative, when it should have taken two minutes. The hand basin taps work automatically, when you put your hands under them; unfortunately the force of the water is so great that it immediately soaks your trousers (and that's not a good look for an old man!). There’s a pub on the site, where I just had a meal. The beef pie, not cheap, was a bowl of stew with a stupid pastry ‘hat’ on top (they put in in a microwave, I think, to make it ‘rise’), and that’s not a pie. If I’d paid £5.99 for it, I wouldn’t have complained. Never mind, I’ve processed fifty pix this afternoon, and may manage the same again tomorrow morning. I’d thought of spending another night here, but I’m sure I’ll be able to find a friendlier site, even if the views aren’t as good…

Strumpshaw Fen...