Given that bookings nationwide are going down the pan because of the ghastly coronavirus, it's more than a little ironic that we couldn't stay on in our little Cromer cottage for another week.

But we couldn't.

So we had to move. With a check-out time of 10 am, a check-in time of 3 pm, and a requirement to avoid crowded places, we decided that hiring a car for the day would be the best solution. And luckily, Cromer has a local car hire place: Yes.

We hired a Dacia. Never heard of them? No, neither had we. But it turns out they're an offshoot of Renault, and they're really OK little cars.

We headed out through the gorgeous Norfolk countryside -- all flint and sea and sky -- and parked up in Wells-next-the-Sea.

Not -- be it noted -- Wells-on-Sea, or Wells-next-to-the-Sea, or Wells-anything-else.

It's Wells-next-the-Sea.

And I'd really recommend this circular walk to get a flavour of its assets: the harbour, the marshes, the pine-fringed beach, and the Holkham estate.









Once we'd motored back, we moved into our new home. Which is a flat in the new annex of a dignified flint building on the outskirts of Cromer. It's a huge change from the fisherman's/shoemaker's cottage, but it's equally pleasant, and it will do us very nicely for the next little while.

Inside, we have lots of space; outside, we have squirrels, pheasants, wood pigeons, and jays that we can watch through our big front window.



Meanwhile, the attempts to contain COVID-19 multiply inexorably. The measures announced this evening drive a great big fire-breathing tank through daily life as we know it.

There was wind of some of these regulations at the weekend. Cromer was pretty busy, and rumour had it that out-of-towners, who had come for a weekend of fresh sea air, were also taking the opportunity to ransack the shops.

When we shopped last Monday, having just arrived from London, there was no panic, and the shelves were full. When we shopped at the same supermarket today, taking advantage of our Dacia shopping trolley, it looked as though locusts had been through certain sections.

"You should see Lidl up the road," said one rueful fellow-customer. "Stripped bare."

The world is closing in; it's becoming increasingly difficult to see a good way forward; and the future looks likely to contain much pain and uncertainty.

I often quote Emily Dickinson's lovely little poem "Hope".

Here it is in full:

Hope is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I've heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

The gales are roaring at the moment, and the land has never been chiller. But hope costs us nothing, and offers us everything. So let's not abandon it.