No sooner than I arrived back from Ireland than Helena took off to the US leaving me ‘home alone’ for a while. After a busy few weeks in Ireland I took the opportunity to wind down a little and think about the next big trip. I managed to bomb off fishing at Salthouse in Norfolk for a day and I also got to go and see my nephew and niece, Sol and Lexie, for the first time in a couple of months. It was lovely to see them. Not only that I got to stay for a sleep over and so treated Rob and Sarah to some lovely asian food from their local take away, which is just superb. All in all a great night out.

With Helena back we managed to see Sol and Lexie again and repeat the take away experience before heading off to Walberswick to take on the challenge of a crabbing competition with the Rumbelow family. Walberswick is the traditional home of the UK crabbing championships that unfortunately were canceled in 2011 due to ‘Health and Safety Concerns’ - politics gone mad.

Helena and I picked up a couple of crabbing lines and some dried squid as bate. The Rumbelow family had just a single line but the crabs favourite, bacon as bate. We’d missed the rising tide, the best time to crab, but with the sun out none of us cared. Everyone enjoyed pulling a few crabs from the tidal stream and watching as mums and kids slipped on the mud into the stream themselves. One little lad went to retrieve his fishing net and in the process got completely stuck in the mud, losing both wellies. Brilliant, just what days at the seaside are all about.

At the end of the competition it was very close. We agreed that the Williams/Baum team would divide the number of crabs by two as we had two lines to their one. Even then we were still victorious. Rumbles though is planning an annual crabbing event of his own at the Blakeney Quay on the second May bank holiday each year, they’ll even be a trophy. We better start working on some rules and we’re not having Carlos ‘The Eel Catcher’ Montero blagging a 10 point advantage from catching an eel with an illegal hook based crabbing line. (if you’ve no idea what I’m on about then you need to read my week 11,12 and 13 blog with photographic evidence of the eel)

Being a bank holiday weekend, Helena and I took advantage and stayed down the road at the campsite at Sizewell, one of the first places I stayed back in March. I of course had my fishing kit with me and took advantage of the fact that the site is right on the beach. This time I even had local knowledge after taking to the guy in the fishing shop. The spot to fish is right in front of the cafe, ‘don’t bother with anywhere else’. Well plan scuppered as that was the only place there were people swimming and I wasn’t about to cast out and catch one of them. As usual I caught nothing in 2 hours except a swimmer crab, it’s these little blighters that steal all the bate off the hooks. I even spoke to a local fisherman who said he’d caught nothing all year from the beach. I’m beginning to think I’ve taken up fishing on the wrong year, or maybe all fishermen comment every year how ‘it’s really bad this year’. More than ever Vern got admiring looks and plenty of comments. People really do dream of owning a VW California. Just get on with it and buy one!

Thursday came and Colin was moaning about work on Facebook. It had been a very long time since Col and Jules had been over and with good weather forecast, I invited them for a BBQ on the Friday. It seemed obvious also to invite Carlos, Nicki and the boys as they were coming up the following day for the Burghley Horse Trials. In true WIlliams fashion a huge slab of pork belly with the baby ribs attached was procured, marinaded in home made BBQ sauce including 1/3 bottle of white rum as an ingredient. To go with it some coleslaw, tomato salad, guacamole, salsa, chicken wings, minty lamb... all home made of course. This was washed down with some home made Pimms. If you’ve not got the recipe here it is:

1. •2 parts Gin
   

2. •2 parts Martini Rosso
   

3. •1 part Orange Curacao
   

Just mix this with lemonade and all the usual fruit, veg and herbs and hey presto, really cheap Pimms and no one can tell it’s not the real thing. The only trouble is getting hold of the Orange Curacao (clear in colour). Talk to someone nicely who’s going to france as they sell it in all their supermarkets. Read next week’s blog for an idea of who might be able to take orders, big might.

We headed off with Carlos, Nicki and the boys to Burghley on the Saturday morning. Easier said than done with the A1 shut due to a light aircraft crash with power lines. After a big detour and a lot of queueing we finally got in and were relieved of £61 per car (car and two adults, children free) - ouch.

We’ve never been to the horse trails before so didn’t know what to expect, but we had seasoned pros Carlos and Nicki as guides. This years fashion was clearly very short shorts, wellies or a special kind of knee length brown boot and a tweed jacket, an interesting look to say the least. We missed the early horse to fall that then resulted in one of the course stewards having a heart attack at the sight of the injured horse. He was airlifted away and I believe the horse was fine. No more than 30 mins there and Helena bumped into someone she worked with. Funny. 10 mins later and we spotted the family we’d camped opposite at Sizewell, we’ll that’s what Helena told me, I wouldn’t have had a clue.

We walked the course in reverse, waiting at each jump to see a couple of riders over before moving on to the next. It’s amazing how spread out they are, nothing like the TV coverage. Some of the jumps are huge, it’s a wonder any horses get over them, never mind the riders. We then bumped into my brothers friends Neil and Lucy. There are supposed to be 250,000 at the event and we’ve seen 3 groups with know, how strange.

Ice creams all round and a sit down. We watch at a couple more fences, the boy get to go in with the hounds and then it’s time to go, we’ve got a dinner to get to. At least the journey home was much quicker with the A1 now reopened.

We cycle over and spend a lovely evening with Sarah and Loic and a couple of their friends. It turns into a bit of a late one with all the banter, wine, beer, cider, almanac. We finally make it home and to bed at 3:42am, have I ever been out this late as a non teenager?

So it’s time to pack. I’m on the road for the next 4 weeks visiting friends in Paris, Lacanau-Ocean on the Altlantic coast, Gwyn and the boys further south, my Dad and Chris in the Dordogne with Helena who’s flying out for a long weekend, the French family I used to stay with every year near Montpellier and that’s just the first two weeks. From there I may head to Italy but I’m not going to make Croatia, there just isn’t enough time. I’ll save it for my next career break.