Cromer Pier

As we walked through Cromer towards the pier Barbara spotted a copy of my sketchbook Richard Bell's Britain (Collins, 1981) in a secondhand bookshop . The cover was badly faded - it has obviously been sitting in the window for years, but it's fine inside.

Also bought a copy of Nature Cure (a new book; Chatto and Windus, 2005) by Richard Mabey, his account of 'overcoming depression through a love of nature and a reawakening of the imagination'. Mabey has been described (by Andrew Motion) as 'a man for all seasons, most regions and every kind of landscape' but the Norfolk landscape is one he's been drawn to throughout his life and the book follows the first year of his new life in East Anglia. I look forward to reading it during our stay here.

Not far from the pier, on Garden Street, we came across the garden house which has a mix of arts, crafts and the fun things that no seaside gift shop can be without.

And, they now also stock Saints and Serpents, my sketchbook of coast, cottage garden and medieval church (and some of the serpentine forms I found along the way) in the country to the south of Cromer.

The garden house is so far the only shop in Norfolk to stock Saints and Serpents, so, if you're passing, please call in and buy a copy because, if it sells well enough, that would be all the excuse I'd need to do another sketchbook about the wilder side of Norfolk.