So we’ve made it to Porlock, after a few busy days of travelling. We left Norway via Beautiful Larvik on the ferry to Hirtshals in Denmark. It arrived at about noon, and we headed off to Germany through rain and dark clouds, and stayed the night at an innocuous place called Bad Bramstedt, before heading across to Antwerp the next day, with its diamond quarter and old town, marble railway station, waffles, bikes and a flourishing Hasidic Jewish community. Not to mention the new transport system they are currently digging the centre of the city up for.... Yesterday we completed the whole drop off a car in Calais, get all the luggage to the port, catch the ferry, walk with all the luggage to the car hire place in Dover, pick up the new car, squeeze all the luggage in, and then re-adjust to driving on the left hand side of the road routine.

It actually went much more smoothly than it could have done; we caught an earlier ferry than planned and we got to Rye - for Georgette Heyer fans, the visit was inspired by my fondness for ‘the Unknown Ajax’ - with sufficient time to go for a walk through it to see the sights while it was still daylight, which was just as well, because today it was bucketing when we woke up. Had our first full English breakfast, and headed on what we knew would be a tedious day’s journey across country, but 370 kms or so in a day is not much. But we reckoned without the sad conditions of British roads/traffic and the inability of our new Nav Man - Maggie, ‘this lady’s not for turning’ - to distinguish road closures due to road works from our inability to follow her instructions. But we made it, found our accommodation, which even fulfils its name, in that it really does have a sea view - right across to Wales, actually. After dinner we walked down to the marshes and the water, with sign-post warnings about 10 metre tides, not to mention the brisk breeze, keeping our wanderings a little brief.