Some difficulties of being 'In Transition'

This lovely picture is of the Blickling Estate, near Aylsham. A couple of weekends ago when my mum came to visit me we decided to go there for a day out. However, I had a grand plan of only driving to Wroxham then getting the Bure Valley railway to Aylsham and back, which would be more fun and lower carbon. Unfortunately as I had been too busy to check the times online we missed the first train by 10 minutes and the next one wasnt for another 2hrs. So that lovely plan was thwarted and we had to drive all the way, which admittedly was easier in some ways - our current public transport system is not particularly convenient. But that in itself is frustrating.

My other transport related irritation recently is that every book/ website/ leaflet written about cycling in Norfolk assumes that you are going to have a car to drive to the start of your cycle ride. Now I don't have a car and am quite happy cycling from Norwich, but I wouldn't mind a nice 'cycle rides from Norwich' leaflet...

Generally I think that pink and orange clash hideously, but nature has managed to create a very attractive pink and orange berry to confound me. Spindle is a wonderful plant and it's easy to spot the striking berries in the hedgerows at this time of year.

I have been meaning to gen up on edible mushrooms for sometime now and had great intentions of doing some foraging this year, but I turned out to be too busy starting new jobs. So as most of them only occur for a couple of months a year I will now have to wait 10 months before actually making a start on befriending fungi.

However after all of this ranting and moaning I would like to add that - as on my walk on the Norfolk coast on wednesday - there are rainbows everywhere in life! So don't give up on that pot of gold...

Photos: Blickling estate, the tour of Britain team cars on Grapes Hill, a spindle berry at Blickling, some fungi at Minsmere and a rainbow near Cromer.