Perseids: Meteor light show set to dazzle

[BashfulAnthony]

It's sad that someone who claims to have studied astronomy as a hobby seems to have so little connection to the universe, but each to their own.

I don't "claim" it, as though there is doubt  -  nasty little insinuation there, and so typical of you.  Not finding burning pebbles as not having a "connection with the universe" is juvenile.  There are many amazing things to see in the night sky, every single night; and things which are infinitely more absorbing.. But you wouldn't know that.

[Rhiannon]

When one is bored of the Perseids.....

Indeed. I still find the sun mind-blowing, the moon, clouds - clouds, how many people look up and marvel at how staggeringly, beautifully amazing they are? But no, I guess they are just a everyday meteorological occurrence.

[Shaker]

If you're a cloud nut like me I heartily recommend The Cloud Spotter's Handbook by Gavin Pretor-Pinney. Smashing book, that

[Rhiannon]

Yes, I've heard of that. Lucky me, living in East Anglia - big skies. 

[BashfulAnthony]

If you're a cloud nut like me I heartily recommend The Cloud Spotter's Handbook by Gavin Pretor-Pinney. Smashing book, that

You're a "cloud nut?"  Well, I suppose tha's at least partly accurate!   

[Shaker]

Yes, I've heard of that. Lucky me, living in East Anglia - big skies. 

Lucky you living in East Anglia full stop

[Rhiannon]

Yes, I've heard of that. Lucky me, living in East Anglia - big skies. 

Lucky you living in East Anglia full stop

Yep, although perfection would be closer to the coast.

[Shaker]

Any particular bit? I'm so enamoured of the area that I even fell in love a bit with Walcott (of all places) on a cold, grey, blustery day. (I do love a good wild elemental day like that though, and being by the sea is best of all).

Even cheap 'n' cheerful Sea Palling has a special place in my affections, if you can believe that. Great holiday, though - happy times. The chap who used to own Stow windmill (he's since sold up, I believe) used to have a great big fat black and white cat just like mine at the time, that used to sit on the counter of the shop. Apart from nearly drowning myself in Hickling Broad, good times.

[Rhiannon]

Sea Palling is my kids' heaven on earth.  I really like it, I love its total lack of pretension and way it seems to have just evolved - all those little sheds and caravans that people live in behind the dunes. If you walk through the church yard and cross the road and then go right along the beach you get to Waxham which is totally different - it has a seal colony and this year we saw a common lizard in the dunes. Like you we all enjoy the elements - I never get why people complain about the grey skies of Norfolk - and there's nothing beats walking from Waxham back to Palling in blasting rain to finish up with coffee and fresh doughnuts in Charlie's.

I like the north coast too - Brancaster, Holkham etc - and the wildlife watching at Cley and Blakeney. But it's getting a bit chi-chi - Burnham Market is unbearable. Once the last not to small person is at university I'm most likely selling up and heading up that way - somewhere on the same stretch of coast as Palling, or maybe inland a bit, somewhere like Martham. To be able to walk on the beach every day would just be heaven.