I see and hear the queue getting longer by the hour for those determined to make it a good old winter of discontent just as November beckons and it really does get late earlier.

“Black Hole Budget”  blues, American election alarms,  seemingly endless conflicts in Middle East and Ukraine,  scatty weather and widespread destruction of our countryside are just some of the topics dominating an agenda of doom and gloom.

It’s hard to be too optimistic in times like these … but I found precious grains of solace in a couple of gentle jaunts along and around the North Norfolk coast.

They enabled me to usher into play a few of my favourite words …character, cherish, durable, inviting, peaceable and space.

Perhaps they did emerge more readily as an unlikely warm sun stirred the soul and brought extra appeal and colour to the familiar.

Geese arrow over moody marshes. Rusty leaves leap up and whirl round village war memorials waiting to be decked out in fresh crimson.

Turned-up collars are back in fashion along the coastal catwalk. The old game of “spot the local” is suddenly easier to play.

I  confess to plotting a deliberate path towards a revivalist tent on the village green, marvelling at the uncertainty of country days to come.

Does that big glaze of berries portend rough weather? A little bird whispered in my ear: “If on the trees the leaves still hold, the coming winter will be cold”. 

That’s a relief. Bound to stifle all that moaning about not getting winters like we used to. But how many wives still believe in their oldest tales?

Wandering along a few hedgerows inland  I  wonder again how Letheringsett keeps its nerve and rural feel  despite a constant snake of traffic through its heart.

It’s then a delightfully long stretch to Langham after leaving he main Holt to Fakenham highway.. Pheasants, pigs and inkpen branches abound as the eye lifts easily from clearly-defined fields to wide open skies.

There’s a rare residence on the right. How did Smokers Hole get that name?

I’ve asked several time but received no reasonable answer. Norfolk ignorance can be bad for your health.

Perhaps it used to be a secret stopping point for school cross-country runners finding the whole athletic business bit of a drag.

A brief stop in Langham, trim and comfortable, means fond salute to nautical novelist Captain Frederick Marryat (1792–1848).

He lived and farmed in the village and is buried in the parish churchyard.  Charles Dickens found time to pay him a Norfolk visit and turn a few pages together.

Cockthorpe church plays hide-and-seek among the trees in a “blink-and-you-miss-it” community. Morston church stands castle-like on a knoll, a chunky square tower partly rebuilt in red brick in 1743 to give it a marble-cake flavour.

Stiffkey clings to an eternal belief that no amount of vehicles passing through in search of other coastal charms  can destroy its inherent good looks and self-sufficiency – a brave stand slightly easier to take as colourful leaves wait for frost, wind and rain to rout them.

I crunched down a path to the village church full of thanksgiving for diversity of character ; justice of the peace Nathaniel Bacon; controversial rector Harold Davidson as he brought his own ideas to the art of saving fallen women;  and part-time farmer and full-time writer Henry Williamson.

Their contrasting talents and temperaments brought notoriety to this little corner of Norfolk.

I stood quietly to imagine the morning of Remembrance Day in this parish as hallowed names flutter down from the sturdy tree of life.

Some may treat these moochings and musings as nothing more than  weedy escapism from the harsh challenges and realities of life.

I prefer to see them as a handy form of therapy to appreciate anew so much rich history and character ready to be shared in our relatively small communities.

I recall a marathon voyage of fresh discovery and timely reminders in 1998 when my wife and our two sons joined  in search of Hidden Norfolk for my latest book.

An invitation to explore my native county’s quieter corners and some of its lesser-lauded personalities soon made it obvious I still had plenty to learn.

Yes, I renewed acquaintance with several old friends but some had changed almost beyond recognition since our previous meetings – and there’s no doubt I looked a bit different from the scrawny lad who biked towards so many wonderful findings  during the 1950s.

Most of my meanderings since in the name of growing old gratefully  have been blessed opportunities to keep on reminding myself of Norfolk’s unfading delights at a time when it’s sheer folly to take them for granted.