Mardle and a Troshin’ in Norfolk

Welcome to this the 13th book that I have had published. It is called “Mardle and a Troshin’ in Norfolk” and as the title suggests it’s an old Norfolk boy’s ramblings on a journeying through ten months of my everyday life experiences of living in the county of my birth. Although we will start off learning something about the Norfolk dialect. I will not be using it in the main chapters of this book as I realise that nobody outside of Norfolk would have a clue what it meant. For example: hold you hard and co to heck it’s a rum load of old Squit! See what I mean! The last sentence means: wait a moment he exclaimed what a load of old nonsense. Having reached the age of sixty six I have begun to realise that much of my life is behind me and that I am now beginning the downhill phase of my life towards the greatest adventure. Being an old person, I have noticed that every day, month and year goes by much quicker than it did before and most people are now much younger than myself. This realisation has helped me to focus on the here and now. I try every day to treasure and enjoy every moment, everything around me and smile as much as I can. To help me do this I have recently stopped smoking after more than fifty years, started walking the dogs most days and started a diet to reduce my current overweight self down to something much healthier. Whilst I enjoy reflecting on the fond memories of the past and the people that I have known I believe that you should always look to the future. It is not always healthy to spend too much time reflecting and remembering the past although it is important not to forget your past. So to help me to stop looking back to much I started ten months ago not only trying to enjoy every new day as much as I could but also to write  down any key personal events and experiences I had as they happened. After ten months I had a significant number of diary entries of everyday events written down. So as I have done in some of the other books that I have written in the past I set about writing this book. I hope you will enjoy joining me in this personal journey of ten months in my life. The artwork in the book has been produced by either scanning photographs or my watercolour paintings into my computer and then using a piece of art software on my PC that gives them an Impressionist effect…a bit like Claude Monet. Before we set off I thought the non-Norfolk reader may enjoy some brief examples of the strange way Norfolk folk speak and a few of the peculiar words we use. The Norfolk dialect is not heard so often these days but it can still be heard in the Norfolk countryside and villages. So after you have experienced and marvelled at our rich heritage of Norfolk dialect and the way we communicate in Norfolk. As I have already mentioned I will not be using any of these words or expressions within the main body of my book however, my Norfolk roots may, however, inadvertently express themselves in the grammar that I use…