Other people’s ordinary lives often look amazingly bizarre to me. The tough old fishing town of Åkre in Norway is a case in point. Bleak but brazen, the fisherfolk thought nothing of erecting their own radio masts for ship to ship communication, nor of customising their post boxes like little perfect pieces of public art. In the cold November gales at the back end of the north North Sea, a cat was my only audience and Paynes Grey was the hue of choice. Far from home l longed for post.