shewhomust | Entries tagged with norfolk

Today has been enlivened by the sound of cars skidding on the hill outside: thankfully, no-one seems to have hit anything yet. So there'd be no prospect of going anywhere right now, even if we were not locked down. I distract myself with pictures of past travels.

On the last day of our holiday in Norfolk, as I wrote at the time (a year and a half ago), we saw the Bears onto their (Bittern Line) train at Sheringham, and then drove home by the scenic route via Cley. I thought we had explored Cley the previous day, but now our road took us through a completely different village. Suddenly, there was a church:

Well, of course there was a church. I ought to have known that there was more of Cley to see, since we hadn't previously found the church. But now here it was, very inviting in the late-afternoon sunlight, and we stopped for a look round.

( It was well worth a look... )

And since this was our last evening in Norfolk, we couldn't go home without finding our way to the beach - the expmnse of pebbles was a bit of a surprise!

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/743198.html

We aren't getting out much at the moment, because reasons, so I'm indulging myself with a post left over from last summer, in Norfolk, and some of the pictures I didn't post at the time. This one, though, may look familiar:

because I've posted before about Blakeney's village sign. But where else could I start a stroll around the village?

( Random pictures of Blakeney )

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/673520.html

Time for some holiday photos! I don't plan to revisit everything I posted about our trip to Norfolk, with added photos, but as I sort through the photos, some of them want to tell their own story. Starting - as we did - with Holt. Holt is an attractive eighteenth century market town, and you'd think that that would be what they'd want to tell visitors about, but no - Holt is all about the owls. The founding myth of Holt is "an ancient legend" that once upon a time some local men caught an owl, and put it in the Town Pound for 'safe-keeping'. Unsurprisingly, the owl flew away. On this basis, Holt has devised an Owl Trail, with a map, and markers set in the pavement:

( More owls, and other distractions )

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/654543.html

The second half of our week in Norfolk seemes to have whizzed past. Here we are in September already, and on our way home. The holiday isn't quite over, as we are returning via Ely, spending today with D. and

valydiarosada; the summer isn't quite over either, today has been hot and sunny and mostly very lazy. So this is a token catch-up post.

On Wednesday we walked along the coastal path in the other direction, towards Cley; a shorter walk than the path to Stiffkey, but a more interesting one, crossing rather than skirting the marshes.

On Thursday GirlBear and I visited Blakeney church, and a gift shop, and although

durham_rambler and

boybear declined to join us, we enjoyed ourselves. It was the Bears' last day with us, and we took them to Sheringham, and saw them onto the train (on the Bittern Line), then drove home via Cley, where we saw a completely different side of the village to what we had explored the previous day, including the church - which is wonderful, and deserves a post with pictures - and the windmill. In the evening we walked down to the Moorings:

where we dined on scallops, and a delicious stew of beans and artichokes, and a wonderful tart of respberries and crème brûlée (the accompanying vanilla ice, while perfectly good ice cream, did not add to the effect. If anything it detracted, and I have been trying to work out why...) and a bottle of falanghina.

On Friday morning (oh, wait, that was yesterday) we too vacated the cottage, and came to Ely via King's Lynn. I enjoyed King's Lynn once we had solved the challenge of paying for parking when we had no change, and the telephone payment system wouldn't work for us (a kindly parking attendant - for these do exist, and are not as rare as you might think - showed us where to press the button for an hour's free parking, which gave us long enough to buy a much-needed coffee, and so acquire coins). I wish we had had longer to look round.

And this morning we went into Ely, where the market was in full swing: "the tourist market" says D., dismissively, but I'm a tourist. And I bought plums from local orchards, and some fancy bread - and books, but since these were from a charity shop it may not count. But we still haven't done the tour of the cathedral.

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/650167.html

Today we have done many things, and come home weary but content. The only thing we failed to do was to dispose of the recycling: the recycling facility at Wells-next-the-Sea is closed on Tuesdays.

durham_rambler was indignant: "Who ever heard of a city dump that was closed..." In other respects we liked Wells very much. It wooed us with many bookshops, of which I liked the Old Station best, for its mix of pottery and books, its charming garden, its friendly cat. I bought cards at Crabpot Books, and two volumes of Patrick O'Brian from the bargain paperback shop.

Wells also has some impressive old buildings, a huge granary which is now flats, and the Maltings which is an arts and community centre. They have organised a sculpture trail around the town, which we followed. I enjoyed playing hunt-the-sculpture more than I enjoyed the individual pieces, but that's fair enough:

Lunch was crab salad at a friendly café, and an ice cream cornet (toffee and pecan) to carry round the trail. We shopped for our evening meal at the greengrocers and the deli, and finally at the Co-op near where we had left the car. By now we were ready for a cup of tea, and

durham_rambler had an inspiration and took us to the Wells and Walsingham Light Railway, where the Signal Box Café served us tea. There is a special summer holiday entertainment, in which the railway becomes 'the Enchanted Railway', with fairyland decorations and toadstool chairs and tables, which seemed entirely incongruous, but kept us entertained while we waited for the arrival of the Norfolk Heroine, the line's miniature steam engine (the heroine in question being Edith Cavell).

This revived us enough to visit Binham Priory, a ruined Benedictine monastery of which the nave survives as the local parish church - with the massive pillars of the crossing tower still standing isolated behind it.

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/649896.html

Yesterday was a wet Bank Holiday Sunday: we lazed about the house, completed the weekend crossword, and each went out alone when we felt like it. The only part of the day for which we had a plan was the evening, and that didn't work out. We had noticed the A-boards outside the Harbour Room, offering various musical entertainments, one of which was 'folk music in the bar' on Sunday, with the information that food was available at all music events, and had interpreted this as meaning that here was a place which served food, and while it might not always be available in the evening, when there was an event on, it would be. So we turned up at opening time to be told oh, no, we don't do food; the sign referred to something of the kind offered at Durham's pub quizzes, where random platters of chips or pizza or nameless pies are included in the entry fee. We decided that this didn't really suit us, and set off down the High Street in the rain. It took a while to find somewhere that wasn't already full, and we were a bit miffed at the Blakeney Hotel, which is huge, didn't seem all that busy, claims to welcome non-residents but asked if we were residents before saying that as we weren't they couldn't fit us in. Possibly they had a large number of unseen guests who were about to claim priority, but we got the impression we just weren't smart enough. Not much further on was the King's Arms, where we found a table and friendly service and warm and filling pub food (and the Bears were full of praise for the vegetarian special, char-grilled haloumi with salad).

Today the forecast told us that the chance of rain peaked at 40% at midday, so we decided to risk it: why does a 40% chance of rain seem less encouraging than it probably won't rain today? We walked the Coastal Path as far as Stiffkey, some four miles into the wind, sometimes with sunshine, sometimes not. The path was busy (no surprise on a fine Bank Holiday Monday) and while we weren't the only party without a dog, we were certainly in the minority. The path runs between farmland and the coastal marshes: our last sight of the sea itself was as we came down to the foot of Blakeney's High Street. But there were boats in muddy creeks, sometimes only their masts visible as we walked, sometimes more:

At Stiffkey we tuned inland, lunched at the Red Lion and then braved the traffic to visit the church. The story of the Rector of Stiffkey is one I learned from my father, and I would have liked to visit his grave, but we were frazzled by the cars trying to force their way down the narrow road, constantly stopping because they weren't comfortable passing each other when both were in motion, and since there was no pavement, pedestrians had to stop too. GirlBear tried to look around the church, but was distracted by kindly fundraisers offering her tea (she won a candle on the tombola).

We came home on the bus.

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/649649.html

We are, as the sign says, in Blakeney. So far we have seen neither seals nor fiddlers, but the week is young, and all things are possible...

ETA: A little booklet about the history of Blakeney casts some light on the fiddler. There is a story -

The story goes that a tunnel was once found running from Blakeney Guildhall to Binham Priory. A fiddler was the only person brave enough to enter, and so set off with his dog while the mayor and corporation of Blakeney followed above ground, guided by the noise of the fiddle. When the fiddle music stopped they believed the Devil had taken him and the dog, and they erected a mound to mark the last spot where the fiddler was heard!

After a little poking arond the internet, this is the version I like best, because it inks the story to the barrow known as Fiddler's Hill.

And now I know that story, I see that the sign shows the fiddler and his dog about to walk into the tunnel.

Crossposts: https://shewhomust.livejournal.com/649306.html

So yesterday we set off for Norfolk, to spend a week with the Bears. Had the roads been kind to us, we would have had time for a leisurely lunch and to drop our luggage at the cottage before meeting their train. The roads were not kind, and we only reached the station before the Bears did because the trains were not kind either. So we were able to relocate from the heritage railway to which the satnav had led us, to the actual station at which rhe train arrived, in the rain. We succeeded in cramming all four of us, plus luggage, into the car for the half hour drive to Blakeney, and now here we are.

Today the sun was shining. First business was gathering provisions to see us through the weekend, which we achieved by a visit to a fancy farm shop (called Back to the Garden) and a walking tour of Holt, an eighteenth century town obsessed with owls. We brought our purchases home, lunched on the patio, and this afternoon I went out to explore Blakeney. In the course of these two walks I have taken many, many photographs: flint-clad houses! the last of the summer's hollyhocks!

But these will have to wait, because it's time to cook dinner.