Tag Archives: Norfolk

Holiday – Day 5, Day 6, Day 7 . . .

Sorry, I decided at the last minute that I wouldn’t take the lap-top to Norfolk with me when we popped down for a couple of days. It was a spur of the moment decision, and not necessarily one of my best planned. However, it was nice to have a few days off from the computer, even if it did leave a gap in my title sequence.

This wasn’t my choice of holiday, as I may have mentioned. I’m happy enough with a visit to Number one Son, but not particularly happy with the choice of week, which was sprung on me as an unwelcome surprise. Of course, while we were away the roofer turned up to start work. Typical.

Because it’s only a couple of weeks until the school summer holidays, a lot of people were trying to fit in a holiday before everything becomes too crowded. Of course, this just means it is crowded with people who don’t have kids. Car parking spaces were almost non-existent, camper vans were parked haphazardly (they seem to be becoming more popular) and tempers became frayed. Well, one temper definitely became frayed.

Barge on River Alde at Snape Maltings

Southwold was crowded, Snape Maltings was crammed and Holt looked like a scene from a zombie movie, if the zombies were all white-haired, accompanied by their wives and dressed in shorts and sandals.I have nothing against elderly men, in fact some of my most loyal readers may fit that description, come to think of it, so do I. The difference is that I don’t expose my shiny ivory legs to public gaze whilst wandering into the road and pointing out the joys of Georgian architecture to my long-suffering wife.

We had Monday’s lunch in the car park at Dunwich, which was not crowded. It seldom is. On Tuesday we also found a quiet spot, accompanied by a few cars a rusty bulldozer and some toilets, one of which has its own postcode.

We will be going back again during the summer but will do it as a daytrip. Then we will probably visit again in September after the kids are back at school. Not the first week they go back, as experience shows that can be busy – we will wait for a couple of weeks.I’m hoping it will be quiet and the weather will still be good.

It’s late and I’m not sure where I put my camera, so will post photos tomorrow, The photos with the post will be old photos from previous visits. They are probably better than the ones I took on this trip.

On Dunwich beach

Just Watching TV

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Southwold from the Pier

I’m watching Fantasy Homes by the Sea before going to work. “Fantasy” must have changed its meaning since last time I looked. It now seems to mean “imperfect”, “badly decorated” or “adequate”. They are nice enough but they don’t get my imaginatiob going.

The interesting thing is that they have been to Cromer and are now in Sheringham. So have I, in my search for piers.

They are just looking at beach huts. You can buy one for just £59,000 and rent it out for £60 a day.

They are now looking at a cottage at Bacton. It has flint walls, pantiled roof, a walled garden and seals on the beach. As fantasy homes go, it’s pretty good, though I just looked Bacton up on Wiki – with a gas terminal, a takeaway and a holiday village I may have to reduce the fantasy rating.

The woman on TV doesn’t really like it. She wants to redecorate and remodel. Or “rip it all out and start again” as she just said. I predict that, as usual, they won’t like it enough to buy it.

Another Day, Another Parcel…

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Subtitle: Postcodes (3)

NE6 is in the area between Newcastle and Wallsend. The former is known for a number of things, and the latter for being the end of Hadrian’s Wall.

The bit in between contains Byker, which is a well-known suburb and titular home of Byker Grove. The programme, in the manner of these things, was not made in Byker, but Benwell,a different suburb of Newcastle, and a different postcode – NE2. Oh, the magic of showbiz!

QLD 4209, being in Australia is, you would hope, a bit more exotic than the north-east of England. Reference to Google shows it to have a dual-carriageway and a cycle lane. They have wheelie bins by the roadside. And bungalows.

To be honest, I’d been hoping for something a bit more exotic – a dirt road maybe, and a shack.

The fact for the area is that it contains a town called Pimpama, which used to be a notable centre for the production of arrowroot. If they had “marketing” and focus groups in the nineteenth century they would, I suspect, have chosen a different name.

It’s next to the city of Gold Coast. You learn something every day, and today I’ve learnt that Gold Coast is a city. I’d always thought it was a description of the coast. To complete this segment, and take us back to Newcastle, Gold Coast became the sixth largest city in Australia in 2007, overtaking Newcastle, New South Wales.

NR29 is a Norfolk postcode, containing broads, marshes and some coastline. It’s only a couple of miles away from the Travelodge at Acle where we stayed for part of our recent trip.

The village of Rollesby is roughly in the centre of the area and has a rare round-tower church.

It may be my age, but I am more interested in churches with round towers than I am with the history of arrowroot in Australia.

Next: M32, KT18, BR6 and ME8.

An Evening in the Marshes

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After we’d had our chips we took a drive out into the marshes and Julia took a walk along the beach. I need a firmer footing so I stayed inland with the camera.

Hare on Norfolk saltmarsh

As I pottered about the marshes taking blurred photos of larks and pipits a hare came for a look. It’s strange how things always seem to pose awkwardly. In this case the hare managed to stay behind the intrusive fence wire. Then I failed to photograph a Cormorant, a Marsh Harrier and a flight of Oystercatchers.

I ended up at Blakeney harbour taking pictures of boats that were stuck in the mud. They are much easier than birds.

Blakeney, Norfolk

The car park is free to National Trust members, which was the high point of the holiday for me.

I could offer a more insightful view into marshland, tourism and the National Trust, but I won’t, because I’m feeling quite relaxed after looking at the photos and remembering the evening.

Sun, Sea and Sand. And Sunburn.

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I’m sitting here with several hundred photographs and experiencing that warm glow well known to bald men who forget their sun hats in the middle of a heatwave. It’s quite sore at the moment, though it’s nothing like it has been for the last few days. I never knew that my scalp flexed so much until it became painful to move.

In just a few hours I returned to a simpler time, to an era when sun wasn’t linked to skin cancer, and I was a carefree youth. I spent a week walking around Norfolk in 1976 and lost the skin off my back and shoulders. Since then I have been more careful – until I hit my second childhood this week. Anyone who is familiar with Swan Vestas will be able to imagine what I look like. (If you aren’t familiar, they are matches with pale stems and bright red heads).

We just had a few days in East Anglia. I’ve been taking more exercise than usual and getting more sleep so despite having plenty of material to write about I’ve not done much. Sorry about. When I eventually change the name of the blog I’m considering The Lazy Blogger as a title. It’s not only an accurate title but it’s pretty close to what Julia calls me all the time.

Britannia Pier, Great Yarmouth

Southwold Pier

Landguard Point, Felixstowe

Southwold Pier

I’m just getting back into my stride – it was the sort of holiday you need a holiday to recover from. Seven piers, two forts and a nature reserve don’t see themselves. I also had to consume two lots of haddock and chips and a cream tea for the purposes of research. Lesser men would have wilted under the pressure. I merely whined a little.

All will be revealed in due course.

For now I offer a selection of photographs of Julia in holiday mood.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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Life after the Care Farm