Off to Norfolk for a holiday

We got back a week ago from a week's holiday in Norfolk, but the complete insanity of the return to normal life has stopped me posting until now. Norfolk proved to be an inspired choice of location. We took an apartment about 3 minutes walk from Norwich Cathedral (we hadn’t realised it would be quite so close when we booked it!), right outside the Erpingham Gate to the Cathedral Close.

We spent some time exploring the cathedral, which felt rather tall and narrow compared to a lot of the cathedrals I’ve visited. Still very beautiful though, and with some new facilities built on the side that manage not to look obtrusive – a visitor centre and hostry, plus an education room (where I’d been to a conference a few months ago) and a refectory next to the library. Anyone else think a refectory next to the library is a GREAT idea?!

It was a monastic foundation and has impressive cloisters, including a labyrinth.

As well as a font that used to be used for making chocolate at a local factory. I kind of wish I hadn’t been baptised already so I could be baptised in it.

Apart from the cathedral Norwich itself is stuffed full of medieval churches, some redundant, some still functioning as churches but most of them operating Fair Trade cafés at incredibly reasonable prices. Must have been living in the South-East for too long as I’d forgotten it was possible to buy a cup of tea for less than £1!

This one is St Andrew’s Hall, which is now used for all kinds of concerts, productions, table top sales and other stuff, as well as having a café in the crypt.

And St Julian’s, which has the Julian Centre next door, all about Julian of Norwich who wrote Revelations of Divine Love in the 14^th century.

I also liked the winding medieval streets and alleyways, some of them with amusing names.

The 900 year old Norwich Castle keep has been turned into an art gallery, Norfolk museum and natural history museum. Inside the keep itself there’s various exhibits, mainly aimed at children (but they were quite fun for adults too, I made sure I'd checked all of them out)

We had a day out to the seaside at Cromer and Sheringham. We weren’t too impressed with Cromer, but Sheringham, which I used to visit quite often for my previous job, was just as good as I remembered.

As well as the beach we went up to Sheringham Park  for a walk with some beautiful views across the parkland to the coast.

Before finishing off with a walk around Sheringham itself, another cup of Fair Trade tea (it seems to be ubiquitous round there, wish it was like that back in Staines) at the Funky Mackerel café on the promenade and then fish and chips in the evening.

Back in Norwich we enjoyed some evening walks along the River Wensum, which curves its way through the city, including around the cathedral close.

The whole city has been set up with information boards everywhere about the many historic sites. It is also largely pedestrianised in the centre, which makes it very easy and pleasant to walk around. Although we brought the car on holiday it would be very easy to come here by public transport (all the places we visited were served by both buses and trains, and sometimes steam trains too) and the centre of Norwich itself is compact and easy to visit on foot. In fact much easier than it would be by car, Oxo spent most of the week parked at our holiday apartment!

On the last day we walked to the Catholic Cathedral for a visit, which is just outside the inner ring road (but that’s only a 15 minute walk from the shops in the centre!)

There has been some knitting activity too. I pretty much failed at my Iron Knitter knitting (I am meant to be steaming away on  a pair of socks, but everyone else seems to be much much further on than I am). We also found the time to visit two yarn shops... but I’ll save that for my next post!

I bought the OH a dalek which then tried to ex-ter-min-ate my knitting...

Lincoln adventures

Well, now I've calmed down a bit from the BIG Lincoln adventure - the getting engaged bit of it, which was definitely the MOST exciting part. And got fed up with answering questions about dates (no idea), wedding dresses (don't care, but I do want to knit a shawl), where it's going to be (not in Lincoln) etc, it's time to blog about the other bits of the Lincoln adventure. Thank you for all the comments on my previous blog post - I think that was a record number received! I *think* I've managed to reply to everyone I had an email address or a blog address for.

Ever been back to the place where you grew up, and viewed it as a tourist? This visit to Lincoln was a bit like that. We did lots of things I'd never have done on my own, like wandering up to have a look at the cathedral at night.

And wandering around Castle Square. And going for a drink in one of the pubs around there - can you believe I've never done that? I didn't go to secondary school in Lincoln, so I've never really socialized there at all, despite living there for about two thirds of my life.

One day we went round the Castle, something I haven't done since I was a kid. This is the cathedral from the top of the Observatory Tower.

And the view from the entrance turret into the castle, with the Crown Court in the centre and the old prison buildings to the left.

Another day we went round the medieval Bishops' Palace, again, something I haven't done since I was extremely small. There was more to it than I remembered, and it was once an incredibly important building, bearing in mind that Lincoln diocese, until the mid-19th century, stretched all the way down to the banks of the Thames, close to where I'm living now.

Above is looking up what was a hallway towards the entrance tower, with the cathedral in the background. Below is the inside of the Lower East Hall, at ground floor level, which was built between 1186 and 1200.

Another trip we made was to Belton House, near Grantham, which is where some of the BBC Pride & Prejudice was filmed (Belton starred as Rosings Park) and is also where I once worked. I actually got the phone call inviting me to the interview for my current job whilst standing in the cupola on the roof here - the only place I could get mobile phone reception!

The OH enjoyed all this immensely - he'd never been to Lincoln before and is even more history-obsessed than I am so he had a whale of a time. This is him looking at the fountain at Belton. We also enjoyed visiting Jew's Court in Lincoln, where the Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology have a bookshop stocking loads of local history.

Another view of Belton, the lake, which was always a little bit too far away to reach on a lunchtime walk!

And the Arboretum, where we went for several walks.

Oh, and on the way back from Belton we had a slight run-in with a 4x4 after a moped appeared out of nowhere at a junction and I couldn't stop in time. If we'd hit a normal car nothing worse than a dented bumper would have resulted, but as it was a 4x4 Oxo's radiator was punctured by its tow bar, the bonnet and bumper damaged and the number plate smashed. And we hit at less than 5mph as the airbags and seat belt locks didn't activate! Poor Oxo had to be loaded onto a truck and returned without us to Staines (we still haven't got her back from the garage over two weeks later!) and my Mum had to transport us south the next day with all of our stuff. A bit of a pants end to a lovely holiday.



We've managed quite successfully without a car for the last two weeks. Fortunately we both go to work on the train, and there's a supermarket within walking distance, and my church is only 15 minutes walk away. But it will be nice to have her back again!

I'm off to Cambridge for some of next week, attending a conference, so not sure when I'll next be posting. And next Saturday is the Iknit Weekender!!

Staines

The house move has been accomplished.
Between us we had three lorries. The Other Half had 63 boxes of stuff, I didn't have quite as many, but still quite a few. We had boxes stacked everywhere. We had to have a one way system to get round the living room.

Thanks to the Herculean efforts of the Other Half, all the boxes have been unpacked and removed by the removal company. Oh, and Monkey's Herculean efforts too, obviously.

(note to Other Half: did you actually see Monkey unpacking anything? He looks totally knackered in the pic but all I ever saw was him lounging around?)

Once the boxes had disappeared we were free to enjoy the comforts of the new house:

The garden. I washed all my handknitted scarves and hung them out to dry. It is VERY nice having a garden again. Yes, that is a train in the background.

The garage. Which is VERY narrow, and our road is, ahem, popular for car parking, so it can be very tight getting into the garage. So Oxo got scraped. Oops. Sorry Oxo.

Walks along the banks of the Thames.

The posh kitchen.


We have a dishwasher in the kitchen. I am in love with the dishwasher. I think it's great. It's so clever. No more washing up! I am also in love with the washing machine, which didn't come with the house, it belongs to the Other Half. It's a very posh washing machine, and much more intelligent than me. I have reassured the Other Half that I don't love the dishwasher and washing machine as much as I love him. (and anyway, he's very good at loading and unloading the dishwasher and washing machine, as well as doing ALL the housework. So all I have to do is cook! And a little bit of ironing. Cool or what?!)

The commute to work. Which is very cool indeed. It's a short trot to the station, then 13 minutes on the train, then a 10 minute trot to work. In fact, 13 minutes is proving a little too short a commute to get much knitting done. Plus, commuting OUT of London means that there are loads of seats. The trains have air conditioning. Apart from one day, the trains have all been on time or early so far. This is SO much better than driving through Slough to work every day...

Walking in Windsor Great Park:

And I've even got some knitting done. The Rib Fantastic socks are nearing completion! I'm trying to get a few projects finished off before I start anything new.

Moving places and swine flu

Eeek, it's nearly a month since I last posted! How did that happen? Well, once again, exciting things are happening. I will be leaving Slough far far behind on Thursday this week, to move to Staines with The Other Half. I'll be very happy to leave Slough behind (there is currently a pile of dog poo sitting outside the entrance to my block of flats, plus a lovely smell of excrement, and I found a used syringe lying around last week) and I'm extremely excited about moving to Staines.

Several people wanted to know more about my OH, so I thought I'd post a couple of pictures:

This is him washing the floor at our new house (we got the keys last week!):

And this is him cleaning Oxo:

Spoilt? Me?! See, isn't he lovely?! And he has seen the size of my stash and is prepared to move in with it... Although he has a LOT more books than me, but I'm much more interested in his books than he is in my yarn!

We've been out and about as well as househunting. Having fun reading the silly messages in Puccino's in High Wycombe:

Admiring the sheep at Deen City Farm in London, after we'd visited Morden Hall Park and walked along the River Wandle.

Oh, and avoiding having swine flu. There was an outbreak very very close to me so I ended up having to take Tamiflu - not nice, only 3 more doses to take. Horrible stuff. Fortunately neither of us caught it, although I suspect having swine flu is better than taking Tamiflu.

Knitting update soonish (I will be without broadband for a while after the move) as I still haven't blogged about the GetKnitted workshop! I'll leave you with a picture of the Thames at Staines: