New Meetings in Norwich

Well, I had a lovely day. At the weekend, I e-mailed SusieH to see if she was free to meet up, as we've been promising to for several years now, and I was on holiday; and she was!

We had a slightly rocky start - we'd agreed to meet at "the station" and I got to Norwich, hung around for a few minutes and then checked my phone (which even at full blast has a pathetic little ring, unless you're in the middle of a cathedral - see below...) to find that I was at Norwich, and Susie was at King's Lynn... Major crossed wires. S is blaming herself; I think it was definitely six of one and half a dozen of the other... But we met!

And we had lunch at the very wonderful Belgian Monk. Mussels, cheese croquettes and other wonderful things including, of course, frites with mayo, were eaten. (We'll have to meet up again; the next lunch is on me.)

Then I had the pleasure of introducing Susie to the wonder that is Country and Eastern, just behind the City Hall in Bethel Street. Half the attraction is in the wonderful things they sell, and half is in the beauty of the building. It used to be an ice-rink.

Here's the upstairs.
We ambled through the shopping streets, and went to the cathedral. I'll blog more about that later, because I'm hoping to do a post a day in October to celebrate my fifth blogiversary, but it was lovely.

Halfway round the cathedral, a text came in on my phone (which it turns out, despite being inaudible on a train, is incredibly loud in a cathedral) - to announce the new arrival of a bébé-cousine, a second child for my cousins, and a girl this time, to accompany her 3-year-old brother. As well as the good news on the text, the fact the message was being sent less than 2 hours after the birth was also reassuring!

In the circumstances, lighting a candle and saying a prayer seemed like a good idea. Welcome to the world, little as-yet-nameless one; you are so much wanted and anticipated, and it'll be a magic adventure. May you be happy.

While you're busy growing up, your semi-auntie will be on Ravelry queueing girlie stuff...

Safari

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... Rosie and I went to Norwich to hunt baby elephants ... And photos were taken, and it was seriously good fun.

This is Intricate Izzy, decorated by the students of Hellesdon High School,

There was then a shed of even more baby elephants, decorated by primary schools. Some of these were earnest, some of them just great fun...

... here's the Hundertwasser one. I have no idea how primary school children know about Hundertwasser; I have no memory of Art History lessons; but kudos to whichever teacher did this...

This is the Rime of the Ancient Mariner Elephant in the Mall... [no, I didn't understand the connection either but it was beautifully done...]

And look - a Shiny Thing!

That one was called "The Angel" and was in the rather fabulous Royal Arcade...

This one is "Hefty-Lump" and was in Chapelfield Gardens, near the bandstand... and then we went into the foyer of the Theatre Royal to look at "An Afternoon with Stephen Fry". A man sitting on a hippotamus on the side of an elephant... I really hope he saw it.

There were loads of others; we saw over 20 on the day... Here's Rosie taking pictures of another...

and here's a sticker you wouldn't normally expect to see in Norwich; the conjunction of stuff on that door was interesting!

And the last one we saw, the Welsh Elephant (Ellifant Cymraeg)

It was one of the rare warm days this summer and occasionally there was sun; and so many people were out clutching elephant-locator maps, and laughing self-consciously with each other about being there, and taking pictures of their tiny children clutching the elephants' legs... It was lovely.

We also took in a very nice lunch and some decadent afternoon wine-drinking at The Belgian Monk, and (prepare to be shocked here) neither of us bought any yarn. I know. But knitting and crochet were done on trains...

Holiday at home: Norwich

I've been here this week, generally getting things sorted out for work and so on...


Funny sort of day on Monday. I decided to try Marks and Spencer for work-clothes. Checked their website, verified which stores had a Plus department, decided on Norwich (I'd been to Peterborough earlier in the summer)... Got there after an hour and a half on the train and half an hour's walk up the hill - no Plus department. None anywhere, apparently, now! I'm not going to have a rant here - I've channelled my energies into a stinking complaint letter with attached rail ticket for refund, which should have got to them today. We'll see whether it brings any results. But evidently the M&S website is pretty out of date, so don't trust it for any other details either!

Given that I'd drawn a blank there, I made the best of the rest of the day which was sunny and warm. Country and Eastern, one of my favourite Norwich shops, had moved; but they'd left directions to their new store on the shopfront of the old one and it was spectacular, a renovated Victorian skating rink.

This photo was sneaked from the top balcony, where the small textile items are, looking down at the furnishings, architectural features etc. below... There's a picture of how it all looked as a skating rink here. I only bought one small item and it's a present...

I also had a thoroughly lovely holiday French lunch at a basement place in the market-place I've been to before. I think it's called the Wine Cellar now - I'm pretty sure it was called 'La Vigne' or something last time. Anyway. They do something called a 'meze' which was actually a plateful of warm duck confit and merguez, caperberries, tapenade, grilled baguette and salad... there are fish and veggie versions available too. And a very nice glass of Picpoul de Pinet. Perfect. I could almost hear the cicadas.

With my usual unerring sense of direction, once I had really, really tired feet I headed out of town back over the river... forgetting entirely that Norwich is in a loop of the river. I should know this - I did, after all, go to school in Durham, which is a more extreme version of the same phenomenon. So I saw a bridge, crossed it - and, it turns out, headed dead north for the station, which is actually at the south-east of the town... After a while, I found the bypass - and had a not-so-happy 45 minutes following it round the town to the station... By the time I was getting back to the river, though, the sun was setting, and it did all look very pretty...