Friday 5 February 2016

Normal for Norfolk...

Spent a couple of very enjoyable days with old friends in Norfolk. They own the village pub in Syderstone - more by accident than design - and, after a facelift, it’s looking a treat… like a village pub ought to be. The beer - Adnams - is good, even better if you can drink it in one of the armchairs next to the wood-burning stove. Plans are to start doing food and offering bed & breakfast accomodation, so we spent a morning at an auction in nearby Fakenham, looking for furniture to decorate the bedrooms.

Even though most of the lots were junk, they all sold (briefly interrupting their progress to landfill). I found a box full of Ordnance Survey maps and, with no other bidder, got them for £3. My chums bought chairs, rugs and pictures, and didn’t break the bank either. It was a really downmarket auction, with the clientele determined to prove that every cheap stereotype about Norfolk people is true. The auction happens every Thursday, at 11am; hopefully I’ll be back there sometime soon, with some loose change and a camera.

The sky may still be grey, but the weather is warm. Hedgerows are beginning to come into leaf, and trees are in blossom, alongside the snowdrops, catkins and daffodills. There may yet be more snow, and arctic temperatures, but right now, on the Norfolk coast, there’s a definite feeling of spring in the air. I’ve ended up in Holt this evening, a compact little market town. After a couple of beers, and some free wifi, an early night beckons. Tomorrow I’ll take a wander round the Cley marshes with my monocular, check out the birdlife and hopefully take a few pix…

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