Well now. That was all very exciting.
They had been forecasting snow in Scotland and North East England overnight, but not really very much around our way. A light snow shower or two maybe. So you can imagine our surprise when we woke up at 5:00 (!!!) on Saturday morning to find that Tupton had been blanketed in 3 or 4 inches of snow overnight. Not that this would normally be a problem, but we were supposed to be meeting Lindsey at Manchester Airport at 08:00. This required that we leave home at 6:30, even earlier if there was snow.
We got up and got ready to go. The Builder went down to let the chickens out - much to their astonishment. Not only was it still pitch dark, but it was cold - and what was all this horrible white stuff on the ground?
Lindsey sent a message to say that she had been delayed in Munich. Not absolutely sure why they had stopped in Munich, but they had. The web suggested that the plane would not now arrive until an hour later. Excellent. The roads might be snowy, but at least it would be light when we set off.
Off we went. And in fact, it wasn’t too bad. There was half the amount of snow in Chesterfield, not much more out over the moors, and virtually none once we had crossed the Pennines. The roads had been gritted. There wasn’t much traffic. We arrived in the Arrivals Hall more or less as Lindsey did.
Jenny-the-sat-nav has had a personality transplant and is now Kathy-the-sat-nav. Her helpful Belfast accent directed us back onto the motorway and then, bizarrely, off to Sheffield. Not absolutely sure why. Jenny never took us that way. And Kathy hadn’t brought us that way. Not to worry. In addition to an electronic map, I also have a paper one and we went down, through little villages and wooded areas, towards Disley and back onto the road to Chesterfield. Very pretty it was. And then on home, for a quick re-organisation of Lindsey’s bags, a potter around the snowy, snowy garden (the free-range chickens had elected to stay in the little run which is covered over and is therefore snow-free. They really, really don’t seem to like the snow!!) and a spot of lunch.
And so to Norfolk. We had a good run down. There was little traffic and the roads were clear of snow. And here we are in the boatyard of Barnes Brinkcraft, from whom I have previously hired cruisers for boating holidays in the broads. They have converted the former sail lofts into holiday apartments. Ours has a double and a single bedroom, together with one en suite and a separate shower room and loo room on the ground floor, a lounge room and a kitchen on the middle floor and two and a half bedrooms and a bathroom on the top floor. There are only three of us - we are not using the top floor! The double bedroom on the ground floor, plus the kitchen and lounge room have little balconies. Not that we plan to sit out in them - at the moment they’re dusted with snow. Quite a heavy dusting of snow! We also have the use of a little boat. I’m not absolutely sure that we’ll use that either.
The kitchen is sizeable and quite well equipped. Except that all the knives in the knife block are the bluntiest knives in a whole big blunty blunt world. The range is wonderful though. And there’s a tiny Zanussi dishwasher. One that might almost fit into our kitchen, if I could work out where to put it and how to plumb it. There’s also a Zanussi washing machine, not to mention a fridge freezer. This time there is a coffee pot, and even a double toaster. But not a single clock in the whole house. And no radio. Sigh - didn’t even think to bring my travel radio. Nor a clock
We had a chicken and vegetable pie we had brought from home for dinner, and some wine Lindsey found in the local supermarket (cunningly hidden behind a very large MacDonalds!!) and all slept very well.
We woke up to find that there had been more snow overnight (and it is snowing now, as I speak). Undeterred, Lindsey and I donned our winter outdoor gear and set off for a look around, leaving The Builder in bed watching the football program (so no clocks and no radio, but a television in every room except the kitchen!!). We’re in Hoveton, across the bridge from Wroxham, on the river Bure. We’ve found a Nisa corner store with Post Office, Roy’s supermarket, Roy’s toy shop, Roy’s pharmacy, Roy’s department store, Roy’s - oh just loads of Roy’s shops. We went for a walk along the river, and a boardwalk, and along the Hoveton staithes. We were nearly eaten by a dalmatian which didn’t seem overjoyed to see us out and about (although his dalmatian friend seemed happy enough) and almost violently attacked by a man who was also walking along the staithe - although I think he was probably out for his Sunday constitutional and we just hadn’t heard him coming along behind us until he said good morning! We came home and had a proper Sunday breakfast. And now we are planning what to do for the rest of the day.
The lounge room smells of chocolate. Raspberry chocolate bullets, courtesy of Lindsey, and a bag of Waitrose peppermint sweets, including peppermint chocolates. They’re very tempting!
Tuesday 30th November. St Andrew’s Day
And what we did was to go and have a proper Sunday lunch. We hopped in the car and drove up, across country, to Blakeney on the north Norfolk coast, and went to the White Horse where we had had lunch after casting Peter out into the North Sea. The countryside was beautiful, all brooding and white with the dark silhouettes of the trees looming. Lunch was lovely too - with huge thick chunks of rare roast beef and crunchy roast potatoes. Then we went for a walk out along the sea defence wall. We’ll not bother putting out walking boots on. Not planning a very long walk. And how muddy is it likely to be?
Bad error! The answer was “Very Muddy Indeed”!! We enjoyed the walk - but we did get very muddy feet. And it was very slippy. Everyone else was wearing wellies or proper walking shoes. Both of which we had. In the boot of the car :-S
Then we came back along the coast road and down the main road back to Hoveton. It was a very pleasant Sunday, if a little chilly.
We woke up yesterday to find that it had snowed again overnight. Everything was covered in snow. And ice. Lindsey and I went up to Roy-town to lay in supplies and found the traffic slithering and sliding about on the roads. We slithered and slid a bit too, even thought we were wearing our boots. We headed back to the - I never know whether to call it an apartment or a house; it’s a three storey terrace, more or less, but built out of the old sail lofts and feels like an apartment. Anyway, we headed back feeling that going out in the car might not be the best idea we’d had all day. Snow showers flurried by. No real need to go out at all, if we didn’t fancy it. We’re on holiday. We can do what we like. And there’s a pub in the village. We could always try that for lunch.
Then we thought: the river isn’t slithery and slippy. We have a boat. Let’s go out in the boat and head to Horning and see if we can find lunch there . So The Builder went and de-iced the boat and we all rugged up and off we set. It was beautiful on the river. And the top speed you can go is 5mph so you have plenty of time to admire the scenery and watch the birds and generally enjoy life. Although I can’t say that I enjoyed driving the boat through snow showers with no windscreen wiper! Lindsey came to the rescue with a towel and the ice scraper from the car, leaning out through the side window and wiping!
We were assisted in our mooring by a kindly gentleman who tied us up, and had a lovely lunch in the delicatessen in Horning, recommended by the kindly gentleman. Then we headed back to the boat and were just noting that the kindly gentleman was on his boat eating a pasty from the deli and reading the paper and getting very close to our boat - when there was a sudden noise. And the canopy of our boat … COLLAPSED!!!!!!!!!!! The Builder and Lindsey tried vigorously to get it back up again, after The Builder had rid the canvas of a load of snow. But to no avail. We had to cruise back to Hoveton effectively canopy-less. Mercifully there were no further snow showers until we had got back. We think the weight of the snow caused the canvas to tear, and it’s the canvas which holds the canopy in place. Just as well we weren’t standing underneath it when it gave way!
Apart from that, though, it was a lovely day. We don’t have enough daylight to go far in the boat, but (assuming they fix the canopy) we might well go out in it again on Thursday or Friday. Today, however, we will use the car. We want to go a bit further afield, and the roads are looking better today. Not in most of England, by the sounds of it - but East Anglia looks OK according to the news.
We have discovered that we *do* have internet access. But the signal isn’t strong enough to reach us in the sail loft. We have to go and sit in the reception office of the boatyard. Not absolutely convenient, given that we usually want to use the internet out of hours. But at least it’s there for useful things like banking and so on.
Wednesday 1st December (how did that happen?)
We had a lovely day yesterday. We wandered up to Blicking Hall, a National Trust property with a farm shop which is mentioned in the Top Ten Farm Shops in my guide to East Anglia. Can’t say that the farm shop inspired us all that much, but they did have some hogget chops which looked quite tasty. So we bought some of those and then made our way back to a shop called something like Farm to Fork and Fish which we had passed on our way to Blickling and thought looked quite nice. And nice it is indeed. Lots of lovely fish and seafood. Lots of lovely looking meat and stuff. We acquired the makings of a fish pie and then Kathy the sat nav took us across country to Ranworth.
We had a good, snowy walk along the boardwalk to the (closed for the winter) visitor centre on the Ranworth Broad, and then up along the road past the church and back down into the village. Lindsey was a bit surprised to find that Ranworth Broad is privately owned. How, after all, can anyone own a bit of water. But they do. Whole stretches of rivers are privately owned which can make it difficult to navigate around by boat. The publicly owned or at least accessible broad is Malthouse Broad; Ranworth Broad is a protected conservation area with lots of birds.
Anyway. Lunch. The Maltster pub appeared to be doing nothing much more than sandwiches, burgers and sausages. That was not enticing, so we drove back to a small brewery/pub/visitor centre/shop that we had seen earlier. The Fur and Feathers in Woodbastwick, near Salhouse Broad. You couldn’t fault the food - good, basic pub grub. The shop was quite fun too; lots of beery things. But I remember that I didn’t like the smell in Blackburn when I was a child and the brewery was brewing. I didn’t like it as an adult in Sheffield when the brewery was a brewery and not a block of expensive apartments. And I don’t like it still, even in small breweries doing proper brewing. The combination of malt and hops is remarkably unpleasant. Well, to my nose anyway!
We came home and Lindsey and I went for a wander around town. Then we settled in for a quiet evening just mootling. The Builder has been doing jigsaws. Lindsey had been reading. We’ve been watching the telly, eating and drinking and generally enjoying a relatively peaceful lifestyle.
There isn’t much in the way of snow and ice here now. But the Midlands and Yorkshire appear to have come to a standstill. Hallam is closed!!!!!! I can't remember the last time both campuses were closed without notice. Occasionally buildings get closed. A couple of times the city campus has closed when the power in the city centre was abruptly turned off. But ordinarily we struggle on as best we can.
Our boat is still broken. A man came and looked at it and took the weathered and tattered canvas roof away. It seems the metal bit is broken too. I think they are thinking they might simply give us a new one to play with. But not today. Today we are off to Cambridge to play.
Thursday 2nd December
I think that Joan assumed, when I rang to check that she was still OK to join us for lunch, that I was ringing to cancel. The news and weather reports are so full of dire stories of snowbound misery that she assumed that we had thought better of travelling. No snow where we are. No real snow where she is. Beautiful day in Norfolk. Beautiful day in Cambridge. Cold, I agree, but sunny and still. We'll risk the roads.
And the roads were fine. Not much traffic. Roads clear of ice and snow. We got to Cambridge with time to play in the market and the shops before heading to Girton to collect Joan for lunch. We had intended to go to The Plough in Fen Ditton. But it was CLOSED for redecoration :-( So we headed to Trumpingdon and to the Green Man. I have to say that the lunch was something of a disappointment. We may not go there again. But it was lovely to see Joan. She seemed quite well and cheery. And she enjoyed her onion soup. She was a bit disappointed that we couldn't go in for a cup of tea when we delivered her back home, but it was three o'clock and it was an hour and a half journey back to Hoveton and we didn't want to be travelling much after dark. Next time we'll arrange to go earlier.
Our return home was uneventful and we were back in time for a drink before our dinner of slow baked hogget chops.
Hallam has opened again, but only between 10 and 3 and with limited services and no teaching.
Friday 3rd December
We had a pleasant and quiet day yesterday. We went for an amble in Hoveton in the morning. They have a butcher, pharmacy, travel agency running in opposition to the ubiquitous Roy. The butcher has lovely things. We bought some chicken wellingtons for dinner and some pate and cheese straws for nibbling. We decided not to go very far, and not to ask if we could have a replacement for our still canopyless boat but to head to Horning in the car. It takes about ten minutes to get there in the car, as against the hour and a half in the boat! We had lunch in The New Inn - and very nice it was too. They obviously weren't expecting anyone. They were polishing the brasses when we got there. But they nevertheless rustled up very tasty beef and stilton pies for Lindsey and me and a more than acceptable steak and kidney pudding for The Builder. Plain, hearty food is one of the great joys of British country pubs. Even better when it's icy cold outside!
We went for a drive around North East Norfolk and then headed back to the house.
We have been looking at the weather forecast for The Midlands for the next couple of days. Yorkshire and much of The Midlands are still extremely cold and snow-covered. The forecast for Friday is for sunny, blue skies. The forecast for Saturday is more problematic. We don't particularly want to get stuck here, although the house would be available for next week I think, and the people in the house next door have extended their stay because they thought it might be hard to get to Sheffield. I am not due back to work until next Thursday and could probably take another couple of days if necessary. And there are certainly worse places to get stuck. The difficulty is that Lindsey is due to fly out from Manchester at the crack of dawn on Thursday morning and that might be more difficult to re-arrange. But more to the point - we don't want to get stuck on the roads and driving through sunny daylight seems to be the way to go. So we're heading off this morning. I must say - it looks lovely outside. There was a light dusting of snow here overnight and it's glinting prettily in the sunshine.
Off we go. Wish us luck
Thursday 2nd December
I think that Joan assumed, when I rang to check that she was still OK to join us for lunch, that I was ringing to cancel. The news and weather reports are so full of dire stories of snowbound misery that she assumed that we had thought better of travelling. No snow where we are. No real snow where she is. Beautiful day in Norfolk. Beautiful day in Cambridge. Cold, I agree, but sunny and still. We'll risk the roads.
And the roads were fine. Not much traffic. Roads clear of ice and snow. We got to Cambridge with time to play in the market and the shops before heading to Girton to collect Joan for lunch. We had intended to go to The Plough in Fen Ditton. But it was CLOSED for redecoration :-( So we headed to Trumpingdon and to the Green Man. I have to say that the lunch was something of a disappointment. We may not go there again. But it was lovely to see Joan. She seemed quite well and cheery. And she enjoyed her onion soup. She was a bit disappointed that we couldn't go in for a cup of tea when we delivered her back home, but it was three o'clock and it was an hour and a half journey back to Hoveton and we didn't want to be travelling much after dark. Next time we'll arrange to go earlier.
Our return home was uneventful and we were back in time for a drink before our dinner of slow baked hogget chops.
Hallam has opened again, but only between 10 and 3 and with limited services and no teaching.
Friday 3rd December
We had a pleasant and quiet day yesterday. We went for an amble in Hoveton in the morning. They have a butcher, pharmacy, travel agency running in opposition to the ubiquitous Roy. The butcher has lovely things. We bought some chicken wellingtons for dinner and some pate and cheese straws for nibbling. We decided not to go very far, and not to ask if we could have a replacement for our still canopyless boat but to head to Horning in the car. It takes about ten minutes to get there in the car, as against the hour and a half in the boat! We had lunch in The New Inn - and very nice it was too. They obviously weren't expecting anyone. They were polishing the brasses when we got there. But they nevertheless rustled up very tasty beef and stilton pies for Lindsey and me and a more than acceptable steak and kidney pudding for The Builder. Plain, hearty food is one of the great joys of British country pubs. Even better when it's icy cold outside!
We went for a drive around North East Norfolk and then headed back to the house.
We have been looking at the weather forecast for The Midlands for the next couple of days. Yorkshire and much of The Midlands are still extremely cold and snow-covered. The forecast for Friday is for sunny, blue skies. The forecast for Saturday is more problematic. We don't particularly want to get stuck here, although the house would be available for next week I think, and the people in the house next door have extended their stay because they thought it might be hard to get to Sheffield. I am not due back to work until next Thursday and could probably take another couple of days if necessary. And there are certainly worse places to get stuck. The difficulty is that Lindsey is due to fly out from Manchester at the crack of dawn on Thursday morning and that might be more difficult to re-arrange. But more to the point - we don't want to get stuck on the roads and driving through sunny daylight seems to be the way to go. So we're heading off this morning. I must say - it looks lovely outside. There was a light dusting of snow here overnight and it's glinting prettily in the sunshine.
Off we go. Wish us luck
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