I was invited to a wedding in Norfolk. I had never been to Norfolk. In fact, even though I have visited many foreign countries, I don't know my homeland nearly well enough. The wedding was held in a lovely country hotel and so we thought we might as well get to know the area a bit.
The journey
Heathrow Airport, Friday afternoon.
My friend, Miss Maggie of maggiesmagicpantry.blogspot.com took the bus from her home to Heathrow and arrived at around the same time as my plane. We had a short wait for the shuttle bus to the Sheraton Skyline where we were to pick up the rental car. After signing away all my rights to everything ever and agreeing that I would take full responsibility for Armageddon and the like and would compensate the car rental company for any associated losses, we took possession of a silver Ford Focus Automatic. Not the M25, please not the M25. But the M25 it was. Needless to say we missed our exit to or from the M25 and we had to take a detour back round the freight terminal of LHR. Once on the M25, you know that you are there forever. And so it was. And it rained. And rained. And there was no need for the automatic transmission because we did not go fast enough to get out of first gear. For about 3 hours. Once we were off the motorway, the journey was much more fun and we passed through some pretty English villages, but thoughts of dinner waiting stopped us from taking photos. About 5 hours after leaving Heathrow, we arrived at the hotel.
Saturday morning tour of the village
The beautician at the Heacham Manor Spa managed to deal with the eyebrow emergency and I considered myself fit to appear at the wedding. After a delicious Heacham Manor breakfast, we went off to inspect the village. First priority when at the coast is always to get that glimpse of the horizon that frees my mind. A wifie in a high visibility jacket approached as we neared the car park to ask if we were there for the beach clean up. She clearly had not noticed the new hair cut, the little diamond earrings and the beautifully sculpted eyebrows.
This was my first view of the Norfolk coast which I had only ever studied on OS maps in geography lessons. The huts at Heacham are not quite as twee as the ones I saw on my South coast trip last year, but they surely give a lot of pleasure to their owners.
Get me to the Church on time
We arrived back at the hotel just in time to get into our finery and make our way to the Church. It had been raining a bit, so we decided to take the car. There was no chance of anyone getting lost between the hotel and the church thanks to the great signposting. We arrived at the church at the same time as the vicar pulled up in his muddy Land Rover. He looked rather scruffy, and I hoped that he had a nice vestment to wear. As it was, and unlike in the Roman Catholic church, he had decided not to outdo the bride and therefore wore a simple white surplice over a black cassock. The wedding reception was wonderful in every way and we enjoyed meeting interesting people in great surroundings sustained by enormous amounts of great food and drink and cake. Wonderful Norfolk hospitality.
Inspecting the AONB Norfolk Coast
Our Norfolk based table friends had given us lots of tips for places to visit on Sunday. Our plan was to drive to Cromer stopping off here and there along the way.
A crab sandwich and a glass of Sauvignon Blanc
It was only 10.30 and half an hour since breakfast, but it still took all the willpower we could muster not to have a little snack at this crab shack. The final convincing argument was that the crab shack does not offer SB and we were sure we’d find that essential combination a little bit further along the coast. Sure enough, a little later, in Wells, we found just the place.
Getting the spiders out of your brain
Norfolk has huge skies. It is flat, so when the wind blows, it goes right through your ears and whizzes around inside your head blowing out dust and spiders that have been there forever.
We pootled along the coast stopping wherever it took our fancy and enjoying the prettiness of it all. You could have a great week’s holiday spending a day in each of the little towns villages and beaches we stopped at.
Turnaround at Cromer to go back
The crab and wine box ticked we made our way to Cromer. A cup of coffee was in order. After all, we had been on the road all day. I felt strangely drawn to a sky blue hut. was sceptical and insisted on going inside to check the coffee machine before she would let me out of the car. There must have been a large chrome steamy monster of a machine, because Miss Maggie soon returned and we raced to see which one of us could feed the pay and display first. As we waited for our coffee, Miss Maggie muttered something about cake. Lemon cake. Now, normally I would have lemon cake with tea, but the coffee was ordered. We agreed to share a piece of lemon cake. It was buttery and lemony and tangy and delicious. The other guests were priceless caricatures of English seaside residents and day trippers. Two old crones sat side by side, facing outwards and commenting life the universe and everything. One of them was wearing a checked woollen headscarf. No photos: neither of us could quite manage to take photographs of random people. And I don’t take selfies when I am wearing a headscarf.
We still had a bit of time, and so we could return to Heacham via the coast road and see how it all looked in the evening light and from the other side. How lucky we were to happen upon this bluebell wood.
Final sunset in Heacham
We arrived back at Heacham Manor just in time for a last Norfolk sunset and spent the evening in the hotel lounge. It was eerily quiet after all the activity of the previous days. If you have not been to Norfolk, go. It really is a special place.
