Woke up to a wonderful breakfast by the talent that is Chef Greg. He’s vegetarian, but man can the guy cook!
Around 10 am, we took off for a leisurely drive to Norfolk. It was absolutely lovely. I had no idea that Norfolk had Dutch-like windmills. Evidently, they had similar issues to Holland with the land being mostly swamp, so they hired the Dutch to help them pump out all the extra water.
After a brief interval searching for a loo at a Dinosaur park, we arrived at Reepham (which is the town outside of Norfolk where Kim lives).
Kim and Greg had graciously booked me a room above the local pub, so I checked in and we had a small lunch. Reepham is a lovely little town complete with some very interesting shops.
We drove to one place - Kim, what was the name of it? It was a huge store full of all kinds of gifty things. I picked up a glass cat for my friend Petra, then went across the street to the cafe for tea and scones. It was a beautiful day out, the weather was perfect. :)
We went back into town and looked briefly at a few stores in the main marketplace area before retiring for a nap. The nap was required as we were going on our 1940s murder mystery steam train evening that night!
Us
Thanks very much to Kim who went to all the trouble of locating a costume for me! She's a keeper, Greg!
I did learn that Kim could very easily have taken up a career in housecleaning...
The following is one of two (or was it three) dead bodies along the train trip:
Dead Body
We went home that night, and I prepared to sleep... in this ancient room above the ancient pub where I'm sure at least one ghost was living. So, I kept the light on all night long and didn't sleep at all. Scary!
9/13
Ahhh Sunday Sunday... and didn't have to meet Greg and Kim til 9:30 which left me with tons of time to ramble around the marketplace alone. I went to the local off-license and bought a few souvenirs and such.
Took a picture of the local thatched house.
And generally hung out.
Kim and Greg showed up, and we headed out for Cromer on the coast by the North Sea.
It was quite cold and windy on the beach...
but amazingly fun. We went to the RNLI museum which is a fund raising museum for Britain's "coast guard" which is a volunteer-run organization! I found lots of goodies in Cromer for my friends and family. Then, we headed into Norwich.
Had lunch at a cafe - food was great and company even better. There's a shopping arcade which we hit with a vengeance and a castle that looks a bit like a large crate. (We didn't have time to go through it.)
Norwich Castle
Drove back to Reepham to get ready for the grand finale that night which was... tadaa... the Tim Minchinconcert! Tim stumbled a little in the beginning - but he's known for ticking off just about anyone at any given time and making fun of things like racism, prejudice, religion, and politics.
I loved it. :)
"Oh, I can have a dark side... if you want me to"... he sang, but couldn't quite get through it without a "Yippee" and a tour down jitterbug lane.
His encore is what really sold me. He did a rendition of Leonard Cohen's "Halleluja"... the best version of that song I think I've ever heard. It brought the audience to it's feet (me included) cheering spastically.
What fun!
Unfortunately it all came crashing down...
9/14
Sad sad... I have to leave Kim and Greg today. God bless Kim - she's mailing me a ton of stuff so I don't have to carry it around with me. AND, they got up in the wee hours just to drive me a few hours west to Peterborough to catch my train to Edinburgh. We actually made it an hour ahead of schedule, and I was able to take an earlier train.
Yippee! (As Tim Minchin would say.)
Bye dear friends... and thank you for everything!
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