Daily Routines

We are slowly getting the hang of how things are done in Britain, and specifically Norwich. It's amazing the little everyday things that you take for granted.

Some things are to do with living in a different climate.



Even on a fine-looking clear morning there may still be thick ice to scrape off the car before you go anywhere.

Then there is our job at the University of East Anglia.




With jobs we have held elsewhere we have been free to do anything - even go home or go shopping - at times when we weren't teaching. In this job we have to stay "at the office" between classes. Nevertheless this room is office for more than 30 teachers, but there are only 15 desks and 5 computers. They call it hotdesking, but we call it not putting true value on your teachers.



This is outside the teachers' room - no great views here - do you notice the bunnies?



We still find it funny to have them hopping about everywhere at the University.

The Secret Garden

At least we have weekends off. Last weekend we opened up a Norwich Visitor Map, to find somewhere to go and see. A place called "Plantation Garden" was recommended.

"A wonderfully restored idiosyncratic Victorian town garden including a gothic fountain, a rustic bridge, an Italianate terrace, an amazing "medieval" wall and hundreds of architectural details fashionable in the mid 19th century."

Well that might be worth seeing.

It was a little hard to find, hidden between the Catholic Cathedral and the Beeches Hotel.



It seemed to be in a bit of a hole. We had been wondering recently where all the flint-stones came from for the magnificent old buildings around town - well this is one place. Flint and lime were mined here, and then the whole thing kinda fell in I gather.



All these amazing walls and stuff were made from oddments from a brick factory.



It's a bit like when someone at a beach resort decides to cover their house with collected shells - interesting for the first few hours and then it's all just a bit much.



We found the gothic fountain, with a massive goldfish swimming around.



We had fond memories of PlaySchool and looking through the arched window.



There were so many of these bits scattered around.



If this had been China there would have been no moss growing on that knob, everyone would have been convinced it was lucky to rub it.



This sign near the garden entrance was a bit of a puzzle.



We saw one little frog - actually, I think it's a toad! - hopping around the gravel by the fountain. Actually, there were at least two, so maybe in Spring there'll be lots.

What can I say. At two pound a pop ... well there was an honour box ... maybe you can save your money now that you've seen this.

Touristing around Norfolk

We weren't sure what there is to see in Norfolk. Someone suggested the north coast, places like Cromer and Sheringham. Looking on the map there are lots of red touristy symbols around there, so we thought we might take a look.



It wasn't difficult to find a parking spot, and yes, we did 'pay and display' ... though I'm not entirely sure why.



Ah, there's a sandy beach. Not exactly the wildness we were expecting - that must be further along the coast out of the town.



I'll bet this place is humming in the summer!

We were so so cold, and as usual we needed to find a toilet. We wandered around the small township of Sheringham, and were pleasantly surprised to find that their public toilets (unlike most of these little towns') weren't locked.



Around midday a few more people started to appear on the streets, and some of the shops opened up. We found a little shop and had a cappuccino.



And then we got out of the wind in this charming little shop. What amazing stuff this chap sells. Great place to go for that little something different.



Then we tried to drive along the coast and see these great beaches. But all we could see was fields with the sea beyond - there seemed to be no way to get nearer.

We were hungry, and needing the toilet again. Someone had told us that there is an old Roman Village at Caister-on-Sea, so we went there. They didn't tell us it's a ruins with barely a metre of wall still standing. And the toilets in Caister were locked and barred, and there didn't seem to be any eating places open at all.

Filby

We drove back towards Norwich, and came across a little place called Filby. Couple of houses and a pub, and a road-works traffic light that made us sit still long enough to turn off the engine. That was when we noticed a sign offering a pub lunch ... and pubs have toilets too.

We ordered a meal each - Peter had pork and I had turkey. They served up a huge plate - like a large serving dish - absolutely loaded, but rather lacking in colour! There was the (off-white) meat, and (off-white) stewed cabbage, (off-white) lumps of cauliflower, a couple of (pale brown) roast potatoes, a (pale brown) yorkshire pudding filled with (light brown) gravy, a few cubes of (pale yellow) swede, and some ORANGE slices of carrot.



English food, ay! Not something to write home about. There are so many amazing cooking programmes on TV here, same as Autralia, and yet these chaps can't be bothered to chuck on a sprig of parsley or something to add a bit of visual appeal.

February Snow

It was the even-more-than-usual number of emergency vehicle sirens we kept hearing in the busy street outside our little terraced house that made us peek outside and realise it was snowing. Just the other day everyone was commenting on how the mild weather had brought the daffodils out in flower a month or two early, and the grassy street verges are bursting with crocuses in bloom. And now it decides to snow.



It snowed for quite a while, but not all night. We had to do a bit of scraping before we could go out in our car this morning - good thing it's a Saturday.



Unfortunately that's no longer snow on the pavement. It has turned to hard, slippery ice - and I'm not much good at walking on ice!



You can tell he's not a Brit, because he's out photographing snow!



And the funny thing was that at first he headed out the door like any good Oz, in bare feet - not for long, though.



I was out the back too, in my pink fluffy slippers. Our tiny back yard is all snowy, but the sun is beating on our house ... if only there was a little warmth in it.



The kitchen window looks out onto the 'conservatory'. It has no windows, but at least the roof is perspex. The other night it was windy and a tile clattered off the roof right through the conservatory roof. But we still have our little windowsill garden of pot plants.

Norwich Castle

So, what do you think?

That's what we thought too - that's not a proper castle! What were they thinking ...?

But wait! There's more!

First we had to make some decisions about what to pay to go inside.



There are zones! We decided that - interesting as it might be - we had not come to see the art gallery. So we chose the castle and history zone, and then we opted for a guided tour of the battlements and the dungeon.

Just like the Tardis

The inside almost seems bigger than the outside - and certainly a whole lot more interesting. The outside facade was built in the Victorian era, but the inside is still very old.



There are lots of displays of different kinds, puzzles and games for kids (big and small), and models, and electronic displays and reconstructions. We found it very interesting.

There were guides who gave an interesting tour - for no extra cost - and as well as the dummies (above), there were various people walking around in period dress.



The Battlements

The battlements tour costs a little extra, and it's truly freezing cold up there at this time of year!



But the views, of course, were brilliant, and as we walked around each of the four sides of the castle keep we were told stories relating to buildings and landmarks we could see and the history of the castle over the centuries.

The Dungeons

For hundreds of years the castle became a prison. For a little extra again we did a tour of the dungeons below the section of castle outside the keep.



Obviously not a good place to take photos ... this was a dunking chair. There were a number of death masks - molds made from the dead faces of hanged criminals hundreds of years ago. Some of them had interesting stories to tell.

The Great Hall

In the main keep one of the displays was a model of the castle in its early days. I stuck my phone up to the window of the doll's house sized model and took a photo of the feasting going on inside.



The "Borrowers" (remember the old books??) would have fun in a place like that.

But all in all it is an interesting place, well worth a visit.

Normal in Norwich

Of course no one we meet ever thinks we are normal. They ask us simple questions like "Where are you from?" and we can't seem to give a straight answer ... and then they detect some sort of 'twang' in our speech and wonder if we are from America, or maybe New Zealand.

Well, we are far more normal than that, folks! Not only are we from Australia, but we are from Western Australia.

But just for now we are going to be living in England ... oops, sorry, here we call it 'the UK' ...
We are going to be living in the UK in a normal house - a 'delightful' Victorian terraced house in a normal street (with nowhere to park our car because there is a double yellow line outside our front gate.)

Across the Country

We were living peacefully - though not very normally and certainly not profitably - in beautiful hilly Torquay, in Devon. We had an idea which didn't work out, at least at this time of year, and so we ended up spending a couple of months pottering around like a couple of retirees with nothing definite to do ... pleasant enough but a little scary to see how quickly retirement can turn into endless lie-ins and, in foul weather, not leaving the house for days at a time, glued to the computer and/or TV screen.

And then 'they' said would we like to have jobs again and come to East Anglia right now?

We spent several days peering at Google Earth aerial photos of Norwich, comparing them with ads for rental properties, trying to work out where we would live. 'Moving over Christmas ... that's difficult!' the agents all said - they all closed down from several days before Christmas until several days after. And there were referencing checks to be done, and they couldn't possibly let us have a place that we hadn't viewed.

We were intending to spend Christmas with our Australian friends, Crosby and Susanne, near Cambridge (only an hour from Norwich), so we could just keep on going from there. We persuaded an agent to do our referencing by email, and our new boss went and looked over the house.

So we popped our bags of clothes into the car. And we lugged our telly into the car. (Yes, I said 'telly', that's what they say here.) And then the car was full, but there was a whole lot more stuff to take - like cans of beans, and towels and pillows, and last minute stuff. So we filled up every last little hole with this and that - we had to be really careful about opening the back doors because stuff would come tumbling out.

All the way by motorway

British roads are brilliant. We found we could go up to Exeter onto the M5, then north to Bristol and switch to the M4, then east to London's ring-road the M25, around the northside of London as far as the M11, and then all the way to Norwich (although by then is is only the A11). It's a six-hour trip, nothing to an Aussie.



When we left Torquay it was cold ... but it got colder as we got away from the coast. Our car has an outside temperature thermometer, and it didn't rise above 0.5 degrees until around midday when the weak sunshine broke through the mist and sloped across the hills to touch the road.

The biggest problem was the black muck that was thrown up onto the windscreen, and then it would set (or maybe freeze). Soon enough our windscreen washer was out of water, and we pulled into a petrol station to find some more water. There were rows of cars with their bonnets up and people handing around empty milk-bottles to fill from the tap ... everyone had the same problem.

We later realised that in this weather the motorways had all been salted. (Hey, John, remember those big bin things we saw by the roads? They've got rock salt in them.) By the time we got to Norwich our car was coated in black salt sludge and our numberplates - like everyone else's - were obliterated (so much for the endless speed cameras!)

First taste of Norwich

Our house wasn't ready - they were putting in a new boiler and central heating - so we didn't mind spending the first night in the Beeches Lodge down the road.



Four poster bed, ay! The room stank of smoke as we walked in - odd considering the new laws that have been in place since July.