A Shonky Company?

Or just a lesson in not buying things over the Internet?

Firstly let me say that our new bed and mattress is just wonderful, we are perfectly happy with it.

However, we did not receive what we thought we were buying.

We bought, over the Internet, a Sandringham bed set from Pine Solutions. We researched as much as we could - not being able to see and bounce on bed to check it out - where, and how, and from what materials, and by whom it was made. The only information we could find was that the warehouse nestled in the countryside in Sandringham near to Sandringham Palace ... it all sounded very British, local even, and we imagined the local Oompa Loompas hard at work hand-tufting our new mattress.

So when it arrived with a totally different brand name and a "made in China" label, and "Sandringham bed set" written in biro on the packaging ... we felt a little let down.

At first we thought maybe they had actually delivered the wrong mattress to our address. But after a number of phone conversations we have been reassured that it was all quite intentional. That is what they call the Sandringham', apparently. No mention on their site of the fact that they merely import and rename cheap Chinese mattresses. The label says "Club Orthopedic", not the "Sandringham1000" we were expecting. Amongst other things, the Chinese mattress has only 960 springs, not the 1000 the imaginary Sandringham has.

We are not at all impressed with their lack of integrity.

So now we know!

We KNOW why they have such squidgy little beds ... it's because of the squidgy little stairs!

Wow that was hard work! There were quite a few moments when logic said: This can't be done. This shouldn't be attempted. Turn back now!

But by then the 5' mattress with full orthopedic support and pillow-top was thoroughly wedged in the stairwell, jammed between the stairs and the ceiling. So we struggled on. I shoved and grunted, and Peter pulled and groaned.

We had to actually b-e-n-d it a bit to get it through the doorway at the bottom and into the stairwell, and then another bit of a b-e-n-d to get it through the bedroom doorway. We thought maybe we could back out and put it through a window - but there are no windows that open more than a crack. (I guess in a fire we'd be smashing windows and jumping out - they are not actually double-glazed as far as I can tell.)

And then, as we dropped it onto the bed - which had arrived flat-pack and Peter had painstakingly screwed together following the wordless instruction pictures - we noticed the label. A very nice mattress, but not the one we ordered.

If they show up with the right mattress, they can jolly well get it up and this one down by themselves - don't want to do that again for a long time. I guess we'll have to not only stay in Norwich, but in this house ...

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.

Squidgy little British beds

Somehow the feeling of being small and cramped pervades every area of life.



This is a double bed. Yeah, right! It's four foot wide. They do admit it's a 'small double', but in Australia it would be a 'King Single'.



This is our sofa. It's low, and hard, and converts into a bed.



This is the bed upstairs - under the doona (they call it a duvet) is one of those sofas like the one downstairs, only they have stuck a cheap sprung mattress on it because that thin futon mattress thingy really is hard. But it is all only 4'6 wide.

In Australia almost no one uses 4'6 wide 'double' beds any more. Most people have a 'Queensize', which is 5' wide. Quite a lot of people have 6' wide Kingsize beds.



We bought this lovely "sleigh bed" in Torquay and were very sad that we couldn't fit it into the car to bring it here. In Australia people commonly have 6x4 car trailers that you can carry all sorts of stuff around in. Some people here have trailers, but they are tiny little box things.

So, now that we have reached our first pay day, we are getting a new bed. One with a headboard and a tailboard. A British 'Kingsize', Aussie 'Queensize'.



Everything has to be dragged up these steep, tight stairs, of course, no matter how big the bedroom actually is.

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.

Concrete and Rabbits

Working at UEA

We are working at the University of East Anglia, in Norwich, teaching English for Academic Purposes to International students who are hoping to do university courses. We actually work for a company called INTO, which operates at three universities - here, Exeter, and Newcastle. Some of our students are preparing to start a degree course, others are wanting to enter the second year of a degree course, and others have completed a degree in their own country and want to do a masters degree here - in English.

The student newspaper is called Concrete. Its not hard to see why:







Its not the prettiest piece of architectural design we have ever seen. Although they obviously have tried to go for interesting shapes ...



... its probably more the overwhelming greyness of the concrete that gives it a touch of 'grim'.

Clearly this is a bad time of year to get an impression of the place. There are sections that will obviously be delightful in sunny weather ...



... when everything has dried out a little and the plants have recovered. There are lots of trees, which will soften the view when they have leaves again,



and the grass will be more green and less muddy and trampled.

At the heart of the campus there is a central courtyard with (cement) steps all around, and a (cement) water feature that presently has no water, and several shops and cafes. When the weather is kind enough for it to be filled with some of the 13 000 students sitting around on the steps - instead of rushing past all huddled against the rain and wind - I'm sure it will be much prettier.

The Broad. You may have heard of the Norfolk Broads - they are of course waterways by another name. The university has its very own broad, a man-made one.

If you slush your way across the muddy grass to the broad and look back at the university, it is very attractive. This, of course, is where all the shots are taken from for the brochures - and, oddly enough, I haven't taken any pictures of that side. So if you go here, for instance, you can see photos that look very different from the ones above.

What about the Wabbits?

The Students Union also has a publication, it's called "Rabbit".

There are rabbits all over the place - anywhere that there is grass - hopping about (digging holes), nibbling grass, quite unconcerned about the 13 000 pairs of feet tromping by.

I haven't got any pics of them - well, you know what a rabbit looks like, and they don't look much on a photo, and they are not stupid enough to let me get that close to them to take a really good picture.

Squirrels too. They know that if they are on the other side of the tree trunk I can't get to them, and I feel a bit daft chasing them round and round ...

Work and Chaos

Funny how the two are linked, isn't it? If everything went swimmingly, it wouldn't be any fun - where's the adventure in that?

Talking of swimmingly ... there was a flood in the Arts building (the centre for our admin until the new 'INTO' building is finished) just before term started. It wasn't the rain (it's a multi-storey concrete building), but a burst radiator in one of the upper floors. What got wet? Well, amongst other things: our contracts, the teachers' induction handbooks - things that would have been extremely useful to us at this time.

So we muddle our way along, discovering important information by the stumble method. People seem to be endlessly saying, "Oh, haven't you got a .... yet?" "Haven't you done your ... yet?"

Oh yes, I know, it will get easier ...