Hello again

We are back from a week’s jolly in Norfolk with the quondam-tropical Godparents. This was on the whole a hoot. We took the car down, and it struck us, as it has struck us before, taking the A17 through the fen country to the immediate NW of the Wash, what a wildly sinister area it is: apart from the sullen acres of cabbages mitigated only by an occasional church spire, the rectories suggest axe-wielding vicars, the grim little mansion houses, squires who have fled, taken to drink, or become werewolves. At one point on the road there is a sign to a development of holiday homes, and we looked at one another: who, and for what, would choose to take holidays in this desolate territory? Another indication of its uncanninness. We passed a field in the region of Sleaford lit with cheerful yellow, which at first glance, made a nice change from cabbages. Er …Yes, definitely. Daffodils. This is the third week of September, for Pete’s sake. Then you cross a lovely swing bridge over the Nene with a little gazebo perched atop, and suddenly you are in Norfolk. No more spires, churches have squat, square, or sometimes round, towers, there are deep banks of trees, flint-and-brick houses, and it is all very attractive. We went, among other expeditions,  to Holkham, a palace built for some perverse reason out of yellow lavatory brick, to Norwich, where Godmama found a gratifying variety of bric à brac which comes more expensive in Edinburgh which he will sell there, and I got a haircut, to Houghton, where Sir Robert Walpole’s pictures have been temporarily returned from Russia to the rooms which were designed for them – always interesting –,  to King’s Lynn, which is pretty awful, and to a perfectly charming Shell Museum. A nice balance of adventure, exploration, some grand houses, some unexpected finds, and country walks. We returned via North Yorkshire, the Borders drove-road from Moffat, and Glenshee. Now we are up to our ears in administration, but at least we feel that we have had an interesting and fortifying time.