I broke my promise to get back to you before the week was out. I'm sorry. You see, I was too busy having fun to update my blog through the day, and either too tired or too busy trying to get my sat nav working in the evenings. After having got to our holiday destination without a working sat nav (yes, I used the old method of using sign posts *shock!*), I thought it would be a lot easier to get around to our various planned days out if I were to get it working. I did, eventually, although it was a task and a half as I was working with a dodgy dongle connection most of the time.
Anyway, enough of boring technology stuff. The cottage that W and I had rented was gorgeous. It was plenty big enough for the two of us, easily wheelchair accessible through the patio doors, extremely well equipped. It wasn't huge, but it was attached to a fabulous detached house lived in by the cottage proprietors, and was surrounded by two acres of fabulous gardens that included a trampoline and a tennis court. Neither W nor I made use of the trampoline, but W, despite her arthritis, did leap on the trampoline one evening. Here are a couple of photos of the cottage, proprietor's house, the garden, and W on the trampoline:
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| Our cottage |
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| The proprietor's house with the cottage to the left |
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| Proprietor's house and some of the gardens |
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| W having an evening bounce on the trampoline |
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| An inflatable giraffe enjoying a cup of tea on the patio |
What do you mean 'you've never seen a giraffe enjoying a cup of tea on a patio before'? Georgina was out there for ages, making the most of the sunshine. She even had a piece of shortbread to go with her cuppa.
Away from the cottage we got up to all sorts of things. We went for a day on the
Bure Valley Railway - a nine mile long narrow gauge steam railway from Aylsham to Wroxham:
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| Some of the carriage were wheelchair accessible! |
When we arrived at Wroxham we got a little lost trying to find our way to the mariner from where we had a boat trip booked. It might have been helpful if either of us had looked out our tickets from the railway, on which was a map detailing how to get from the station to the tour boats, but we did eventually make it, just in time. We had a fab trip on the boat, going along Wroxham Broad:
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| A Wroxham Broad 'street' |
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| One of the oldest boats on Wroxham Broad |
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| A very lush landscape |
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| An example of Norfolk thatched roofs, seen along Wroxham Broad |
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| The best sign seen on Wroxham Broad |
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| One of many swans on the Broad |
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| Several of the many swans seen on Wroxham Broad |
We had a few days where we just pottered around the cottage and in the local area. The village we were staying in was Stratton St Michael, which is the northern end of
Long Stratton, a little way outside of Norwich. As you might expect, there's the church of St Michael at Stratton St Michael, and at the other end of Long Stratton there's the church of St Mary, in the area of Stratton St Mary. W and I visited both the churches:
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| St Mary's Church |
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| Inside St Mary's Church |
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| St Michael's Church |
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| The font in St Michael's Church |
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| An angel with a child on a small plinth by a window in St Michael's Church. |
Both the churches were lovely, and there was a particularly lovely walk/trundle along the lane to St Michael's Church. There are a few houses, but mostly it's countryside with harvest fields on both sides, and occasional stretches of brambles loaded with ripening blackberries. The lane is fairly quiet, although it is a main route from the very busy A140 to a couple of small villages so we did come across several cars on each of our trips to and from the church. Here are a couple of photos taken along the lane:
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| Our cottage and the proprietor's house seen from the lane |
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| A grumpy-looking hare in a field by the lane |
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| A rabbit in a field by the lane |
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| A rather magnificent tree at the far end of the lane to St Michael's Church |
I will leave you for now with a photo of the South Norfolk Council Offices in Long Stratton. I sincerely hope it's not the housing office:
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| Looking lovely, but a tad overgrown |
I'll be back before long with part two, but I think that's probably enough for now.
5 comments:
Lovely photos, Becky! xx
Looks fantastic!
Thank you, Sal and fallen. It was fantastic and we had a lot of fun.
Lovely photos!! Glad you had a good time :)
Dawn x
Lovely photos, Becky! I used to live in Ely so am used to the flatlands. Really pleased you had such a good time there.
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