Search for Norfolk Cafe

Royal Arcade Norwich
Royal Arcade Norwich

The weather promised to be rain there was a band of rain about the width of Norfolk running from the north coast to through Buckinghamshire down to the south coast. We decided that we might be able to escape the in if we visited Norwich. Before we set out I got up early, at 0720, to have a look at the car park tide situation. The the tie was about half way across the road at the Blakeney Hotel, and two or three cars on the car park were up to the bottom of there alloy wheels. I wandered around and took some pictures and threw stones with a kid trying to hit a bucket floating by. The sailing club were already up as they can’t really sail if the tide is out. A family walked down and went for a swim.

I walked back to the hut at about 0800 at the deli someone was ordering croissants for 0830 when the shops officially opens. Not wanting to be disappointed again I stuck my head in the door and ordered a baguette, the owner said he had some ready fresh from the oven so I purchased one and pot of strawberry jam to go with it, breakfast sorted. Helen was not quite up when I got back so I waited for her to have a shower while the baguette cooled down. After breakfast we agreed that a trip to Norwich would be the best option.

We arrived in Norwich from the airport side, and found a very expensive car park £5.60 for 4 hours near the cathedral, then walked towards town. The cathedral is a pedestrian zone surrounded by old houses, a quiet oasis in the city. There was a service on so we could not go into the knave for 45 minutes, so we went to have a look at the cloisters, grabbed a coffee and biscuit from the coffee shop, which is a modern building integrated but not quite attached to the cloister walls.

Jeff Koons Winter Bears 1988

We arrived at the knave as the service was finishing and the organ was very loud and a pleasure to hear. The building it self is very impressive with a very high vaulted ceiling. I took some photos where I could find a convenient spot to rest my camera to stop blurred exposures. Our next destination was the castle which has a Jeff Koons exhibition on in the temporary gallery. When we got there we found out that it was not open till 1300 so we walked around the market via the royal arcade. We saw a couple of free runners at the top end of the market jumping all over the stone work.

Back at the museum we looked around the excellent permanent art gallery with lots of Norfolk paintings, then I had a look arounf the modern Jeff Koons exhibits while Helen had a look around around the archaeology sections. On the way out of the castle grounds we came across the same free runners this time being photographed by someone who was blaming their DSLR for not getting the shots, I suspect it was a case of not reading the manual and selecting the wrong mode. We thought we might find a cafe or something for something to eat, but they all seemed shut so we grabbed a bag of almonds from an Asian store and got back to the car headed towards Cromer in the hope of finding somewhere on the way.

Inside Norwich Cathedral

The search then started we drove through Cromer but it was packed and tere was nowhere to park, then we stopped at East Runton opposite a chippy which turned out to be shut. We ended up a Felbrigg hall but arrived as the rain started, so everyone headed to the cafe for a coffee so the queue was long and the staff seemed slow, but eventually we got to the front. I had coffee and chocolate cake and Helen a cheese and chutney toastie, but very nice. We took the coast road back to to Blakeney and synchronised our crossing of the Sheringham stem railway with an engine heading back the the depot, which I captured on the car dash cam.

Back at Blakeney we could not find a space in the £3 car park so ended up having to pay £5 at the British Legion. We relaxed for a while before heading out for out 1830 table at the White Horse an Adnams pub. I had sea bass on mini onions, peas, beans and sauted potatoes, and Helen had a very interesting cauliflower and hazel nut “carbonara”, mine was washed down with a couple of pints of Adnams bitter. For dessert I had grilled peach with elderflower parfait, and sugared almonds which was lovely. We headed down to the harbour to see the tide, but we were half an hour early and it was cold so we did not hang about. Tomorrow morning would be the main event as the tie would be 30cm higher than this morning an would have the wind behind. Being half and hour later it we decided we would get up to have a look at 0820.

Cley NNT, Blakeney and double crumble

Norfolk Sky

We were up around 0800 in time to get croissants from the deli next door, where there is a sign which says if you don’t want to be disappointed turn up at 0830 or order for collection. I changed my mind when I saw they had baguettes for sale but the woman in n front of me bought the last three! We had planned to get the bus to Cley but by the time we had got ready it was too late for the 0940 and the next one was not till 1020, so we got the car and just about beat the 0940 to the visitors centre at the reserve.

The centre was shut till 1000 so we hung around so Helen could have a pee before the tour of the marsh. We set out anticlockwise not our usual way and stopped off at the group of three hides. We realised it our I’d skills were rusty when we could not is the ruff in front of the hide and the sandpiper. We left the hide and headed to the beach car park where the Cafe used to be, and when we got there sat on some rocks and looked out to sea. Amongst the wind turbines was what looked like an accommodation pod, the sort that is a boat which up ends when you fill the pointy end with water. Terns were conspicuous by there absence all departed south for the winter.

Blakeney High Street

We headed in land along the east bank, I was hoping for a sit down on the bench, near the sluices, but some one was already there, but as we approached they got up I thought that was lucky, but it turned out he was sitting on the grass bank, the bench has gone after being there at least as long as we have been visiting Cley. We stopped and sat on the grass bank in the hope of seeing some bearded tits but we had to settle for sandwiches, perhaps the wind was keeping them low in the reeds. Before we went to the visitors centre for a coffee we stopped of in the last hide on the anticlockwise route, there were plenty of waders, including an avocet spotted by Helen.

The lunchtime queue for food and drinks was long so we decided to whizz round to Cley Spy for some coffee and cake, and some binocular browsing. The Art Cafe at Glandford is a real specialist coffee brewing emporium. They roast and sell the beans. The Cafe offers four ways to brew filter, cafietier, espresso, and Aerobie. I went for an americano and it was great just about the right blend of bitter and nutty, and the apple crumble cake went down nicely too.

Norfolk sky over reeds

Helen and I now have matching binoculars because after a coffee Helen tried a few compact models, some priced at over £600 before settling on a more modestly priced pair just like mine. After that Helen needed a rest so we went back to Blakeney, where we parked at the village hall. After a look round the book sales at the village hall I went off to take some photos and Helen did some light tut shopping.

We had a table at The Moorings booked for 1800 so I headed off to move the car from the village hall to the quay side car park. I found a space at the high end of the car park then did a quick time lapse with the mini Cyclops. The food at The Moorings was excellent, Helen had a risotto and I had a seared tuna steak, then apple elderberry and gooseberry crumble with custard. After eating we headed down to the harbour to watch the cars left to the mercy of the tide a white fiesta was there long enough to get water inside. We hung around long enough for a great sunset. At one point someone tried to get away with my mini Cyclops which I had positioned on a traffic cone.

Who is Neil Baldwin

For quite some time when  you searched for Neil Baldwin this blog appeared on the first page of Google, but recently I have been kicked off the front page and put several pages back. The main reason was because of a film about the Neil Baldwin a registered clown who is also associated with Keele University and Stoke City football club. This blog entry s an attempt to improve my SEO by a blog post that mentions all the Neil Baldwin’s I know of. Just don’t the Google spider about my cunning plan.

Neil Naldwin

The wikipedia article about the my Stoke City name sake says “Neil Baldwin (born 1946) is an honorary graduate of Keele University from Westlands, Staffordshire. He is a registered clown and also worked for Stoke City Football Club, for whom he once played briefly in a friendly match. He is the subject of an award-winning BBC television drama, Marvellous, which was broadcast in 2014.” The wiki article is here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Baldwin_(Keele_University)

Up until the Stoke City Neil Baldwin came on the scene I generally swapped the top spot with the American author with the same name. According to his wikipedia article “Neil Baldwin is the author of a variety of books on various topics related to history and culture, and a professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at Montclair State University. Baldwin earned a B.A. in English from the University of Rochester, and a Ph.D. in Modern American Poetry from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He was the editor of The Niagara Magazine between 1974 and 1982, and worked in fundraising for the New York Public Library between 1984 and 1989. He was the director of the National Book Foundation from its founding in 1989 until his resignation in 2003” He has a website devoted to his books at http://neilbaldwinbooks.com

Another Neil Baldwin came to the fore in the 80’s when he composed music for the Commodore 64, the introduction on his website says “I wrote my first music on the NES 20 years ago and have recently been amazed to discover that the “chip music” scene is still going strong. So, in a bid to do my bit to keep the history alive and because some of my music is either missing, mis-credited or in some cases never even saw the light of day, I decided I’d put together a little document of my work and experiences. You’ll need Flash to play the MP3s via the embedded audio players or you can download a ZIP file containing all the songs for each game. Alternatively you can download the .NSF file but you’ll need a player to play these; personally I use Audio Overload but there’s lots of others.” His website is here http://dutycyclegenerator.com/

Bank holiday weekend traffic to Blakeney

Holme beach

We wanted to go away for the bank holiday weekend, but struggled to find one that suited us as our usual haunts were booked up, then we decided to take the Friday off and rent a cottage in Blakeney Friday to Monday. We set off early and stopped for coffee with my folks near Peterborough, leaving us two hours drive to Holme/Titchwell. The sat nav suggested a different route to usual, after ignoring the proposed route I realised that it was because of  6 tail back near Kings Lynn, so we quickly changed routes. In the end it took about 3 hours to get to Holme-next -sea where we renewed our membership of the NNT and took a stroll on the beach and over the dunes, the weather was perfect sunny with clouds, warm with a Norfolk breeze.

Blakeney panorama

We had planned to stop at Titchwell RSPB but decided to head straight for Blakeney, where the parking was a challenge, we ended up down on the car park near the marsh, where there were warnings about the tides, however I checked with the car park attendant who said we were OK till Sunday evening (I hope he was not lying!). We had planned to eat out, but the cottage was next door to a delicatessen where whe stocked up with stuff to make a salad, and decided a pint down at the front followed by a healthy salad would be fine. We already had tables booked for Saturday and Sunday.

We carried our luggage up to the cottage, which was well appointed with three bedrooms, more than we needed but it was the only one we found that was a reasonable price for the weekend. Clean, tidy a recently decorated it would be fine for a weekend. I made myself at home by connecting up the Wifi then plugged the Fire Stick into the TV to make sure that worked too. We then took a walk down to the quayside and out on to the marshes. There were many people crabbing, and Beans Seal trips was plying his trade. The tides meant that seal trips would have to be at 17;00 or 18:00 for the weekend. At £12 for an hours trip they are good value.

Blakeney Sunset

As we walked out on the marsh as far as the gravel ath would take us, I could hear bees buzzing. On investigation there was what looked like a swarm but they were solitary bees as each one had it’s own little burrow. As we walked back the light was low and great for taking photo’s which I did. I moved the car to a higher spot on the car park (just in case). A pint was in order and we found Adnams being served at Blakeney Manor, with a free picnic table available overlooking the marsh it tasted even better.

Back at the hut we had salad and a quiche/tart each and watched iPlayer on the Fire Stick whilst planning our Saturday.

Hot and sweaty in the city

The Serpentine Hyde Park London

A few weeks back I noticed that there was a exhibition of photograph at the Royal Geographic Society. In fact it was the Travel Photographer of the Year exhibition. Helen agreed that we should go and see the exhibition and after having mentioned it to A& C they said they’d like to join us so on Saturday they picked us up from the house at about 9:15am so we could get the 9:45 train from Berkhamsted.

We parked up at the usual spot near the back of the station then went to the ticket office and managed to bag ourselves a £7 discount on the usual £20 travelcard tickets. We could not find 4 seats together but by the time we got to Watford and after a couple of changes we ended up with a set of 4 around the table which was perfect. At Euston we got straight on the Underground and after one change got out at Kensington Tube station. We had to walk up Exhibition Road to get to the Royal Geographic Society but on the way we checked Google Maps to find the way there and I noticed that the place is closed on a Saturday.

Art in the Sackler Gallery Hyde Park

We decided to go and have a look at the entrance anyway because that was the sole reason for going to London and when we got there much to our surprise the exhibition was open and so was the cafe in the Courtyard behind. Things were looking up. I had seen some of the photos in the Press in the previous few weeks but the exhibition of the whole I must say was excellent. I find it very interesting to see the settings and lenses that the people have used to take the photograph. It was very hot wandering around in the Courtyard which seem to be a sun trap. The hot temperatures were apparently caused by a Spanish plume whatever that is. We took the opportunity before we moved on elsewhere to sit down and have a cold drink in a sunken garden within the Courtyard, where the shade & slight breeze were refreshing after the strong bright sun and heat.

We weren’t sure what to do next so we decided to head off to Hyde Park to have a look around.  We wandered up to the Albert memorial that was sparkling in the sunlight.  There are a couple of art galleries in Hyde park which is something I was previously unaware of. We visited a couple (choosing the shadier paths to navigate the park) and found that the air conditioning was a very welcome relief from the oppressive temperatures outside which was in the low thirty’s.  The exhibitions were quite different; the first was oil character portraits which were well executed.  The second was rather more unusual. It was life size figures of people doing ordinary things, a chap on a sit on lawn mover, a lady seated reading, children playing.  Some were extremely realistic and Helen sidled past them suspiciously, half anticipating one of them to be a real person who suddenly moves as some sort of modern art interactive installation. They did’nt though.

Ferris Wheel Marble Arch

We managed to mislay one of the party on the subway when she nipped onto a train but we didn’t get there quite in time. We weren’t sure what to do but decided that as we had all agreed to go to Liverpool Street we would get on the next train and hopefully meet up further down the line. The Underground carriages were extremely hot probably maybe 40 degrees so we were very glad to get off the train, where missing A was waiting for us stating for a moment she had felt like a lost child.

C got a little bit geographically challenged when we were wandering around back streets looking for Spitalfields market, but eventually we found the place and wandered in to have a look round. There were lots of street food sellers there, the falafel samples were great but we couldn’t find anywhere to sit so we ended up in a pub restaurant called Smiths and we had some great food. I had a fish finger sandwich in some brown bread which was lovely.  The halloumi and avocado salads were much appreciated by the others. Iced cider also went down too with some of the party.

Lverpool Street Station

Suitably refreshed we had a look around and had a meander through the market back towards Liverpool Street tube station. It was too hot for shopping which was felt to be a wasted opportunity by the rest of the party. There were lots of interesting shops and stalls which will be visited at a later, cooler date.   The rest of the journey home was pretty uneventful. Air conditioned tube (wonderful!) to Euston Square then we had a 20 min wait for a train back to Euston. All in all a good day out with friends despite the extreme temperatures and that we thought the RGS might be closed.

London walk around Ladbroke Grove

HMP Wormwood Scrubs

I had Sunday to myself so did some homework on Saturday evening, to see if there was anything on worth doing. I remember that I have often ended up on the www.eventbrite.co.uk site so I thought I would have a search on the website directly. I came up trumps I found  Londoner offers walks in London cost just £10 for a 3 hours which seemed good value. The meet up point was Ladbroke Grove tube station. The instructions in the email said “The walk will start fairly promptly at 11am. From the meeting point outside Ladbroke Grove tube station we will be heading along Malton Road to St Marks Road so, if you are delayed, by walking briskly in that direction you should be able to catch up with us.”

The subject of the walk was “Stuart’s first walk”. According to the website: In Geoff Nicholson’s novel Bleeding London, jaded tour guide Stuart London sets out to walk every street in the A-Z.

London house with preserved pub frontage

“He knew he had to begin somewhere and he knew that in one sense, any place was as good as another, but he scanned the index of his A-Z looking for a street name that sounded appropriate. His eyes fell on a line that read North Pole Road. Next day he went there and started his walk.” (p.84)

This walk takes in some of the streets that Stuart would have covered in this first walk.

I considered driving up just like Stuart did as it would save 30 minutes journey time, but in the end opted for the more relaxing train journey. The 09:07 from Berkhamsted would get me to the appointed tube station for 10:30 time for a coffee and cake. Unusually the Euston train was alighting on platform 2, rather than the usual 4. A few people had not read the signs and an elderly gentleman put them right. He told me on a Sunday it was best to wait at the top of the stairs as you never knew if the platform would change. Apparently the lights indicated the line was in slow mode, hence the reason for platform 4 not being used.

At Euston I walked west to Euston Square station to so that I could get on a train without changing before getting to Ladbroke Grove. I wax early so popped into Cafe Nero for a coffee and a pee. They had the Sunday times lying around so I spent some time reading up on the news, or what ever it is they have in that publication. Apparently most of the last 12 London marathon winners were tainted by suspicious blood counts, Mo Farah passed the tests OK so England are off the hook, and it is the Russians who they are pointing there finger at. It looks like the labour candidate Corbyn us going to be the next leader, and will most likely shake things up a bit, which is a refreshing change to the middle of the road stuff we have had for a few decades.

Kensal Green Cemetery HDR

We walked away from the tube station and under the Westway for a bit, then we went into the suburbs. The guide Jen told us about a number 7 ghost bus which has been seen in May at 0130 going down Cambridge Gardens without a drive. It has so the myth goes been the cause of a few accidents.

Further along we passed a church, on  St Quintin, which was rebuilt after being destroyed during the war. In the church hall the  BBC held rehearsals for such programs as Z Cars. One of my fellow guidees, and a local, can remember hanging around outside to get autographs.

We passed the hospital where Roger Daltry was born, although it is named Hammersmith hospital it is not in Hammersmith. Just on from the hospital we took a detour to look at the entrance to Wormwood Scrubs prison. A few famous people have stayed there including Keith Richards who was sentenced to a year but only stayed a day. George Blake the infamous spy was imprisoned there for a 42 year sentence but managed to escape by climbing out of a  window and into a waiting car, he then fled to Berlin.

The football season had started and was in full swing on the Scrubs I overheard a couple of the players complaining that they needed to get fit! We got a bit lost trying to get to The Harrow Road on the edge of the scrubs, and ended up walking through a wooded area, where there was a parakeet roost, there was certainly lots of birds shit about.

Portobello Juice Cafe London

Off The Harrow road we crossed the Grand Union, then we walked through one of the Magnificent seven London cemetery’s, Kensal Green. It is a fascinating place and we’ll worth another visit. There are according to our guide regular walks you can join, and I think I will.

Back on The Harrow road we crossed the Grand Union for a second time, then passed a small nature reserve, called Meanwhile nature reserve owing be the fact the council allowed it to be used in the 70’s while they decided what to do with the land, they never have. Shortly after that we were told about the history of the Trellick tower and its Hungarian Architect Goldfinger.

Just around the corner was Portobello road, which even when the market is not on is buzzing. There are lots of interesting food shops, cafes and restaurants. We finished off with a drink at the KPH Kensington Park Hotel, which is a pub now. I then took the tube back to Euston Square then got the fast train to Birmingham which stopped at Berkhamsted.

I will definitely do another walk sometime, it was very enjoyable even if it was a bit tiring in the heat of August.