From Saigon to Cantley

I have to admit the title of this blog post is a bit of a cheat - because I went to see 'Miss Saigon' - I didn't go there. But even so, a trip to London now and then, for purely social purposes, is worth a mention. The production was very good and the singing most enjoyable, but I have to confess that I prefer Madame Butterfly.

However, my post this week starts with Miss Saigon on a Wednesday evening, as it was the opener
for a few days off. After trekking into London (well, getting chauffeur driven in a small mini-bus with some colleagues from work) we enjoyed a quick cider in the Three Greyhounds before seeing the show. We had good seats, and after a lovely evening managed to make it home just after midnight.

Thursday morning I headed with my friend to Norwich and to a few days rest and relaxation. We started off with a short walk round the marshes to the south of the city - and saw very little wildlife, but some really lovely trees. I like willows, and they have 'crack willows' on this little nature reserve tucked away inside the ring road, but just outside the city. I wonder - can you get addicted to this kind of tree?

This butterfly settled on me before heading into the tree

 Friday was shopping day - and we went to a low-cost store in the city to stock up on bits and pieces for our weekend. My friend lives in Norwich, but we were both surprised when in the store we bumped into a friend of mine! He lives in Diss - a few miles away - but what a small world, we were both in that shop in Norwich, as visitors, at the same time.

In the evening we went to the Norwich Folk Club and saw the highly talented Georgia Shackleton. A delightful evening - and I even got to sing a couple of songs too. I was asked back as well, but it won't be my weekly hang out for geographical reasons.

Saturday we headed into the city and went on an open top bus tour. We stopped off at the Roman Catholic cathedral (the second largest in England and large enough to be used as a reference point for pilots in the second world war).  Our first visit, though, was not to this imposing building, but to the Plantation Garden nearby. If you are a visitor to Norwich, I can thoroughly recommend this hidden delight.

Despite its Gothic appearance, the church is only 100 years old

The plantation garden.

The Italianate steps at the end lead to a small rustic summerhouse

After After our visit to the garden, we headed back to the church. There was a wedding on and, whilst two young people pledged their vows before their god, we climbed 247 steps to heaven - well, to the roof. here's some of the pictures I took:

It looks like stone, but it is brick built with a stone facade

In the roofspace

Tremendous views over Norwich

Look up!

Look down

The other cathedral

Lots and lots of steps...

Interior - looks more than its 100 years old

One of the ornate bosses

 Saturday evening we rested, but Sunday it was time for a trip on the Broads. We hired a noddy boat (a small day cruiser) with some friends who also live in Norwich, and headed out across the Yare. We chugged slowly up the river to Rockland where we stopped for a fantastic lunch at the New Inn. Dodging sail boats, scaring up kingfishers, disturbing the herons and intriguing the ducks (we didn't have any bread for them), five of us and a dog (Five go Mad in Norfolk?) had an extremely pleasant autumn day on the water.

We had to dodge the sailboats

Abandoned windpump at Cantley

After lunch we headed further along the river to Cantley, and eventually turned round and came back to the boatyard at Brundall. A thoroughly relaxing and pleasurable day.

And now I'm back at home, and enjoying this little post, and these pictures, and the lovely memories of a wonderful county, and even better friends.


All photographs by Carrie Sheppard (C)

Liked this? Try A weekend in Rome

First football

For years, my son and husband would  drive me from the sitting room by putting football on the TV.  But that was OK – all I needed to do was put on Monkey Business, and they left me alone too!

It’s not that I don’t like sport – I actively engage in squash, swimming, used to do karate and am a regular gym goer (OK maybe that doesn't count as ‘sport’ in the same way football does, but just so you can see I am not a couch potato). But I never really got ‘football’.

When I was a child, my father complained bitterly about football. ‘A bunch of men chasing a ball round a field, waste of time’. However, my father’s idea of a useful afternoon was watching eleven men throw a leather ball at some sticks, so it was perhaps not the most logical of arguments. Especially as he did the pools every week.

Fast forward – beyond my childhood and cricket-loving father, past my little boy and his dad hogging the TV on a Saturday – and here we are with me grown up, my son grown up, and the only football team I ever showed any vague affinity to being Norwich City.

Why? My son supports Manchester United. My ex-husband supports Tottenham Hotspur. What made me pin my rather limp flag to Norwich? Well, it’s a long story, that starts in the 1980’s with a lovely young man from Grantham, but I won’t use this post to tell that story. Because long as it is, it is rather boring.

In March 2014 Norwich City are playing Stoke.I finally get to Carrow Road. I am not here to see the football match but to collect money for the charity I work for, who are dedicating the day’s match to a past player who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

20 volunteers with 20 buckets, and a very generous public. We raised more money on that collection day than the club had ever heard of from any charity. A sign of how well-loved the football player was, and how widely dementia touches people.

At the end of the afternoon we had 20 heavy buckets to bank, and smiles all round. But… we also had three match tickets that the club had donated. Surely, now was my chance! Not only could I go to my very first football match, but I could see my ‘own team’.

I’m not that fond of large crowds, but the supporters were so excited, so poised on the brink of shouting success or distress at each turn of the ball, I couldn't help but enjoy myself. Especially when Norwich scored. My friend, a fellow volunteer, was up in her seat, cheering and shouting like a seasoned fan, though this was her first match too.

The most significant thing to me was how different football is live, compared to on the TV. I have been to schoolboy matches, of course (where some of the screaming and language would have put the most profane to shame), but this was live, grown-up, Premiership football.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself, as did my friends, and was carefully taken through the finesse of the moves in the match through a helpful fellow volunteer that I sat next to.

Shall I go again? Probably not, but at least I can cross it off my list of things that I haven’t done, but might quite enjoy.  I think I'll try blo-karting next.