Drives around East Anglia

The area we are living in is generally known as East Anglia; the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and down into Cambridgeshire. We can get to Sandringham, which has been a country retreat for about four generations of the English monarchy, with about an hour drive. The annual Christmas markets in November gave us a great reason to head north-east, and see if we would be invited to tea. No such invitation, but we had a lovely day wandering round with thousands of people, though it was quite cool. The woodlands surrounding the estate are open to the general public, with lots of walking paths, so we'll head back for some rambles during the warmer weather. We may have to find a dog to borrow though - everywhere you go, people are out walking with their dogs. Perhaps we'll try for a corgi? The gardens are also open during spring and summer, and I'm sure they'll be worth a visit.  

There were lots of interesting handcrafted items for sale, from jewellery and glassware to locally produced food and drink. There is always the temptation to buy various treasures to remember our gap-year, but always in the back of my mind; "How am I going to get it back to Australia?!" So we did a lot of looking, bought some little metal reindeer decorations from the blacksmith, and a couple of very warm woollen scarves from a Yorkshire woollen mill company. We also tried roasted chestnuts; an interesting taste, lovely with salt, and perhaps a little like roasted bunya nuts. The Baileys hot chocolate and the mulled red cider were so good and warmed the cockles well for the afternoon. There was also a local bird sanctuary tent, with some magnificent owls, who were quite happy to sit on my hand and pose for photos, provided they were stroked under the neck a little. They were beautiful birds, with such gorgeous colourings and so calm. They were almost haughty, watching all the activity around them with these huge, unblinking eyes whilst sitting so still.

A couple of weeks after our drive to Sandringham, we headed to Cambridge with a few of our Aussie Crew, and met up with Louise and Zac for a day in the university city. It was absolutely packed, as there was a Christmas Fair happening, so maybe not the best day to be sight-seeing. We walked through the older part of town, with cobbled streets and old buildings. High up on one of the buildings near Kings College is a plaque commemorating the first book printed by Cambridge University Press in 1583. We spent a lot of time walking around some of the magnificent colleges and chapels which are part of the university, through some of the parkland areas, and watching some very cold punting on the River Cam. One of the little wooden bridges over the Cam is known as the Mathematical Bridge, probably because of the design involving lots of tangents and arcs, all built with straight timbers. The grounds and river were lovely on a cool winter day, so can only imagine how pretty (and busy!) it is in spring.