An English road trip: over the strand

Our second stop after Canterbury was the little town of Wymondham Near Norwich where our friends Blair and Sarah live. Blair isn't technically family but our parents are very good friends and I did use to call his parents auntie Sue and uncle Ted. I even planned to marry his brother Ross when I was about 6. That didn't work out. We used to go on holiday together when we were little, either to Wells-next-the-sea in Norfolk where many hours were spent lying on our tummies fishing for crabs, or somewhere in Normandy to stay on a farm where we would eat fresh salty butter each morning and spend hours watching the cows and killing off precious brain cells by putting our fingers on the electrified fences. 

Anyhoo. Blair and Sarah took us to Little Snoring where his parents live. (True story. There is also a larger village nearby called Greater Snoring.) Sue is an amazing cook and treated us to a real traditional English meal: roast beef with all the trimmings!

Everything was home cooked, including the home grown vegetables and the best Yorkshire puddings ever.

 But wait, you haven't seen the half of it!

Local cheeses and crackers, in real English fasion. Although in real French fashion we had the cheese before the desert. Yep, in the UK desert usually comes BEFORE cheese. The English are so daring.

Ready? Really ready? I hope you've had a big lunch because you're about to get seriously hungry.

 That's right. Pavlova baby!

But there's more

Cherry tart! Of course I had to try a bit of everything for blogging research purposes. I wouldn't want to disappoint my gourmet bunnies now would I? The verdict? Everything was delicious and I was as stuffed as a Thanksgiving turkey at the end of it all.

On the way to Little Snoring we drove to Overstrand to see the sea. 

I wonder how that message thing works. Do you pay to have a message written up there? Do you write it yourself? I'm really curious. It's a sweet idea though. I guess you'd then have to tell the people whom the message is for that they should go for a walk at Overstrand on that day. And what if it pours with rain and they don't leave the house and never see the message? It's all very mysterious.

Our first encouter with an ice cream van. Our second encounter is coming up a little further down the page.

You can see Cromer Pier in the distance. Such a beautiful quiet beach.

Too quiet.

 And then it happened.

We were walking barefoot along a wooden beam with some rusty metal on the side of it to get down to the beach. Guess who almost cut their little toe off? 

It was a pretty ugly gash so I'm going to spare you the picture of it. Let's just say it was very long and very wide and just above the nail. Probably very painful too, although with boys you never really know...ever heard of the man-flu? 
It reminded me of the time Boyfriend dislocated his collar bone falling of a bike the day before we went on holiday to Brittany. Or the time he got bitten by a dog filming a music video. Or the time he hit his head on a shelf in the bathroom and ended up with a huge gash and a trip to the ER for stitches. Let's just say someone is accident prone... 

After a delicious lunch and an afternoon out in the garden in the sunshine we drove back to Wymondham for a walk around the village.

On the way there we came across another ice cream truck! This time we got a chance to chat to the driver. When I say we I mean Boyfriend of course. This video says all there is to say about my fearless other half. You can even see Blair & Sarah's house in the background at the end! It's got an old grey car and a new black car parked in front. You know which one is ours.

Then we went off into the village for a drink at the pub. On the way we met Thomas the tank engine,

A cute little station cottage complete with white picket fence,

And the tracks, as you can see, were very clean and free of leaves. Why?

Because.

 Good leaves. Keep off the tracks. 

 The abbey grounds at sunset.

And finally! The pub!

Sarah taught us a hilarious game which involved crossing our hands and tapping once, twice or three times to change the sequence or skip a hand. Wow that's a very bad explanation, let's see if I can find one online. YESSS: here it is! We were all a bit tired and useless so it made things even more fun. 

Then off home we went for pork pie and other yummy things. 

All in all, a perfect start to our holiday. Thank you Blair and Sarah for a lovely time. See you soon in Paris!!