Partied Out.

Cley Mill with red "Norfolk Taxi". 

Saturday at Wells was fabulous; we had the whole Jubilee party in one place, all on one sunny day. Sunday was cold, windy and wet and we were partied out, so we just rolled down the hill into Blakeney for lunch at the White Horse. We joined several other families in the conservatory, watching the rain-drops run down the ceiling and doing what families do on a wet Sunday lunchtime in a pub; iPad.

The hotel has free wi-fi which is good because your meal takes an hour to arrive. That's considered "fast food" in these parts where hotels are staffed by young, untrained teens and time really doesn't exist north of Norwich. Anyway, it's a wet Sunday so what else would you do?

Waiting for food.

Dan was really patient and we had a pleasant time. Afterwards we took a diversion around the villages on the way home to Barn Owl Cottage and then settled in for another evening meal.

Monday was to be another big day of festivities, but we decided to head east to Cley where we had a picnic at the famous old windmill. The village is beautiful; made entirely of brick and flint with red-tiled roofs but it's a bottleneck for traffic, so walking Dan round the narrow lanes with no pavements was more then we could stand. We tried the beach, but crossing the beach-crest was a task in itself and the northerly sea-breeze was so strong it made our eyes water. We couldn't see a thing.

Scallops and quails' eggs

We headed inland to the pretty little town of Holt where we did the shopping and had a special tea at Byford's Tea Room. It's a really old place with loads of little rooms. The front of the shop is a Victorian pie emporium and the food is quite special. The rest of Holt is worth your time too, with antiques, books and independent shops. If the weather on the coast lets you down; head for Holt. Its just a big village really, so you can park once and cover it all on foot in a couple of hours.

Back at Barn Owl Cottage, the sun came out and I had a go at photographing the owl itself and the three or four hares that are always in the back field. I failed totally, but a male marsh harrier put on a good show.

Dan finds a cave to hide
 from the rain.

Back indoors, we watched the BBC broadcast of the Jubilee Concert at Buckingham Palace. Hanna cringed throughout, but I was simply amazed to see that the stars they wheeled out were still alive.  I used to watch most of them in black and white on a tiny TV or listen to them on vinyl:- at my youth club in 1966.

OMG! I'm almost the same age as Elton John, Paul McCartney and Tom Jones. Only Cliff Richard and the Queen are older than me.

I was glued to the set really, looking forward to Her Madge doing a spot at the ceilidh herself. Hanna had told me she was going to do her "When I'm Cleaning Windows" impression on banjo-ukelele, but I guess it must have been cut at the last minute?