Spectacular

A couple of friends came to visit for the weekend. It was fantastic. Imo and Ed are part of my old school group who I've kept in close contact with since leaving school. They're now living in Oxford (I visited them earlier in the year with Erica) and thought a weekend in the Norfolk countryside sounded like a good idea. They arrived on Friday evening, we had dinner and went to the Fat Cat for a drink before calling it a night.

On Saturday we set out for a coastal adventure. I'd been given some recommendations of places to visit, and we decided to see the water mill at Letheringsett, some beach, and the Iron Age Hill Fort at Warham, and just see where that route took us. We saw all those bits, but on our way to Warham we also came across . Check it out in [url=LARGE]large[/url]. By that time one camera battery had died and the spare was discovered not to be full so I was being careful with my camera use, but it was a particularly picturesque day.

The water mill was very interesting. We got there just before they shut it down for the day, but saw some flour being ground and admired all the old mechanics. It's one of those classic home made exhibitions, where nothing's changed since someone thought of opening it to the public 30 years ago, but the information was still there. We asked for a recommendation of somewhere to get some lunch, and ended up in a very hip (and exy) farmhouse type place. We managed to get some lunch bits from the 'deli' and escaped without spending our life savings. An English picnic followed - sitting in the car looking out over the sea near Salthouse, before we hopped out to take photos.

The next stop was Cley by the Sea, where Ed was utterly bemused by the idea of the pebbly English beach, with lots of people lying around and generally treating it like a regular beach. We then discovered the art of flint knapping and spent at least 15 minutes trying to make stone age tools before giving up and wandering along a very short distance, getting distracted every couple of metres. After we left the beach we went for an ice cream before moving onwards to find the rumoured hill fort.

I was in charge of directions, and all the hours I've spent staring at Norfolk maps suddenly paid off. We had google maps on the ipad, but no internet so it was limited only to the bits that loaded when we were in range. That was fine - it just couldn't get the fine details, but the main villages and roads were visible. It was still very useful to know 'yes, we want to head towards Wells, not Holt' at various intersections. As we drove through Binham we spotted this just casually by the side of the road. We screeched to a safe and responsible halt and trotted over to check it out. Happily it was an English Heritage property, with lovely signs and no entrance fee. The monastery was destroyed by Henry VIII, but the ruins are a testament to the building abilities of the Normans - the different sections and rooms are still clearly set out, the stone work still stands strong.

At Warham we had no idea where to look. I'd forgotten to look on the map before we'd left home, and we thought we'd just ask someone when we got there if we couldn't see any signs. Unfortunately it was the quietest corner of Norfolk, and we had to drive around for a while before finding some phone signal to look it up online. We pulled over onto the gravel, asked some people also stopped there, and walked up the country lane to the inconspicuous farm gate. After a short walk along a gravel track we went through another gate and saw the [url=http://www.pastscape.org/hob.aspx?hob_id=359249&sort=2&type=hillfort&rational=a&class1=None&period=None&county=None&district=None&parish=None&place=&recordsperpage=10&source=text&rtype=&rnumber=&p=49&move=n&nor=889&recfc=0]hill fort[/url], just sitting there. It is incredible to think that something built of the same stuff I used to make mud pies from is still surviving after several millennia, out in the open, potentially vulnerable to grazing, ploughing, 'improvement' or just the environment. There were also a lot of Chalk Hill Blue Butterflies, we would send clouds of them up into the air as we walked through the patches of cow slip flowers.

After a day of such historicity it was important to eat somewhere old, so we went to the Warham pub. We didn't know what to expect - it was closed when we first went through the village and didn't look awfully appealing, but when we went back it was busy! Always a good sign. And it was delicious! A proper country pub with good sized pies, crowded with knick knacks, locals and visitors, and a few local drinks on offer. Perfect for the end of a busy day.

We drove back to Norwich, via Little Snoring (which I wrote a report on, but hadn't ever been to), saw a lovely sunset, stopped for a few last photos (where my battery finally gave up), got home and called it a day.