We took Jasper to the Cozy Pets Boutique Hotel in the morning. Unlike Tabitha and Amelia he voluntarily enters the carrier - but you have to be fast with the carrier door to keep him entered. We then packed and set off for Yaxham to meet my cousin Pat and her husband Richard at Pickle and Pie. We were a few minutes early, having given ourselves contingency time to find the place. Google Maps said the place was on the right but it had hopped over to the left when we got there. "Pickle and Pie" is on the site of "Yaxham Waters" holiday park and caters for breakfast and lunch. We had sandwiches to keep Virginia and I going, with an ice cream tub as dessert. The peanut butter ice cream was nice if you like peanut butter. We then headed off for Cromer way. I could do without driving down one track roads, and bizarre modern traffic enraging schemes. We found our way smoothly for us to the Church Rooms in Northrepps. And the fun started. "Church Rooms" has style and modernity, underfloor heating by heat pump for one. The draining board was grooves in a worktop, artistic but not as useful as a traditional one. There was an absence of old-fashioned dials in favour of cryptic smart control panels. The simplest problem was finding the cutlery. The welcome notice said in the crockery drawer. What the welcome pack didn't say was that the crockery wasn't in the crockery drawer. Harder was getting the boiling water tap to produce hot water - not only have you to find the hidden power switch but then solve the riddles on the unit itself to make it work. But the microwave was a pure Mensa level puzzle. Virginia solved it sufficiently to heat up the Chinese meal for two we had brought with us. I also had fun with emails on the laptop. For some reason I don't understand Apple Mail forgot everything in my inbox temporarily. Perhaps Apple were trying to encourage me to keep my inbox empty. "Church Rooms" was fine as a base in the Cromer area. I was worried the car might slip off the muddy slope one had to park on and block the twisty one-track road outside (getting out seemed chancy as we were on a blind corner). One of the Venetian blinds was broken but there was plenty of space and modern facilities.

Aeons ago I went to King Edward VI Grammar School, Norwich courtesy of passing the 11 plus test as it was. (I think being a great reader I knew plenty of synonyms for the word "nice".) The opportunity came for me to visit the school in session, courtesy of the kind support staff at the school. The school is part of me, my history. Norwich is my Heimat. I wanted to see how it was now compared with what I remembered. I'm interested in how things work, schools can be considered both as elaborate mechanisms and also as living organisms which adapt to their environment. Necessarily "Norwich School" has adapted to the modern times in the UK. So I wasn't surprised to see posters celebrating coloured women mathematicians. I arrived in Cathedral Close to find a lot of school children milling around, it being break time. The school now being co-educational both sexes were well represented. If I had arrived on a Saturday there wouldn't have been any milling around - the school on Saturday I knew was scrapped some years ago. I remember going to see Norwich City play at Carrow Road after school, and a fellow schoolboy sharing apple squash on the bus back home. It was like nectar. Also gone were the Cathedral boarders from my day, and the playground we used to play soccer in during break times using a tennis ball. I went through shoes a lot in those days. The noticeboard area which was the information hub before there were information hubs has gone. One year they were defaced with an offensive version of what SMA stood for. There are new to me buildings on the site, and the school has expanded into existing buildings on the Cathedral Close site. Rooms have been reassigned so what was a gym to me was now a drama area. Art and good art at that was very much in evidence, along corridors and staircases and in old ossuary chapels. The school is developing talent which I believe is a strength of independent schools. There is plenty of equipment around including computers. There was even a large Ethernet router in a toilet which bemused me. IT is now a subject undreamt of in my day, pupils experimenting first with Python then web technologies. Class sizes are smaller than I remember, and the style of teaching has really developed. I had the chance to attend a concert given by a tenor in the Chapel where so long ago I had to dress up in ruff and white surplice (as my mother thought I should sing as she liked singing). I wasn't very good but being in the Chapel Choir had the perk of a yearly trip up to London to the Worshipful Company of Dyers who had an annual service. The singer was really proficient, classically trained, amazing how musicians and actors can memorise so much. The singer was also another ON (Old Norvicensian), and currently a teaching assistant at the school. I got the impression quite a few of the staff at the school were ONs. The classics (Latin and Greek) are still inflicted or inflected on hapless school children. I was amused by knowing some poor unfortunate was named Tarquinius Superbus, but gerunds and gerundives finished off my Latin education. I successfully petitioned to be excused. Now I happily invest time into learning Japanese, and I wish I had read languages at University, but then languages were just another penance. The past is still alive in many ways. Boards in various places list names from decades past. Staircases befitting a stately home. A yearly ritual is still held at the statue of the most famous ON Nelson - even if he ran away from the school. Jerusalem is still sung at the end of some services, stirring stuff to Parry's music. My guide pointed out Blake's poem was lettered on a colourful Hare statue outside the refectory. I enjoyed a good Katsu Chicken in that well thronged refectory - school lunches have definitely been upgraded. I remember that the pinnacle of school dinners was having a block of white ice cream drowned in chocolate sauce. I learnt things I didn't know at the time I was at the school. Underneath the main playground is a set of air raid tunnels, I almost asked to see them. Long ago we played with contrivances of cotton reels and rubber bands and match sticks, impressed by their moving by themselves. Organising ON activities is a vital part of school life. The school rents the ground it stands on. At the end of the day I was asked for my memories of school life. I wish I could reel off stories galore but my memories are few and far between. I'm not like Salvador Dali who remembered being in the womb. I wasn't in the sixth form at Norwich, and also I'm not in touch with those I was at school with. Reminiscing over shared memories is the way to preserve those memories. But some things I do recall. Listening to the wonder of "Emerson Lake and Palmer's" version of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" in a music lesson in the Bishop's Palace, when Bernard Burrell allowed it to be played. That opened a whole new world to me, to progressive rock and beyond. So thank you my music teacher for teaching me to love the rich and strange, to seek the farthest shore, though I don't think you meant to. I remember the joy of receiving a new rough book at the start of a new year, all clean and full of promise which in my hands was never fulfilled. Watching "Noye's Fludde" sitting in the now inaccessible galleries in Norwich Cathedral, performed along with girls from the girls high school in Norwich. I stayed in touch with a school friend for a year or two after I left, and went back once. He showed me the sixth form common room, and a special chair which was both 'pinful' and painful. Tacks had been hidden awaiting unsuspecting sitting ducks. Another masculine rite of passage was there were coat racks beneath Dyers Lodge? Boys would have themselves tied upside to the coat hooks by the feet and try to extricate themselves. Other memories are more complex. School affected me in ways it didn't intend to. To some extent when I say school here this is school generically not specifically. I was inoculated against Shakespeare (or Marlowe if you're a Marlovian), and only fatally infected when I saw "Twelfth Night" on the TV and realised it was great. This inoculation was partly because that plays and much else was taught piecemeal, tree by tree, and you never saw the wood as a whole. Partly because that teaching focussed on technique and not on developing a love for the subject. Art and sport repelled me. It was important for school that the teachers develop those talented, and that in itself I agree with. But what do you do with the untalented? My memories of art classes are being left alone in a corner to be autodidactic with a lump of clay. Pointless and 'paintless'. Sport was worse. I'm grateful to be cured of any affection for sport, but that again isn't what was intended. Cricket was pure boredom. I never batted or bowled, and either I was sitting around or vainly wandering the wide open spaces. One time the ball somehow came my way, and entered my hands as I sought to defend myself. Of course I dropped it. I once tripped over a bag left on the pavilion, and kicked it in disgust. As the bag belonged to the games master I had a rare encounter with a cricket bat. Teachers usually let the best pupils choose two teams. Being always picked last reinforced one's place in the sporting world. There was an annual cross-country 'run' over Mousehold Heath. A "March for No Reason" to quote "King Crimson". One year I forged a letter from my parents to avoid the ordeal. Nevertheless I am glad Norwich School existed in my day and exists now. I believe in diversity. I believe in fulfillment. I believe each generation has something to teach the next.

Back to the Thursford Christmas Spectacular after a 2-year hiatus. We were worried we would get there too early, glad when we were held up by farm vehicles, but when we got there the joint was already heaving! Virginia had to locate a table we could share while I joined a slow moving queue for food in the marquee. Coaches had already arrived, and plenty of cars. The show was pretty much the same as before, the comedian who said he was Armenian was cleaner, there were jugglers and circus performers as a diversion, the doves still flew across the theatre at the end. Impressive but not the shock of the new for me. Santa's Magical Journey was the same pretty much, what was new and welcome was a light display outside which Virginia wisely had us tour again in the dark after the show. The jacket potatoes we had for lunch were fine, but the pie efforts we had for dinner didn't agree with me. Google Maps led us both astray going (wanted us to turn too soon into Thursford) and coming back the route out of Thursford was suboptimal.

The Thursford Christmas Spectacular is almost a fixed part of our year, which we observe. The show is pretty much the same each year, I could do without the comedian and his toilet humour. There was a foreign lass juggling stuff while lying on her back for variety. The shops were more crowded this year, and the marquee had pretty much filled up when we got there just after 12pm thanks to a detour the Satnav suggested. It is a long haul there and back, but it is a grand size show.

Just so we could have a round at Pirates Cove Crazy Golf we've had a long weekend in the Great Yarmouth area. It was a great Crazy Golf course, well laid out, with an edutainment side to it as it had placards recording the history of Blackbeard and Captain Morgan and the like - the moral seemed to be piracy is not a good long-term career choice. The 18 holes were varied, but not too difficult. We would have got round quicker but found ourselves held up by being indirectly behind a slow foursome. Before this on the Saturday we also did Merrivale Model Village which is a model village as the name suggests. We got our hands stamped as we went in, the mark has faded after a day or two. Fun enough for an hour! Saturday evening we managed to eat at "Brewers Fayre" despite the Satnav misleading us. On the Sunday we went to the service at Gorleston Baptist Church, very welcoming and good value for money as the service went on past noon. We were glad we had booked the Harvester for 1pm! So hot I went for fish and chips. In the afternoon we went to Somerleyton Hall which is a stately home still owned by the family which made its wealth making carpets. I do enjoy seeing such places, what is possible if you have the money to do it, but the gulf between me and the class of people who have such homes jars. We didn't attempt the maze, but did attempt the variegated scoops of ice cream available in the cafe. The blue candyfloss ice cream was novel. I've left to last the place we stayed at, Leanda Lodge. For the right people this would be a great place to stay, but for us it didn't work so well. The weather was very hot and it was uncomfortable being inside, stuffy - but we were deterred from being outside as the owners had black Rottweilers with names like Lucifer. One Rottweiler was huge. Even having the windows open was problematic as the owners had two parties while we were there including barbecue so noise and smoke. They had a large parrot prisoner in a cage which we only realised after we heard someone saying bye bye but not a visible someone. Other oddities included light switches hidden behind fridges, a gravel driveway our wheels spun on, and taps needing to be unwound several times to come on. But some visitors loved Leanda Lodge.

A long weekend in the Lowestoft area, seeing the "Africa Alive!" zoo and the "Time and Tide" museum in Great Yarmouth among other attractions.

Time for the Thursford Christmas Spectacular again! This year we almost didn't make it as we both fell ill with streaming noses and coughs and colds. But such is our dedication to starting the Christmas season properly we forced ourselves to go. Virginia drove (which I find stressful as she drives rather differently to the way I do) and for once the Satnav didn't play us foul, and we reached Thursford in an hour and a three quarters. We ate at the cafe in Thursford Fantasy Land for a change. Pretty much the same unmagical food as the other venues, the soup had to be microwaved as it wasn't even lukewarm. In this venue they give you a table number and bring the food to you. Santa's Magical Journey looked pretty much like it did last year, in fact Thursford as a whole did though there is a new toy shop there. We killed the time before 2pm by squeezing through the bustle in the shops (the coaches had arrived and unloaded by this point), sat on the carousel for a drink, then took our seats. We like to sit at the back where you're not trapped in. The extra seating they put in for the show is a bit cramped and awkward where people come late and have to apologise their way to their seats. The show was a feast for the eyes as much as the ears, a lot going on on the stage. The variety turn was a couple of Japanese adept at balancing and spinning various things. The comedian was pretty clean - a pleasant change from the obscenity equals humour of modern days. I enjoyed the first half - just more variety. The doves continued to fly at the end of the performance. It was the 40th so looking back. After the show we were fortunate to meet up with my cousin Pat and her husband Richard in the marquee for a bite to eat before we left. We had thought they weren't going to be able to make this year when we were there. A dirty drive home with the windscreen dirtied by spray. I was glad to be able mostly to sit on other people's tails and follow their red lights home.

We went again to see the Christmas Show at the Thursford Collection, a long drive but worth it. We get there early to at least have lunch before the coaches disgorge their hundreds and it becomes difficult to move around. It's great meeting up with my cousin there and her husband. The show is well done, they vary it a bit year to year (so this year we had a Norfolk bor comic and a circus performer), it was sensibly choreographed and performed but it just didn't thrill me as it did the first year we went. I'm jaded I know.

Happily no water splashes this year to drive through on our way to Thursford for this year's Christmas show there. This year we also disobeyed the Satnav and didn't go through farmyards or down one car wide tracks in the back of beyond. The show itself was as good as last year, apart from the comedian being a little too blue for our liking, not as crude as some true. The shops get very crowded, too crowded when all the coaches have disgorged their passengers. We ate in the marquee which had a strange inflated tube in the ceiling apparently for heating. Every so often a pulse of hot air? would shoot down the roof. We had a bite to eat after the show to let the stampede finish, but also to speak a bit more with my cousin Pat and husband who we met up with there. Heard how the show has evolved from its early days, when it was local choirs and performers in a barn, to its modern incarnation of professionalism and big stage. The show itself is what keeps Thursford running. It's unique. I do like that the show doesn't shy away from talking about Jesus Christ as the Christ in Christmas. It's not evangelical in tone, but it has religious roots.

Virginia and I together with her parents hired a boat from Richardsons in Acle to do a one week cruise on the Norfolk Broads in late May. The helpful people at the now closed "Horizon boatyard" gave us a crash course in handling the boat then sent us on our way. The professionals made it all look easy from steering the boat to mooring it - but such skills need longer than a week for me to acquire. Our boat "Golden Horizon 2" wasn't as glamorous or as big as some of the boats we met but served us. It was quite noisy inside as when the water pump ran, or when water was slapping not lapping against the keel as at our first stop St Benet's Abbey, or when torrential rain beat down as it did during our holiday. The good weather only came when we had finished our cruise! The either frigid or scalding showers on the boat made noises like a dentist's drills. It was eerie and wrong when the boat wasn't noisy. We only used the mudweight once on the cruise when we stern moored - the weight was too heavy for me to lift alone. The stern mooring ropes were meant to be left lying along the sides of the boat, once we didn't do this and panic ensued when we moored. Each day started with checking the engine - the crew took out the dipstick to check the oil level then couldn't find where to put it back. Each day we also topped up with drinking water, the first time took ages as we didn't notice it coming out the overflow! The inverter used to power the TV could be used to recharge phones and iPads, but nothing more powerful. The boat had a new gas oven but it was little more than a camp stove. The Norfolk Broads are a very beautiful and serene landscape, especially when you cruise along reed lined avenues of water at walking pace. It's flat yes but you get huge expanses of sky. We saw grebes and magical blue kingfishers and nesting swans and herons - ducks clambered all over the boat as it suited them. Drainage pumps of different eras were scattered around like the remains of dinosaurs. We wandered to a few places as tourists. There wasn't a lot to see at St Benet's Abbey itself. Toad Hole Cottage was worth a look as a look into the past. We got a mug from "Sutton Pottery" and chatted to the genial potter there. We almost saw a candle making place at Stokesby but it had moved! The "Tea Rooms" did a great cheese and onion toastie though. The holiday was rather stressful as a whole. There was stress about finding moorings. There was stress about maintaining the boat like keeping the drinking water topped up. There was big stress manoeuvring the boat. Forward is fun enough with the delay before turning the wheel does anything combined with the wind and tide affecting where you go. I found reversing nigh impossible with not being able to see where the boat was going combined with the crew panicking about hitting things like other boats. There were those skilled at handling such boats, who knew how to use the fact a boat is very different to a car. You can pivot a boat on a spot which you can't with a car. Most of the people we met were very helpful, aiding us by taking our mooring lines and tying up for us making it look like second nature. A few of the people we encountered in boats were not so welcome. The lot who didn't appreciate to moor a boat you need a space at least as large as the boat you're trying to moor. The couple on a sailing yacht who crashed into boats as they tacked from side to side without caring or apologising. At the moment I don't feel like having another Broads cruise holiday.

A second trip to see the Thursford Christmas Show in Thursford Norfolk.

We took Friday 11th off work so we could go to the Thursford Christmas Spectacular at the Thursford Collection in deepest rural Norfolk. Took longer than I expected to get there - over one and a half hours. We tried out Virginia's Satnav in anger, though we didn't take its advice to start with. The Satnav in its female voice kept telling us to turn round as soon as possible. As we neared the destination we decided to be friendly and follow its directives. I got a little dubious as we started driving along one track lanes and through farmyards - and when it told us we had arrived there was no sign of our destination! Happily we were only a few yards away from being able to see where we hoped to be. The Thursford Collection (a collection of fairground organs and roundabouts and steam engines) was heaving with multiple coach parties. The toilets were oversubscribed, and we had to sit on one of the roundabouts to have a bite for lunch. Still we were in time for the Christmas Show itself which was very impressive! An anachronistic spectacular of dance, not alternative comedian (so funny without being obscene,) Christmas carols, illusionist, and song and dance numbers. Worth going to. On the way out we tried the Winter Wonderland exhibit which wasn't quite worth the £4 a head entrance fee, but was appealing to one's inner child. We will be booking up to see the show in 2012! A long drive back, the coaches helped to block the surrounding roads a little but we got back in one piece.

This Friday evening I did something different. Rather than sleep in a cosy bed I went out to wander in the dark and wetness of a rainy fen. Welney WWT centre were having a bat and barn owl evening where you wander round with a guide learning about bats and barn owls. The closest we got to owls were their pellets, impressively sized. On bats we had more luck. Pipistrelles were darting around the centre as we arrived. In one of the lookout points they had an infrared camera set up and you could see Daubentons flitting over the surface of the pond, and pipistrelles higher up. Pipistrelles need to eat their own body weight each night in insects, 3000 worth - rather them than me. To help us detect bats the guides handed out bat detectors which turn the bat ultrasonics into more audible frequencies - though it seemed we were hearing insects more than flying mammals. The centre also had a number of moth traps around - light traps and scent traps (the scent was red wine mixed with sugar.) There are zillions of kinds of moths, so much so the names lack a little imagination. Buff ermine, poplar hawk moth, lesser red underwing, etc. The evening wasn't a complete success. The rain didn't help, and no newts were visible in the ponds. But it was something different and there quite a range of people on it. Chatted with one guy who came fully prepared in long waterproofs, infrared camcorder, and fancy torch. The centre is out in the Fens, and it was a long drive to get there, particularly as it was dark and I was unsure of the way, and the roads were half-hearted. At one stage I found myself pursued by a farm vehicle in the night - its lights were like a dragon's breath hot on my neck!

We went to Norwich to see where I grew up, the streets that imprinted themselves on my dreams. Booked into a spanking new Holiday Inn Norwich right by Norwich City's football ground, our room even looked out over the pitch! The ground, and the immediate area, had changed from when as a schoolboy I used to go and stand on the terraces and watch matches. Now seats everywhere no standing. We walked round the football stadium and saw that Delia Smith had a restaurant there - as the price was £32 a head decided to eat in the hotel's restaurant! The staff at the hotel were friendly and helpful, our room was well laid out and well lit (unusual in a hotel room.) The bathroom had an artistic look to it with the wash basin raised proud. The prices were artistic too, and breakfast wasn't included (£12.95 each!) There was annoying piped music in the corridors, and I didn't sleep well with the noise. We also needed the air conditioning on to stay warm. On the Saturday we caught a number 35 bus from a nearby superstore up to Castle Meadow (only £1 to hop on and off a kindly bus driver told us.) Happily it stayed dry while we were walking around Norwich centre as Virginia had left her waterproof behind. Saw the Castle Mall which was new to me, a split-level celebration of shopping, then went around the Castle itself. In the Castle there was an exhibition of art by Cotman, some of which rivalled Turner in their expressiveness. A lift of metal and glass thrust itself up out of the ground by the castle, as out of place as Dr Who's Tardis inside an Aztec temple. We went to the Bridewell Museum - I like particularly seeing recreations of old shops and the Bridewell had a pawnbroker and chemists. The chemists included in its wares dried spiders. Went to Jarrolds department store for a cup and a slice of cake in the crowded cafe at the top. I remember the anxiety of getting separated from my parents in that store. Next was going to the Cathedral (taking in a bag of roasted chestnuts as it was a holiday.) My old school (the Upper School part) is right next to the Cathedral, we used to have assemblies in the Cathedral - I remember rousing renditions of "Jerusalem" at the end of terms. I sang not that confidently in the Chapel choir rather than the Cathedral choir, used to have to wear a surplice and ruff on Sundays. Once a year we would go on a trip down to London to sing at a do at the Worshipful Company of Dyers there. Had a sightseeing tour of London thrown in. A statue of Nelson (who ran away from King Edward the Sixth's grammar school) stands in the upper close - once a year we had to do a ritual round the statue. Most of the upper close hasn't changed but they are building next to the Cathedral. I paid £3 to be able to take pictures inside the Cathedral, I remember particularly being up in the galleries when a joint performance (with Norwich Girl's School) of the mediaeval mystery play "Noye's Fludde" was done in the Cathedral. We walked along winding flint walled lanes to see the Lower School - now with a security fence it didn't have in my day. It has been rebuilt too since a fire destroyed the buildings I knew. Walked back to see St. Andrews Hall Norwich where we used to have School speech days - my mother tried to stop me fidgeting during them. The last speech day I ever went to I did receive a prize! But then had to dash away as the family was unhappily moving up to Yorkshire. After St. Andrew's Hall we went on to Strangers Hall which was one of the places we had outings from school. Saw the Maddermarket Theatre on the way back to Castle Meadow too. Saturday was rounded off with a meal courtesy of room service. The restaurant was fully booked until 9pm they said, and even if we sat down at 9pm it might be 9.30pm before food might be transmitted to our table. Got home on Sunday to find Tabitha had been sick in several places. The cats do enliven our lives.

Houghton Hall was the seat of Robert Walpole Britain's first prime minister, later associated with the Cholmondeley family (pronounced Chumley.) Fine set of rooms but not a coherent style. Good gardens.

Virginia and I spent a long weekend 24th to 27th June in the North Norfolk area. On the way up we visited the Thursford Collection during a real downpour on the Friday. There we saw the nifty footwork of resident organist Robert Wolfe on a Wurlitzer. How can the brain control so much? We overdosed out on stately homes of which there are plenty in the area. We saw Blickling and Holkham and Felbrigg but I confess these in my mind all blur into each other. The old faded paintings, libraries of uniformly bound books, false doors through which servants entered, deer parks, ice houses, elaborate silver tableware, sugar nippers, manicured formal gardens seem to be the form for the houses of the nobles. We stayed in a guest house in Little Walsingham which is even more historical than a stately home. A site of pilgrimage for over a millennium, it had a mixture of shops including statues and icons if you wanted to take some holiness home with you. We had a good tarragon chicken in the Black Lion on a very wet day