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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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 - the Black Lion was the coat of arms of a Queen Philippa.