A trip to the blustery seaside

One of the things that attracted me to Norfolk when we were in South Africa planning a place to settle, was the fact that the sea is not that far away.  I have always missed the ocean, one of the things I used to look forward to everytime I went to Hermanus when I visited my mum - going down to Kwaaiwater or similar beaches and just sitting there watching the waves break against rocks - such a primordial feeling and always comforting, for me.

Today, despite the gloomy overcast skies and gail force winds, I managed to drag everybody out of the house for a drive to the closest seaside place to us, which is at California Beach (what a misnomer that is!) between Scratby and Caister.  If you Google this area, the photos are gorgeous (obviously taken in the heart of summer)  ....

Google search image of California Beach in summer

It's somewhat different in December ...

walking down to the beach

another view of the sandy beach  ... very windswept and icy today though

windfarms ... a common sight along the Norfolk coastline

Faye would have swam, given half a chance - note how Sparkles is cuddled up in her coat!

Holiday homes at California Beach

Very cold out here, freezing gail force winds, wasn't long before we went back to the car!

Kevin leads the charge back to the car.

To say the wind was freezing and full strength, is a bit of an understatement, it slammed me into the car whilst I was trying to sort out my camera just after we'd arrived.  Even though the weather is not for surfing at all, we think this will be a beautiful place to come to in the summer months with the kiddies and it's only 40 minutes drive away.

After suffering the freezing seaside for a couple of minutes, we went back to the car to thaw out and then took a trip up the coastline back to Gt. Yarmouth - I've never been to this place.  There is tons to do in this town for holiday makers, the beachfront is crammed with activity centres, themeparks etc. for kiddies and adults alike - very much like Blackpool but not as grimy.  Sadly, in winter almost all the places are shut up and closed ... but again, we are looking forward to coming back to Yarmouth in summer.

Roller coaster on the beachfront - actual view

Zoomed in view of the edge of the roller coaster and eerie wind turbine in the background

all that beach to herself!

actual view looking out towards a ship offshore

zoom view without tripod - not a bad factory fitted zoom on this Nikon - with a tripod I would have gotten a more detailed shot of the ship because it still isn't on full zoom.

A little lad at the beach, about to jump onto the sand

Faye couldn't stop rolling about in the sand - i'm sure she would have stripped off and gone for a swim if we'd let her!

Nelson's Monument

Brittania on top of Nelson's Monument

Close up of Brittania, who is facing inland - which is a bit odd

schematic of the Nelson Monument architecture

217 steps - no problem

Interesting - the works superintendent  (Thomas Sutton) died when he got to the top of the steps (people thought he'd committed suicide after he realised that Brittania was facing the wrong way - but in fact he had a heart attack)

On our way home, we stopped off at the Mill Inn, Saxlingham Thorpe for a late lunch/early supper

Again, another English 'restaurant/pub' that failed to live up to expectations.   I really thought that going to a pub type eatery would be the best bet but once more, I was proven wrong.  Whilst the place is cosy and warm, nicely furnished and decorated ... we waited ages to be served (and there was only us there) by a waif of a girl who seemed just barely 18 herself.    Hayzel and I decided to have coffee to start with ... the waitress asked us if we needed milk and sugar and then proceeded to pour filter coffee from the Urn in the corner of the room, then I kid you not, she brought the cups to us and plonked them down on the table, sans saucers!   I said to Hayzel and Kevin later, after we'd ordered food, that I hoped we got the food on plates.

I had scampi, salad and chips (jacket potatoes cut up and fried) - no sauce.   Kevin had a cheese burger, chips and salad - the cheese was just a blob melted on top of his burger, not a cheese sauce, so very dry.  The kiddies each had the mini-All Day Breakfast, which was very good value for money - eggs, beans, sausage, bacon, hashbrowns, toast, mushrooms plus an ice cream (£4.95 each)  ... Hayzel had the adult version of the All Day Breakfast.  Hayzel had a Spiced Gold and Coke (actually a Captain Morgan and Coke - they don't know what you are talking about here when you ask for Spiced Gold), I had a glass of Sauvignon Blanc white wine and Kevin had a couple of lagers (we think they were Fosters because they were served in Fosters glasses).  The entire bill came to about £54 and then Hayzel gave our illustrious waitress a 10% tip - which she really didn't deserve and probably more than she's ever gotten judging by her beaming smile.     We won't be going back.   

I wonder if anyone around here knows where a family can get a decent restaurant meal and not be ripped off in the process?  

Tidings of Joy to all ...

So how are the Christmas hang-overs coming along?  Hope you are all doing well ... this time of year is hard to be apart from your family and we are all missing everybody.   Life goes on though and we are getting more 'sorted' every day.

Yesterday afternoon Hayzel and I went into the local library and organised all our library cards - what a breeze!  Everything is so efficient and organised - we now have nice shiny library cards and can use them at any library in Norfolk.   We get to take 15 books out at a time (keep for 3 weeks).   The system is fully electronic - when you take out books, you put them in a pile and place them in a scanning unit, which neatly scans your books and lists them on a receipt before printing it out for you, the receipt shows the date that each book has to be returned.  So easy.   I borrowed some very interesting books on Norfolk - including one that is filled with photographs of the coastal villages and beaches all along the Norfolk coastline.  

I am very impatient and whilst trawling around on the Internet over Christmas, I decided to buy myself a Bridge camera as I can't afford a DSLR at this point (not till I'm earning some UK pounds on a regular basis!).   So I purchased a Nikon Coolpix P510 - it arrived this morning and I've been playing around with it a bit today.   Lovely little machine, I think I'm going to have a lot of fun with it.  

Hayzel, Faye and myself decided to go out for a girls' shopping morning.   After wandering around the Riverside shopping centre, we decided to go into Norwich and rather do some shopping at the bigger shops, like Debenhams or Marks & Sparks.  Oh My God, what a mistake!   For starters it took us over half an hour just to find a spot in a car park we usually go to.  It would have been a lot easier if the drivers of cars in front of us had moved along through the parking lot until they found a spot, rather than just park there waiting for someone to leave.   There were no parking attendants on duty to move cars along - very infuriating - we couldn't reverse to get out, just had to sit there until someone decided to move up front of us.

Eventually we found a space, parked and looked for somewhere to go and have a snack because it was lunch time and we were all a bit hungry.  We went into Chapelfield Mall and up the escalators to the food hall ... people were sitting in groups on the floor eating their MacDonalds!  There were no places to sit in any restaurant or fastfood outlet.  It was ridiculous.  I've never seen so many people in one place at one time.  The mall walkways were a sea of people, you couldn't put a pin between them.   We turned around and left the mall - and found space to sit at a restaurant called Macintosh's ... har har .... drinks came quickly but the bloody sandwiches and chips took over half an hour!   One thing the UK doesn't have the edge on is fast food, or the social dynamics of family restaurants. Hayzel and I both thought that a Spur would do really well in Norwich! 
 
We left the restaurant, topped up the parking meter (you pay in advance and put the ticket inside your car on the dashboard, so it is visible to parking attendants) and then joined the thousands of people wandering around the city in search of Post-Christmas bargains.

The initial plan was to get Faye a pretty party dress.  Not so easy.   We noticed that the large stores just don't seem to have any decent children's clothes on sale at all - all the girls' dresses looked like 1970's stock.   We found some divine bridesmaids dresses in Debenhams but at over £71 for some of the designs, we decided to give that a miss!  

After an hour or so of wasting our time (we did buy some things for Faye and I got Ewan some Mike the Knight tops and socks) we decided to go home and call it a day.

We passed a window in the city, whilst looking for parking that featured posters by the Norwich City Centre Partnership,  one poster states:

       Norwich shops generate £1.38 billion per annum
                                and
       Norwich is the best city in the country for retail satisfcation.

I have one piece of advice to give to anyone who lives near Norwich, don't bother going into that city until the middle of January :)
And if you do,  go by bus.

Faye in one of the outfits her Mum bought her today

We hope you all have a lovely New Year party and great start to 2013. 

Talking Happy Talking ... Happy Talk

Yes, erm ... scuse the title of the post.
Our Talk Talk went live today and everything is working just perfectly fine thank you very much.
We now have a landline and dedicated unlimited broadband, so that's quite cool.  our Broadband speed this evening is 11.70 Mbps - not too shabby, Nige.

Love to all - will be posting more pics tomorrow.

Boxing Day Blues

I think a certain little three year old has had way too much Christmas.   Poor old Ewan!   Christmas is taking its toll on this little person, he didn't seem to know what to do with himself yesterday and was all sorts of unreasonable most of the day.   Today, after we had spent a lovely lunch/afternoon time with Tim, Toni and family in Beccles, he refused to come home and we had one hell of a war in the car most of the way home.  It's amazing what a racket such a small person can make.   Anyway, he's all sunshine and smiles now that we've been home a couple of hours.  He didn't want to leave Matthew's house at all!   Tim and Toni, thank you very much for having us round today and for the surprise hamper basket of UK goodies that you gave us (even a little christmas pud for me!) ... we had a lovely time.  

Just by way of an update to the famdamily, I am not using DropBox for videos after all - i've opened up a site on Shutterfly - the link is here. You may need an invite to view, so please email me for the invite if I haven't already sent it to you.   I will also post bulk photos there as well - if I get to the point where I can't be arsed to put them all up here on the Blog! 

All for now - have a peaceful rest of the week ... here's to counting down the final hours of 2012.   What have you all got planned? 

Christmas Morning

Woken up at about 7am, which wasn't too bad I suppose ... :)
Included in Faye's stocking was a Merida wig, which she still hasn't taken off.     So here we go with the present opening bonanza:

Santa's been!

can't wait to start opening presents

 Winx! 

is this excited or what? 

To Infinity and Beyond!

Another Winx doll from Nana

To die for shoes

Princess modelling kit from Auntie Sharon & Uncle Dave

Hulk pyjamas

Ninja Turtle toy from Nana

Captain America from Auntie Sharon and Uncle Dave

Present from Santa

Now you're talking - my present from Kevin!

My pressies from the kiddies and Hayzel

Strike a pose

Hulk crushes puny humans

Yeee Ha!  Rootin' Tootin' Jessie - one of the presents from Santa

Iron Man!  from Santa

Just a little bit happy

Buzz Lightyear and friend

Carrot tops all together

We took some thousands of photos, I will try and post more tomorrow - I am also going to put a lot on DROPBOX, so please David and Andrew can you check  your emails and get that sorted?  I want to put videos on Dropbox as well