Weeknotes 39

I’ve been on holiday for the last two weeks. First a week in Norfolk and then a week with my parents in Berkshire.

We arrived in Norwich too early to check in to our accomodation. Fortunately everyone’s favourite plaster cast dinosaur Dippy was visiting Norwich cathedral so we paid it a visit. Dippy’s visit meant that the city also had a Meet the T-rex trail, and N- loved walking around the city ticking off all of the T-Rex’s on his map (it also meant we had an excuse to see the city ourselves). We saw “Afternoon Tea Rex”, “Hulkasaurus” and “T Pot”. I pity the fool that missed the opportunity to design a “Mr. T Rex”.

The weather improved for the second half of the week, so we made a trip to Great Yarmouth. It’s probably the definition of a town that has “seen better days”. I was quite excited to take N- to the arcades and play some games - while less smokey than I remember as a kid, these arcades now seem to have massive fixed-odds slot machine rooms in the back and watching some despondent looking folks shuffle in and out as we played was a bit depressing. We did however have an excellent, great value lunch (including a massive bowl of clams) at Portugese restaurant A Varina Petisqueira.

A day trip to “curious treehouse adventure” BeWILDerwood on Thursday was an unexpected highlight. N- loved the zip wires, slides and massive treehouses (including a huge tree “maze”), F- and I built “dens” by dragging sticks around. It was a suprisingly peaceful place, with a story-time stage, a cafe and really friendly staff.

Cromer was a much nicer seaside town. We visited the small South American zoo Amazona in the morning and went to the beach in the afternoon. N- immediately made some friends on the beach and spent a couple of hours chasing waves backwards and forwards. F- and I had a nap.

Back at my parents A- had to work again for a few days, but I’d taken the week off. I was able to take a couple of trips out with my parents and the kids (most notably to the magnificant RHS Wisley gardens) but mostly we spent some quality time with the grandparents at home. My Dad and N- had several happy hours building LEGO city models at the dining room table, my Mum had fun with F- in the garden, and I got to spend some time with my Dad in his workshop making a second chair.