Sunday, December 5, 2010

Looking for the Folk of Nor in Norfolk

After the great time that we had last year, camping in the New Forest with our friends, Josh and Roz, we decided it would be great to explore some more of this great Isle together on the August Bank Holiday weekend. We headed up towards the much underrated, Norfolk, to take in some coastline, camping, and couscous (seriously, I think we did eat some - such a handy camping staple). Fortunately we had the loan of a TomTom GPS so, in our hire car, we were able to find the farm, not far from Sheringham, where were aiming to pitch our tent.
The farm allowed camp fires which was fantastic as the weather was NOT that tropical. On the second day there, after exploring the great seaside town of Cromer, we came home to roast Potatoes in the fire embers as well as Corn and, for dessert, Marshmallows. Mmmm. Despite the changeable weather, we managed to enjoy a great walk along the coastal marshlands and meadows as well as visiting Holkham beach (made famous by Gwyneth Paltrow in the closing credits of "Shakespeare in Love" - oh and the Queen has been known to walk her corgies there when staying in nearby Sandringham). The beach was this beautiful expanse of dunes but it was WINDy - Wellington's got nothing on this. One thing that we were annoyed about during our trip was that most car parks were pay and display - including Holkham. Never mind - good company still makes up for this! We were also able to see a lot of windmills and our fair share of "cute" villages. On the last day, we took the long way round and headed down to Suffolk. There we visited the incredibly well preserved Medieval town of Lavenham - an amazing Guildhall, heaps of Tudor houses, and cute shops to boot.

Isle of Wight - Spit Happens

After recovering from our springtime forays on the continent, we decided to explore closer to home - oh, and Dan's work needed him and his quota of volunteers (read: Susanna) to come down and help at a huge music festival - the Isle of Wight Festival - and get more people signed up to the Antony Nolan bone marrow donor register.
The weather was hot, the acts were hotter and so were the team - we all chipped in each day getting people to spit up and sign up - that's right, they had to give a spit sample for the lab team to enter in to the database. One problem, you can't spit if you have had something to eat, drink, or smoke within the last half hour... and we are at a music festival in summer.... hmmm. Still, the Antony Nolan charity registered over 900 new potential donors. We also got to see some great acts: Crowded House (well Neil Finn and some band members), Pink, Blondie, the Strokes, and some other newer acts as well. Susanna had to leave earlier on the Sunday evening to get back to work on time but Daniel was able to stay and also caught Sir Paul McCartney. Here are some pics for you to see what's what!