Making Peahen Homesick. Pt.1

Having posted a couple of photos of Norwich last Thursday, and having made Peahen really homesick for her native Norfolk (and perhaps made Lynn think about coming in to Norwich next time she visits her parents), I took my camera into the city this morning to make poor Pea feel even worse.
So after my usual non-date breakfast, these are a few of this morning's photos.

To really, really pile on the pain, this is a photo of Peahen's old office.
The lovely Dutch-gabled house on St. Andrew's Plain is where Pea worked before she buggered off to hillier climes.
The shop next door is a particularly splendid cake shop. Remember, Pea? Mmmm …


And just a few yards further up the road is this old pale yellow building with a wonderful, thirteenth century undercroft and huge oak beams.
This was Old Dive's place of architectural dicking-about before I came to my senses and got a job in London.
At the end of the street is the Cathedral, which I'll post about another time, maybe tomorrow if I'm stuck for ideas.

If anyone remembers last Thursday's post, I talked about the park next to the Castle.
Well this is my shadow in that park this morning, looking at the Castle.
In the dip to the left is the glass roof of my favourite mall. It goes down several stories and the park is built on top of it so it's almost invisible from the outside.
The bit on the right of the Castle is the Tate In The East art gallery. Well spiffy!

Castle Blanchfleur was built by the Normans just after the Conquest, to keep us revolting peasants in order. Started in 1086, the same time as the Cathedral, it's built of Caen stone, rafted over from France. The inside of the keep is all original and with the museum and the art gallery makes for a great day out.
It's a good place to find Dive on a rainy Saturday.

The Castle is a traditional motte and bailey type. Given a couple of weeks, the mound will be a mass of yellow daffodils. Right now, it's just muddy grass.


Down at the bottom of the Castle mound is the lovely Art Nouveau Royal Arcade.
Oh, nearly forgot: click on any of these to get a much bigger pic.

Inside the arcade.
Down there on the right is the inestimable Digby's of Holt, a local, hand-made confectioners, who, amongst many splendid and exotic delights, make Dive's favourite licorice fudge (only available under the counter to regulars … Ha!).

When our delightfully box-like, nineteen-sixties library burnt down (a mercy killing), they built a new one. This is the Forum, home to part of the library and the BBC.

It looks out at St.Peter Mancroft, a particularly fine church. There's usually a market or exhibition going on inside, as well as all the normal touristy stuff. Another good place to hide from the rain.
This is St.Peter Mancroft again, from the square outside the Forum.

And again, from the square with the cone man in it (so named because he's usually found wearing a traffic cone on Sunday mornings … which perhaps explains his fed-up pose).

Down the hill, just out the back of Peahen's old office is the thatched, fourteenth century Britons Arms.
This is a coffee shop now, but in mediæval times was the City's most notorious whorehouse. The monastery is just off to the right and it was kind of convenient for the monks.

Plenty of gnarly old buildings in Norwich. This is Elm Hill. A bit touristy, but nice out of season.
Another bit of Elm Hill.
Yes I know it's a plane tree, not an elm, but all the elms in the region died of Dutch Elm Disease in the sixties and it's still about, so we can't plant elms at the moment.
I really like the shadow of the tree on the pale blue house.

This is the slightly drunken old building between my old office and the Cathedral. I used to walk this way to work. Nice.
I took a load of pics of the Cathedral this morning, but my broadband is so crap it's taken me hours to load even these ones up, so that'll have to wait for another day.


I'll finish with some hopeful news for Rich.
As you all know, we are grieving with him for the loss of Rosa from his coffee shop.
Well, Rich … about a year ago, the lovely Emmy disappeared in similar circumstances from my regular Saturday breakfast spot. I later found out that she'd been promoted to assistant manageress in another branch.
Well today, there she was back again, good as new, and squeaky and shouty and overexcitedly happy to see me and Phil walk in. She's been promoted again and is now manageress of the old branch (she even remembered our exact order and how we like it served … we're fussy buggers).
So, young Rich. Give it a year and Rosa could be back as the boss! And you can live happily ever after with your free lattes.
Aah … Wouldn't that be nice?