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New Year in Norfolk
For several years now, we’ve made it a tradition to get away for New Year. Years ago, it was often a snowboarding trip. Later, with Skitters, the goal became finding somewhere quieter to help ease her anxiety about fireworks. Now, it’s simply something we enjoy doing, a treat after the Christmas hustle and bustle.
This year, we returned to Norfolk, staying at the Forest Holidays site. It was a peaceful spot to bid farewell to 2024 and welcome 2025.
We arranged for early check-in, allowing us to get out into the woodlands as the sun set.
During our stay, we visited several National Trust properties. On our first day, we stopped by Felbrigg Hall and Estate
and popped into Sheringham Park as well as it was only 10 minutes away
On New Year’s Day, a particularly wet day, we waited for the rain to ease and headed out in the afternoon to East Wretham Nature Reserve
I couldn’t resist photographing some vibrant fungi that brightened up the day.
On Thursday, we visited another nearby National Trust property, the Oxburgh Estate. While much of the woodland and parkland was closed due to safety concerns after heavy winds, we made the most of the areas that were accessible and enjoyed a warming coffee afterwards.
We had to contend with frosty mornings, which proved tricky for our car battery and made the drive home a bit more stop-and-go than planned.
As we started to wend our way home we stopped off at the impressive Ickworth Estate. We enjoyed a walk through some of the parkland, which felt vast and left us wanting to return for further exploration.
We did pop by the house for a look at the outside as it’s really quite an incredible sight.
Our final stop was the Wimpole Estate, a place we visited in the summer during our first holiday with Breezy. Unfortunately, the EV chargers didn’t work for our car this time, so we couldn’t charge while exploring. Despite this, we enjoyed a brief look around and caught glimpses of the dismantling Christmas light display.
This was another successful New Year’s break.
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Book review: Solo by William Boyd
Rating: 3 out of 5
Listened to over a few drives. Entertaining enough while driving. Not sure I’d have bothered to read it myself but the narrator was really engaging.
Originally posted to my Goodreads account
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Book review: The Joy of Small Things by Hannah Jane Parkinson
Rating: 4 out of 5
I picked this book to read in episodes after enjoying that format when reading the micro seasons book (Light rains sometimes fall). So I’ve read an article every three or so days since February. As this is a collection of standalone articles anyway this has been an appropriate way to read it and has (usually) left me smiling as I consider the joy being described wondering if I’d consider a joy as well.
I highlighted the following from the article “Pockets” as it’s a shared frustration!
“Pockets are a feminist issue. Pockets are a class issue. Dedicated histories have been written on pockets. Research has been conducted. I appreciate all of it, because I simply adore a pocket. Even Ötzi (born 3345 BCE), popularly known as the Iceman (so popular in fact that Brad Pitt got a tattoo of him, loved a pocket. In his case, to carry flint and dried tinder fun-gus. Pitt probably loves a pocket.”
“Women, too, love pockets. And yet, we are continually stifled. It is thought it was circa the seventeenth century when pockets began to be sewn into clothes. Men’s clothes, that is, not women’s. (Although the word ‘pocket’ is a reference to the pouches women wore around their waists.) Pocket inequality remains: a 2018 study by website The Pudding found that pockets on women’s jeans were 48 per cent shorter and 6.5 per cent narrower than those on men’s. Often, garments for women don’t even have pockets. Worse is the trend for fake pockets. I don’t know who invented this charade, but I wish them a life of standing barefoot on upturned plugs.”Originally posted to my Goodreads account
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