This weekend I set off for Norfolk to spend a couple of days with a group of friends from University. I try as hard as I can to see friends I made at University as often as possible, but it's difficult to organise to see more than one friend at a time. This occasion was pretty special though, as there were nine of us in total getting together for the weekend. Such an event probably only occurs once every three to six months!
I left early on Saturday morning and spent more than three hours whizzing through the countryside before meeting up with my boyfriend at the train station. The others had arrived on Friday evening at the flat of our Norfolk-dwelling hostess so we hopped on a bus to make our way to them. I don't quite know what I was expecting Norwich to look like exactly, but it was prettier than I think I imagined. Though Norwich isn't exactly a seaside town it definitely had a holiday-like feel to it. The weather was glorious all weekend long too, so it all felt a bit like the post-exam days of University which were spent doing not a great deal in the sunshine.
After catching up for a couple of hours we split into two cars and headed to the imaginatively named 'Wells next to the sea'. The beach at low tide stretches out for miles and felt eerily deserted at this time of year. To demonstrate, here is a picture of a happy ginger dog I spotted.
A row of individually decorated beach huts sat on one of the highest points, and right in the middle of the beach was a great sand dune. For a while we stood by the water's edge and mourned the apparent beaching of a great many starfish. They were huge! Here is a picture of one against my foot.
There were so many of them. Well, not as many as in 2009 when a storm brought hundreds of them to shore and turned the beach into a starfish graveyard.. but more than I was expecting to see.
After this we went to play by the dune. Or rather, the boys spent about an hour throwing themselves off the top of it into the soft sand below. This was followed by a few beach games, then fish and chips by the harbour, then ice cream before heading back. It was such a good day! We topped it off by heading into town in the evening for a few drinks. As it turns out, Norwich has plenty of places to eat and drink.
On Sunday, we had a cooked breakfast and wandered over to the Plantation Garden. Here is a photo to give you an idea of how beautiful it was.
It was so warm and sunny and peaceful. Perhaps the best part is that it was full of mating frogs! A sign at the entrance announced 'WARNING! FROGS UNDERFOOT!' Two metres beyond this we were indeed surrounded by frogs, the majority in pairs, hopping and ribbiting around our feet.
It felt a bit surreal if I'm honest. Though not as surreal as when a group of grown women arrived with dolls and proceeded to have a picnic. At around the time they started taking pictures of the dolls next to the frogs, we decided to head back to the flat to get ready to go home. It was just what I needed, and I'm already looking forward to seeing everyone again.. though it may well be the summer before we organise the next trip!
