Sunday in East Anglia

 

I again woke at 3.30am this morning, well that’s not quite true. I woke at 3am for a loo visit went back to bed and after 30 minutes of not dropping back off I gave up and got up and drafted the details of yesterday’s blog and edited some of the photos.

 

Breakfast

 

Having seen the lovely breakfasts we had had on Friday and Saturday I thought I’d share a picture of what is likely to be my breakfast for the next 14 days. Three Weetabix, with hot water poured over them and left to cool and congeal into the way I like them, with a glass of Tropicana Orange Juice with extra bits and a cup of black tea. I had my breakfast at 5am. Drew got up at 7am and had white tea and the oaty, fruity, sugary cakes we received as our parting gift from Restaurant Sat Bains.

 

Having done my teeth, shaved and showered I got dressed and we left Wagtail Barn at 8.30am. A pleasant enough day though not particularly warm.

 

Mass

We headed to The Sacred Heart Church, Dereham, a small church which shows clear signs of post-Covid opening up. We arrived at 8:45am, Drew headed off to walk around the town, and I went into Mass where the priest was standing greeting those who arrived too his parish.

It is a simply laid out Church with comfortable seats. While mask wearing is no longer compulsory all bar one person was wearing a mask at Mass.

Today was a big day for the Parish, the first use of hymn books and mass books since a year last March (reusable items that more than one person might touch in a day were excluded from use under the Covid-Secure rules). It was the first time I’d sung in church since last March too. Singing with masks on is a challenge with steaming up glasses, but we seemed to make a good effort at two hymns and the regular parts of the Mass. The Mass setting was an old one that we used to use at Our Lady of Lourdes, Gabalfa when StephenMorris was the organist there. The hymns wouldn’t have met the criteria for many liturgists, the gathering hymn – Now in this Place – is often taken as an example of the worst of modern hymns. The offertory hymn – In Bread we bring you Lord – must be the most sung hymn in Catholic life since the 60s. Not a bad tune but having sung it so often it can be a challenge.

 

Fr. Brendan’s homily was short and focussed. With the sixth chapter of St. John’s gospel being the main source of the gospel for the Sundays of summer this year Father compared it to soap operas and the literally cliffhanger films of his childhood cinema making the link between last week’s reading of the feeding of the five thousand and this week Jesus telling those who had followed him that they had misunderstood the original event and seen it as food, when its meaning was the new relationship we have with God in Jesus, through the Bread of Life, the food of eternity, the Holy Eucharist.

 

Coffee

 

Mass finished just before 10am and I drove the ½ mile into town, parked and met Drew, as arranged, in the Costa Coffee in Dereham. Here we made good use of their internet and uploaded the blog post and 200+ photos onto Flickr. Which wouldn’t go up on the slow connection at Wagtail Barn. Given the connection blogging is likely to continue to be daily, but Flickr may get updated with all the photos every few days when we visit coffee places that have internet access or visit my friend Robin Croft who has offered us use of his internet when we are passing his home.

 

Laundry

 

People who have followed my blogs in previous years will know we have had plenty of amusing launderette experiences in various countries around the world. Here in Norfolk, I had spotted a Launderette, named like an American location (except they would miss the U – Laundromat – on the road into Norwich from Dereham. Though today is only day 4 of our holiday the need for posh clothes at the two restaurants on Thursday and Friday means we have used 5 of our seven days of planned clothes already, so we decided a laundry stop would be a good use of our time.

 

We arrived at Laundromat at 12:15pm and were lucky to find it had a real person working there. So, we were able to get change for the machines and advice on what size to use. Unlike when I have been in the USA and Canada and have lots of change for toll roads and similar, I’ve not carried change in my pocket since the start of the pandemic. Thankfully the lovely lady at Laundromat provided change for a £20 note. The washing machine was £4.60, powder and softener 50p and the dryer £2. They also, in these Covid days, had plastic chairs so we could sit out in the sun and read while waiting for the machines – very civilised it was too. 55 minutes after we had arrived, we had clean clothes freshly dried.

 

We decided to go back to Wagtail Barn and put our clothes away, we stopped for petrol at Sainsbury’s in New Costessey, which is on the route and got back to the barn at 1:45pm.

 

We lunched on food we had bought at Sainsbury’s on Saturday – two apples (Braeburn and Granny Smith) and a pear (Conference) for me and two Easy Peelers for Drew.

 

We then sat, read and snoozed for a few hours. For the book clubbers among you I’ve just started reading a book by a new author that I came across when looking at reviews of other nordic noirs. The book is The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler, who are a husband-and-wife team called Alexander Ahndoril and Alexandra Ahndoril who write under that assumed name. I was 40% in by the end of the afternoon and didn’t really want to put it down.

 

Drew on the other hand, who got fed up when reading Under a PoleStar by Stef Penney (her first book – The Tenderness of Wolves is a great read) had got stuck not reading for well over a year, as every time he went back to the book he got fed up. Having completed Under a Pole Star, I recommended he start something else, so he is now re-reading Terry Pratchett’s discworld novels from the start in alternation with re-reading the five books of the Douglas Adams Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy ‘Trilogy’ (as Adams called it).

 

As far as Under a Pole Star goes, I read it a few months ago, but wouldn’t recommend it to others. The description of the Victorian Age Arctic and the life of the local people is wonderful, but the lengthy and excessively descriptive account of heterosexual sex made me think I’d accidentally started reading a Miles and Boone. I realise some people think heterosexual sex is reasonable behaviour – that’s a matter of personal life choice – but I really, really don’t need to know the details of the mechanics any more than I would of what I’d describe as more appealing sexual practices!!   

 

Dinner

 

Tonight, we chose to have a Thai meal. We have long been fans of Thai food both in the UK and Thailand, so we thought we would try the Dereham Thai as it has been almost two years since we had our last Thai meal. 

The restaurant is in the town centre of Dereham, so 10 minutes away from our accommodation.

We were surprised when we arrived to find that the menu was translated into English. The Thai places we know in the UK tend to use the Thai names for the food, so trying to work out from the English descriptions what the dishes were proved an entertaining challenge.

What was called Thai Dim Sum was Kanom Jeep, what was called Spring Rolls was Bor Bia (because Thai has its own form of writing transliterations into English sometimes have B as P and P as B, so you may see Por Pia, especially in US English) and what was called Vegetable Tempura was recognisable as just that. Thankfully our translation was right and the food was exactly what we hoped for, cooked very clearly in the Thai way. Indeed, when we met the Chef, she was clearly a Thai national – the waiter was a local man. Each dish was fresh and delicious. The Kanom Jeep had a juiciness that worked so well with the garlic and soy dipping sauce. The Bor Bia was crisp crunchy and will no fat, the plum sauce was sharp and bitter, delicious, the sweet chilli sauce was hotter than my previous experience, perfect for my taste. To keep Drew happy, we each had individual plum and chilli sauce, so there wasn’t as much opportunity for me to drip across the table while reaching to dip my food into the sauces!

For mains we shared three dishes. What was called Larb Meat Salad with chicken, known to us as one of our favourite flavours Larb Gai. What was called Stir fried chilli and basil beef – Ner Krapow. What was called Stir fried ginger pork – Moo Pat King. All served with two servings of Jasmine Rice. Each dish was exactly what we had hoped for and was as delicious as we imagined.

 

I’m so glad we tried this place, we might have been put off if we had seen the menu in advance, but the menu didn’t represent the quality of the food which was authentically Thai as any I have ever tasted.

 

We got back to the Barn at 9pm and were in bed by 10pm as usual. Another lovely, if less photogenic than usual, day.