Steam Train Munchies

Before we went home from London we had a super mega breakfast.

And it was free because  the hotel messed up on something and offered us free breakfast and I wasn’t about to say no!

If you eat fruit it’s healthy right?

Anyways, after we got home later that evening we were out again to the Mid Norfolk Railway in Dereham.

It’s a kind of hobby line where volunteers have restored an old disused rail track and a few stations and trains.

So it was pretty cool to take a look around at all the nostalgia and old fashioned signs and things.

We’d booked tickets especially so when we got there we got a little table seat all set up with our drinks and fish and chips we’d pre-ordered.

And then we sat and enjoyed the ride, the slight hiccup being that on the way back the lights had a fault in our carriage so it was a bit dark but we had a good few games of hangman by the torchlight of my phone and everyone cheered when the lights came back on.

Boxing Day & New Years Eve

  My blog’s a bit late this time, my laptop has packed up. The other day it made a fut fut fut sound as I turned it on… and I waited… and waited… aaand that’s all, it just never came on. So after a trip to the repair people down the road I will now be buying a new laptop I expect.. sob. Just what I need in life, more debt am I right? Anyway I digress because I wanted to tell you all about what we did for Boxing Day and New Years Eve – don’t get excited it wasn’t anything fancy.

For Boxing Day Kimberly had very thoughtfully bought me tickets to the Hippodrome Circus in Great Yarmouth that we’d been absentmindedly saying we should visit at some point some time vaguely in the future so that was a nice surprise.

We walked in and we had seats in the front row and I was thinking… well you know this is fun but it is Yarmouth and is aimed at children I’m not expecting great things. Well wasn’t I wrong? It was so fun. There were dancers and acrobats, jugglers, fire, some laser light show thing, strong men. The part I was most impressed with was the clown, I always remember my parents disliking clowns, particularly my dad who despises them and so I think I’ve never liked them too much, they’re just too slapstick. But the clown they had wasn’t dressed up, very modern, subtle humour, I was very pleasantly surprised and I thought he was very good.

  Anyways so at the interval everyone was faffing with the carpet and Kim and I were preoccupied with popcorn but suddenly the show was starting and during the middle of an act the floor dropped and began to flood opening up to a water show, oh my godddddddd. There was a lot of prancing about in the water going on with spangly costumes, it was brilliant.

So fun. Anyway after that we went to Yarmouth’s answer to Nandos – Fish & Grill – and I had my first ever kabab (does it count as a kebab if it’s not sheared off a fatty revolving stick by hairy lecherous kebab shop owners I wonder?). So that was tasty, new year new… chicken? And there was a 10% off voucher for it on our circus tickets so that was all very nice.

Then on New Years Eve we didn’t have anything planned particularly but I saw an offer on Groupon for a steam train ride on the Bure Valley Railway which is a small steam powered hobby rail line so I figured we may as well give that a go.

It was sweet, the carriages were fairly comfy and had heating so we were toasty all the way from Aylsham to Wroxham. And we got a free mince pie… heated… oh the luxury of it all.

Then I got the pleasure of introducing Kim to Roys. Roys of Wroxham. Hallowed ground for any and all elderly people of Norfolk. Old people f*&cking love Roys. They can’t get enough of it. As soon as you hit retirement I think there might be a beacon in your head that is trigged, drawing you ever closer to Roys. Roys makes me think of my grandparents, Roys was a lovely day out to them. When I phoned my beloved Great Aunt to have a chat this week and mentioned going to Wroxham even she mentioned Roys… she lives in Essex! How did she know?? For those of you who aren’t familiar with Roys its a Norfolk shop that started in Wroxham and expanded a lot and now is a sort of old person department store set over several buildings in Wroxham and now has some extra branches of Roys dotted about Norfolk. It even has a little statue of Mr Roy.

I have to confess I also love Roys though, it is a mecca to all tat and I love to browse tat. There used to be a small Roys nearby when I lived in Bowthorpe and I particularly liked to browse their low budget versions of boardgames with such famous titles as “Who Is it?” (Guess Who), “Surgery” (Operation) and “Angry Donkey” (Buckaroo)… OK maybe I made that last one up. But I was pleased to see there are new titles to be had these days.

Ahh so that was all jolly nice. We stopped at the pub for some lunch and I had some strange chicken caesar bread thing…

Then we bought some bird feed and fed the birds and Kimberly was terrified by the swans who did not appreciate boundaries or the meaning of personal space, and I laughed.

  So all in all it was a pleasant day.

Once Upon A Time

Well chums, I’ve been busy on placement lately, so I thought I’d tell you all a story, about my 21st birthday, as long ago as it was now.  I’ll apologise now for the dodgy photography, it was taken in the days of non decent camera phones. So I was all set to go to New York for my birthday and I was taking the train to London to stay with my Great Aunt before leaving the following day from a London airport.

The other passengers and myself boarded the train and were sitting down when we head a commotion in the next carriage, a woman accusing a man of stealing her phone. She went to get the police at the station who came quickly, meanwhile another passenger and myself saw the accused man reach into his pocket and drop her expensive phone into the bin. The other passenger and I looked at each other shocked, then we both got up and swung into action blocking off the rest of the train to the man and very obviously watching him. The police came and confronted him and fished the phone out, then he was arrested on suspicion of theft, we had to give our details to the police as witnesses and the train was then allowed to go. The police had asked if I would be around during the next week to give a statement but I said I’d be leaving the country for a week to go on holiday. I rang my Aunt to let her know my train was now late, she didn’t sound pleased.

I sat back on the train thinking no more of it until I got a phone call. Could I please get off at Stratford, a police officer would be waiting for me if I could quickly give a statement. I rang my Aunt to let her know I’d be a little bit later, she really didn’t sound pleased. And so I got met by a lovely police officer to go and have my statement written down. I was explaining where abouts I was in the carriage and so I drew him a little floor plan map of the train carriage and where everyone was standing which he asked if he could keep and I said sure. So with that all done, it took some time, I said goodbye to the nice policeman (and got a snap in for good measure).

But then my train ticket was invalid, so I was given this –

Obviously I had to keep the card as a souvenir haha. Anyway, off I went, really very late now, and I found out why my Auntie didn’t sound pleased about me being late. My family was all waiting to take me out to dinner as a surprise. Oops! Months and months later when I’d forgotten about it I got a letter asking me to go to court as a witness, how embarrassed was I when the magistrates and whole court was passing around my crap drawing of a train!