Beaches, Boats, Beer and Bangers – Day Two in Norfolk

Monday 26 August 2019 – Bank Holiday

A very hot day today, the sort of day where you might die if you don’t get an ice cream at some point. Well, in my book that’s true.

We all piled off to Wells-Next-The-Sea, after discounting the idea that a trip to a quieter beach would be a better option. Little did we know that the beach at Wells is about 100 miles from the town. That’s my educated estimate, based on the fact that I had to carry the food and a chair and and walk a mile to the beach along a lovely path that ran alongside the estuary. The boats were all resting on the sand when we arrived, but they were bobbing about on the water by the time we came back the other way.

The temperature hit 31 degrees. The sky was blue and there wasn’t a cloud to be seen. As the water came in, the area that people were swimming in became a shipping lane and where there were paddlers to begin with, water skiers took their place.

Rachel and David caught the little train back, but Joseph and I felt invigorated after a rest and an ice cream on the beach, so we walked back to the town. The boys and I had some seafood at a stall on the front. They had crab sarnies and I had a roll mop. I love roll mops, and they are apparently free on Slimming World. Guilt-free pickled fish. Lovely.

Joseph was driving today. It’s been really useful having the boys share the driving and I could sit in the back of the car and read while they had to worry about tractors, Bank Holiday traffic and BMW drivers.

We stopped for a real ale at Branthill Farm Real Ale brewery, and I rather enjoyed couple of pints of their finest in a quiet, sunny beer garden next to a farm that looked like it stopped evolving in 1940. We sat at a table under a tree and whiled away an hour or so.

The car got stuck in a concealed ditch when we got back to Oxborough. We thought we could park it on the verge but it was so overgrown that we couldn’t see the covered ditch, and the front wheel dropped into it. The old guy who lives over the road from the cottage, in a dilapidated pink cottage with a temporary window upstairs and rubbish by his back gate, offered to tow us out but we managed without him. Nice of him to offer.

In the evening we had a BBQ in the little garden at the back of the cottage. David cooked it all, and we got through a lot of hummus and taramasalata before giving the sausages the attention they deserved.

It all contributed to what was a perfect summer’s day.