Of the 24 boats on our marina, there are around half who, like us, live on their boats permanently and the other half who come and go, either using their boat as a weekenders or for when they come to London to work. This weekend Woz, Nate and I went to stay with one of our neighbours, Dom, who works in London and lives in Norfolk with his partner Chris.
Dom and Chris live in a small village, in an old cottage with a lovely garden which backs onto a field of barley which had been freshly harvested. At the end of their garden is a veggie patch where we spent some of Saturday afternoon picking the produce, mostly long beans and potatoes.
Almost everything we ate all weekend had been home grown and then made from scratch. From the bread we ate, jam and marmalade, veggies and apple pie. It all tasted so good!
Late Saturday afternoon we drove to a nearby beach and walked along the sand, only daring to dip our toes in the sea before heading up to the shore to have a hot chocolate to warm up.
Sunday was also spent at the beach, but this time a private one, belonging to the Earl of Leicester as part of the Holkham Estate which has been passed down the generations for about 300 years. We drove around the Estate and marvelled at it's size, which would dwarf Buckingham Palace. It's sprawling land whose fields were inhabited by deer seemed to be infinite and as we drove past gatehouses, countless cottages and buildings for servants you were really able to imagine how it might have been hundreds of years ago when we would have been in a horse and cart and the journey from the gate to Holkham Hall would have taken close to an hour (that is, if we had have been invited - I think not!)
As we walked along the beach, black stormy clouds hovered overhead so we were so thankful when we got back to the car just as the heavens opened, and then it was home for Bangers & Mash before heading back to the station to go home on the train feeling thoroughly spoilt and refreshed.
