Sunday, 11 September 2016

Windmill Inn then home

Saturday 10 September 2016
Nido's on a CL owned by the Windmill Inn in the village of Great Cressingham, not far from Thetford. It's very quiet in the middle of nowhere, but with a 4G signal far better than our close to town location at home.

The morning brought an overcast but warm start.  I made us a cuppa before popping into the village for some food.  I found Roys Supermarket (what else!) in the Food Hall building. It was like being inside a French one - lots of items I'd not seen before, pleasingly much of it local produce.  They also had a good wine selection and I bought a French rosé for tonight.  Breakfast done, everything stowed away, we drove through heavy rain to this CL.  

I checked in at the pub, which looked lovely, but we don't plan to use it as we have all we need in the van.  Our favourite 'en-France' lunch of baguette, rillette, cheese, salad and fruit were enjoyed and I caught up with the world of Twitter and read while Cathy had a snooze.  The showers continued on and off, but we were happy to chill out in the silence of the countryside.  Dinner tonight was grilled pork loin chops, new potatoes roasted in garlic and olive oil, and some tinned haricots verts from France.  The rosé complemented our meal.  The rest of the evening was spent reading, blogging and chatting about our future plans, before turning in, ready for the long drive home tomorrow.

Misty Autumn view from the van

Sunday 11 September 2016
The usual long drive home, clean the van inside and out and return him to his storage home.  We enjoyed parts of Norfolk - the peace and solitude of the salt marshes, sea swims, the big skies, catching up with family, paying a personal homage to Admiral Lord Nelson's home village.  But we felt Norfolk was a bit behind the times, a bit set in its ways. It caters well for the older pensioners but it's not an area we'd want to live.  We love the variety of coast - sand, rocks, cliffs, coves, and mountain. So we think our future lies in a different area.  We have something in mind and it's exciting us.  We need to do some research and see where this takes us, but our focus is now on a particular area.  It's too premature to say where, but we think it'll give us what we crave - easy access to the coast and mountains, good local produce, great countryside and the opportunity to develop another great garden to enjoy our outside lifestyle.