Saturday, April 10, 2010

you'd think me rude, but i would just stand and stare

On Wednesday, Jack and I went to Norwich. (You don’t say the “w”, in case you didn’t know that.)

Before we left, I made tea. This is what our teas look like whenever we make them.

Jan's with lemon, Jack's with a little milk, and mine with more milk and also sugar.

The way to Norwich was very pretty, but I couldn't get a proper picture of a view.


On the way through Norwich, I saw this cool statue:


And here is the train station:


We went first to a high hill where you can look out over the whole city.



Jack told me about the various places that are there, and asked me where I’d like to go first. He had mentioned a section of heath that was left undeveloped, and I chose there first.

On the way back to the car,



I found a bumblebee in a gorse bush.


Very Winnie-the-Pooh.

And also some pretty flowers.


And a gorgeous butterfly, who let me get very close to it to take a picture.


And also some friends who waved at me from a window.


There was a restaurant near there – the area is called Mousehold, which I found delightful – called Zac’s, and we were hungry so stopped.

There was a large tree in front that I wanted to climb.


It was an American-themed restaurant kind of along the lines of Brann’s. So we decided to just get drinks, and have lunch at a more Norwich-y spot.


I couldn’t find beverages on the menu, and Jack asked what I would want, and I said a strawberry smoothie.

He pulled out the bar menu and looked through it, and asked if a strawberry shake was okay, and I said it was, and he ordered it, along with a hot chocolate for himself.

They didn’t bring it out for ages. And when they did bring it, its appearance was a rather displeasing shock.


It was pretty, to be sure, but I don’t like strawberry syrup (as opposed to actual strawberries) at the best of times, and I am quite certain it should not be neon pink. (And I assure you, as neon as it looks, the picture does not do justice to the actual shade of that syrup.)

It tasted about like you would expect from syrup that color. And it was soupy from having been left on the counter instead of being brought out.

Fortunately Jack asked me an answerable question – what did I rate it, from one to ten?

“Three and a half.”

So he let me order something else. I got a kid size toffee milkshake. It was excellent.


Then we went out on the heath, which was woods, and it was so nice because I hadn’t walked in the woods for ages and these were particularly pretty.


Jack showed me how you can break slate off and make it sharp.









On the way out, I climbed the tree I had wanted to climb.




After that we went to the cathedral. Jack dropped me off and went to park the car and to see the house where he was born, and told me to meet back there in an hour if he hadn’t found me before that.

So I got to wander around the cathedral on my own – which, I think, was partly his intention. Which was very understanding of him.


The passage between the old outer wall and the new addition. Which is where the toilets are. (They don't refer to it as a bathroom unless it's for taking a bath.


There was a labyrinth, and no one else walking it, and hardly anyone there at all, except a few children toward the end, who did the labyrinth in child-fashion – walking on the stones that mark the edges of the path, and using them as a maze. They were excited but not at all obnoxious.





The inside of the cathedral was very big and interesting. There were so many little nooks and places and chapels, and it was all very grand in a solemn sort of way.













Jack came and found me just before the hour was up. I was glad he did because there were a couple things I hadn’t seen yet. Shortly after he arrived, the voice of the head priest (or something like that; I don’t remember the title) came over the loudspeaker (which was weird in that place, because you couldn’t tell where it was coming from and the acoustics made it seem like it was coming from everywhere, so it was like the voice of God or something…) and invited us to a moment of silence, and then reciting the Lord’s Prayer together. It was super cool.

After the cathedral we walked toward the castle. On the way, we stopped for lunch – we went to a little bakery.


These steak pie things seemed just the thing.


And I couldn’t help admiring the complete “rightness” of these:


So when Jack asked if I wanted something to eat after the pie, I didn’t hesitate.


We went to a market area – there has been a market there for more than a hundred years.


There are some buildings and walls built out of slate. It's very cool.







After that we went to the castle.


This is the old moat.


It is not an especially fairytaleish-looking castle, just a big box, but it was pretty cool inside. There were some little nooks and crannies to explore.





And a very very deep well, which was pretty sweet. I dropped a couple pence down it.



After that we went back to the car, and then drove to park at the steepest hill in Norwich.

I took a picture of some people so they took a picture of me.


We walked down, and Jack went to a coin and stamp shop and I wandered down the street.

And I found this charming place:

And this one:


And then I found this.

Which definitely had potential.

And it was everything I hoped it would be. Straight out of the 1800s and the Victorian era, those times when crazy adventurers brought back curiosities from Deepest Darkest Africa and the Indies.



If there was ever a place where one might come upon a long-lost magical object, this was it.

The proprietor was a young man with blond hair and an air that I can’t quite describe. He gave the impression that he had no foundation of real morality, but had some sort of internal moral code of his own. For example, he would find absolutely nothing wrong with, say, doing drugs or sleeping around, but there would be things that he would consider wrong. I’d classify him as a chaotic neutral/good on the character scale. Anyhow, he was a good sort of proprietor because he didn’t pester me – in fact, he didn’t say anything to me at all. When I came in, he was talking to a couple other people who went in just ahead of me, and after that he ignored me except to say that yes, I could take pictures, when I asked.

Unfortunately, due to the fact (which I didn’t realize until afterward) that I had a brainless no-headache migraine, my venture into the shop was not satisfactory. I wandered blurrily in a partial circuit of the shop, stopping at a basket of old postcards, which I dug through until I found a few I liked. The whole time I felt that anxiety and self-consciousness I always feel in a shop full of things when I’m the only one there and know that I probably won’t buy anything, and certainly won’t buy anything that costs much. I bought the postcards. I was torn between wanting to leave because of the anxiety, and wanting to stay because of the interestingness. Prolonging it for a moment, I asked if he intentionally made it seem like something out of those times of adventure, because he did a good job. He said sort of – mostly he just bought things that he thought were interesting. Unable to think of anything else to say, I walked out. Standing outside the shop the shop door, I looked back in. I could see, right across from the door, a wooden rhinoceros. It was that, because it caught my eye, that made me realize that I had neglected that whole section of the shop, the wall straight across from the shop entrance. (I had skipped past it on first entering because it was right next to the cash register and it was where the other two people were.) I wanted to go back in, but my embarrassment at wandering back in, and having him think I was a weirdo, won out.

And then I found Jack outside in the street, and then we left.

And my distress at having missed that section, missed buying anything significant at the shop, only increased, and the panic from the migraine seized upon it, and I felt that I had missed my only chance to find a magical object and be a part of a story, ever.

And then we stopped at Asda to get pizza. And the way we were ordering toppings was escalating my anxiety attack. It was pretty ridiculous and highly uncomfortable. There were a few moments when I became genuinely afraid that I was going to throw the glass peanut butter jar I was holding into the floor because the extreme need for the relief of the smash would become uncontrollable.

Sometimes I think I will never marry. I hate people and I can’t put up with them, and certainly no one deserves to have to put up with me.

It was a great relief to finally arrive home and be able to go to my room and cry because I’d been so stupid as to miss my chance at being in a story.

(You will all think I am just a bit psychotic and delusional, but there it is. If you will read the blog of someone meandering in a fairytale, you’ll have to take her as she is. You can pretend it’s a book you’re reading, and not actually the me you know in real life, if it helps.)

It was also a great relief to be able to mostly explain to Jan. She is a very understanding person.

Then we had pizza, and it was excellent. Bacon and spicy beef and ham and pineapple and mushroom. Yum.

I think we watched something, but I don’t know what. Sherlock Holmes, maybe.

And eventually I went to bed.

5 comments:

Joe said...

All I have to say is that you are no where near "a bit psychotic and delusional." We are all just unique and have our own unique quarks that we deal with. I just wish I had better words to use to describe what I am trying to say. Oh, well.

Shan said...

I am going to agree with Joe on that one. And, I HATE panic migraines. They drive me batty.

I love that when I read your posts I feel like I am in England with you. It is fabulous.

loisgroat said...

I have always always wondered what a gorse bush looked like. I did not know they were so pretty!

And I am sure that someone will think that your occasional psychotic moments are worth wading through in order to win the prize. :)

And I loved the jammy shortbread.

And I am thrilled that it is set in stone that "They shall dance and sing".

loisgroat said...

Oh. It is set in stone that "They shall laugh and sing". So maybe I will not get to dance. But laughing is delightful, too.

Anonymous said...

So many wonderful pictures! I truly enjoyed them all. I love the names of places like Mousehold and Dormouse Bookshop. I especially wanted to go inside of the Bear Shop! I wanted to climb the first big tree you pictured and was happy to see that you climbed the second one for me! I loved the Cathedral with the Labyrinth and all of those archways and the spiral stair well. I am sorry about the migraine but was happy that the day ended well.
Love You, Grandma Sally