Most appropriate today

Now I've always known that elderly people can be scary, and even dangerous if they're carrying umbrellas or canes. Nice to have that confirmed.

Roadtrip!

It's been a while since I'd been outside city limits, so as flights to all sunny destinations were more expensive than the price I put on seeing the sun, we decided to instead rent a car and drive around a bit. We decided to head towards Norfolk after extensive and very unscientific interpretation of the weather forecast, and a list of towns potentially worth seeing.
We decided to take the smaller roads through Melton Mowbray and Oakham to Stamford, which we'd previously seen from afar and had heard was absolutely gorgeous. We were most certainly not disappointed, and after hours of sitting in traffic (on a weekday in the middle of the day, it felt like a national holiday when everybody abandons towns and cities; the endless queues of cars can only be credited to the rarest of natural occurrences, the appearance of the sun) we reached Stamford. After a stroll around the centre we decided it was time for lunch and a pint, proceeded to acquire such and then headed back on the road towards Peterborough and more things to see. Now I had been told by many people that Peterborough was definitely not worth seeing. MrPicky wanted to see the cathedral (being the medievalist he is), so we ignored all warnings and headed straight for Peterborough. The cathedral was definitely impressive; undergoing renovations on the outside though, so no pictures there. The area near the cathedral was very quaint, but I must say my lasting impression of Peterborough will be the biggest Asda I have seen to date. We then headed off to Ely. Ely I had heard good things about, and it did indeed not disappoint. A lovely little town so picturesque that you definitely don't need to pick where you look. We walked around, soaked in the sunrays, had a look at Oliver Cromwell's former abode, and enjoyed the sleepy little town.
At that point it was getting late. We'd discussed getting a little B&B somewhere on the way to Norwich, but then decided to head off to the coast, to Great Yarmouth. Now neither one of us was quite sure of what we'd find in Great Yarmouth; we'd heard the name, but couldn't quite conjure up an image. We figured we'd take our chances, and if it was very ugly and/or didn't have a B&B for us to stay at, we'd just drive along the coast to one of the villages and find a place to stay there. Very adventurous of us.Little did we expect what we found as we drove into town. From afar it did not look very inviting. As we drew nearer, the towering factories and chimneys looked a little ominous, and the centre itself made us think we might have made a bad call with this one. But we pressed on, and followed the signs to the sea.
We were very much surprised and excited about what we stumbled upon, a veritable English seaside town, a small version (I presume) of the great destinations such as Blackpool and Skegness, down to the amusement park cum pier, loads of little stalls, booths and bars. Now when we originally planned the weekend, we considered flying somewhere south to find the sun. At this point we realised it was a good thing we didn't: firstly, it was actually sunny and warm (and I would've kicked myself to a pulp if we'd spent what seems to be the only sunny weekend of the summer abroad), and secondly because I don't think we ever would've ended up in Great Yarmouth otherwise.
We stayed in a lovely little hotel near the beach, and we did in fact have a view of the sea from our window. Never mind the fact you had to ignore the fire escape, position yourself very carefully and direct your gaze to a particular point, but there it was. Our view of the sea.
Me being the sea person that I am, after dumping our bags in the hotel, we headed straight to the beach. I have to mention that the beaches in Great Yarmouth beggar belief. I have yet to see beaches as deep as those even in the Mediterranean. Shame the weather mostly prevents beach life as such, because those beaches are amazing. Or maybe they were so impressive because I've been living away from the sea for a year now. In any case, most beautiful. The moon was up, it was pitch black and the water was cold. I stood there up to my ankles in veritable sea water as the waves came in, and just looked at the sea.

After sea-gazing, dinner, a walk on the pier, a good night's sleap and breakfast at an "American" diner we headed off to Norwich. Norwich cathedral was most impressive, as were the quaint streets and houses. Except that you really have to select where you look in Norwich, it is a mesmerizing mixture of old and, to be frank, worn out. We did visit Julian of Norwich's cell (stood inside it in fact), walk in the wrong direction and see the less attractive part of Norwich, and eventually decide we'd seen enough and headed out.
Now King's Lynn happened to be the next logical stopover on the way back. We weren't sure what we'd find there, and were quite pleased to see signs for Historic Centre. Which we then dutifully missed, turned around, were about to leave (thinking there probably wasn't much to see), and then happened upon. We had a look around, to be honest stayed for about twenty minutes, and then headed back out.Now I will freely admit that there indeed wasn't much to see in King's Lynn, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't have a few nice things to look at, mainly a church and the view of the Great Ouse. At this point, after two days of extensive driving and sightseeing we decided to call it a day and head home. I must say it was nice to get a bit of a break from routine life, get out of town and discover new places. As I'm writing this, the weather gods are still agreeing with me, the sun is shining and it actually feels very much like summer. For my imaginary readers, some of whom might not be in the UK, I'll just clarify that the sun has been in hiding pretty much since April--and even then I missed it, frolicking around the US and Ireland..But yes, a wonderful little trip. It's amazing how much there is to see in this country, just randomly picking towns and driving around pretty aimlessly. It's also so very convenient that the distances are short; you could virtually drive from one end of the country to the other in a day, and arrive in time for an early dinner.