Hunstanton, Norfolk and the woodlands by Snettisham

Carole and I got up this morning very early. Just gone 5.30. The chickens and ducks woke us because they will not stay in hutches silently once the daylight is here. We put up with the noise for an hour but by 5.30 they were giving it some serious large on the clucking, quack front. Sunday should be a lay in day but it was a clear blue sky outside and I got up when Carole did.

I did some tweeting while Carole let the ducks and chickens out and collected the eggs. She had a shower and by the time she was dressed I had finished my tweeting attack and had a shower too. I asked if she wanted to go out anywhere and she was humming and haring, which means she did but wanted me to suggest somewhere.

I decided on a day trip to the seaside at Hunstanton. She agreed and within moments we were in the car and on our way through the country lanes of the fens. We passed through the village of Friday Bridge and Elm and then made our way to Kings Lynn. Once passed the Lynn we were only about 15 mins from Hunstanton.

We parked up along the cliff edge and walked along the coastline towards the town centre which was hustling and bustling with day trippers. In the town centre, there were various gift shops and cafes that seemed to be doing a roaring trade. Probably closed most of the winter. However, this was a very fine Sunday and the day trippers, including ourselves, were out in abundance. 

Upon the way, we made note of the forest near Snettisham and the purple-flowered bushes that were growing about the trees. 

On the way back, we decided to stop and look about the forest with its strange rhododendron flowers growing within the trees. It made me dreamy about the past. It would have been Iceni country and I imagined the Roman Legate of AD61 (Quintus Petillius Cerialis ) as he forced marched half of his infantry and half of his cavalrymen of his 9th legion. They had been spread out in stockade forts where the Fens are during the time of the Roman occupation of Britain. They would have marched through the dense forest that would have been all about, once beyond the marshy Fenland. I was dreaming of the ghosts of the Iceni and the Roman 9th and what terror the Romans must have witnessed before being slain by the Iceni tribesman at close quarters amid the trees, where they were ambushed. Much like the woodlands, I was enjoying and not far from this very area. I'm not sure if the purple rhododendron would have been about 2,000 years ago, but maybe.

As we pulled out of the woods we saw a cottage nestled amid the summer splendour and had to take a quick snap of that too. We drove back via Downham Market and back into the Fens through Outwell, Upwell and then along the River Nene around a back way into Friday Bridge and the home to March.