Monday 12th April 2021. An important date in all our calendars.
A day which heralded the emergence from lockdown 3, restrictions on movement, invoked to avoid the spread of COVID 19 in our population were relaxed a little today… what does this mean? Take your pick… a trip to the gym or swimming pool, students going back to schools and colleges, care home residents get a little more respite by nominating a named visitor and one person can meet up with another for recreation etc etc. The most important though, for me, was the ability to socialise (restrictions apply) in a pub garden! Obviously the restrictive measures affect us all differently, according to our own circumstances. I’m lucky that we live in a rural environment where lots of country pubs have outdoor spaces to invite us to and that one of my favourites (and there are many!) was on the list 🙂
So… we planned a walk (not really – it’s one we’ve done many times before, in fact it was Catherine’s ‘birthday walk’). Staring from the village of Shouldham, we headed off uphill (yes really, we HAVE hills in Norfolk), past All Saints Church and onwards towards the runways of RAF Marham. We stopped for a snack, sheltered from the icy wind looking up towards Chapel Hill which occludes the runways and noisy F-35 Lightning Jets (which we heard as they roared along main runway on the other side).
Feeling warmed by the sun, sandwiches and coffee we discarded our ‘puffas’ and continued into Marham where a delightful ‘Ginnel’ led us past the Holy Trinity Church and towards Fen Lane which leads past a ‘military row’ of allotment sheds and towards the River Nar. Exposed to the biting wind once more we donned our warmest jackets and walked for a mile or so until we reached the River which was in full spate.
A short treck along part of The Nar Valley Way, and Pentney Drove brought us to Shouldham Warren where we were, once again, sheltered from the wind amongst the magical tracks of the forest.
A few miles further and we were back in Shouldham Village but more importantly we reached the welcoming sight of The Kings Arms. It was quite emotional to sit in the pub garden sipping real ale surrounded by other groups of like minded people!
What a day!!
