Norwich and some slow sewing

Yesterday was the second day of our short adventure and was spent mostly around Norwich. We have both visited the city before but spent very little time there. On Friday evening we spent time after dinner walking round the city centre and down by the river. I love walking around places at night as it changes the whole feel of the place. The city centre still had all the Christmas lights up and many of the younger adults were meeting up with friends before heading to the clubs. Sometimes I wish I had their energy but I wouldn't like to turn the clock back. I love where I'm at with my life and feel comfortable with myself. Our children are all grown up and are happy and John and I are enjoying having time for us.

We both woke up refreshed and ready for the day. We decided against a full breakfast at the hotel and opted for a coffee and croissant from one of the many coffee shops. A good decision since I've put weight on over Christmas! Our first visit was to the castle and museum.

Norwich Castle is a Norman royal castle, founded by William the Conqueror between 1066 and 1075. The castle itself has been used for many things including a prison and the inside was gutted following that period of it's history. There are plans to return the castle to it's original glory which I will be watching with interest.

The outside was repeatedly repaired, most recently in 1835–9 by Antony Salvin, with James Watson as mason using Bath stone.  During the renovation, the keep was completely refaced based faithfully on the original ornamentation.  This explains why the outside looks so perfect. The original archway into the castle is still there.

The museum links to the castle and we had fun looking at the exhibits. A lot of the items on view were related to the locality. I liked this giant teapot.

The information label below tells you about the pot.

One of the many reasons for visiting Norwich this weekend was to visit the Lines of Sight exhibition which is about W C Sebald's East Anglia.  The exhibition was inspired by Sebald's book The Rings of Saturn (1995) which charts a meandering route around the geography and history of East Anglia. The information states "It brings together a diverse selection of celebrated artworks, curious objects, archive material and the author’s own, unseen, photographs, to tell the story behind the creation of one of East Anglia’s most famous literary masterpieces. " John has read the book and was born in Suffolk and wanted to visit the exhibition. Having spent time in the exhibition I will be reading the book in the near future. 

There was so much to see in the museum that we spent a lot of time there. Before moving on to the Cathedral we enjoyed soup and bread for lunch in the cafe. You can't go site seeing on an empty stomach.

It proved almost impossible to get a good picture of the cathedral. This was the gateway into cathedral close.

Once inside the close I was able to get this photo.

As you can see there are buildings in this way and we were unable to get round to the other side to try and get a better view. This wasn't a problem as the inside more than made up for the lack of a good shot of the outside. As we walked in this beautiful font was in front of us. Very simple but very beautiful

The inside of the cathedral was very light and airy. This is looking down the nave.

The vaulted ceiling was amazing.

The beautiful stained glass window at the West end of the cathedral.

There were also these three very modern stained glass windows.

On our walk round we came across the cathedral cat, Budge. He wandered into the 2018 Good Friday service and stayed. He likes to take part in the cathedral events and has his own Twitter feed.  As soon as he realised I was taking his photo he made a beeline for the office areas.

The choir had a lot of dark wood and heavy carving.

Attached to the cathedral were the cloisters. In the middle of the grass quadrangle there is a labyrinth but it was closed as the ground was very wet from all the rain.

Looking along one of the cloisters.

We enjoyed our visit and afterwards we spent a little time walking around the city before we returned to our car and headed out to Buckenham Marshes, an RSPB site about 8 miles outside Norwich. We were aiming to get there to see the rooks gather before going to their roost.  I'll tell you about that another day.

For hand stitching this week I have added the binding to one of my projects for the Winter Blues blog hop. This is a small project so the binding went on quite quickly. I'll show you the project during the hop. I've also continued knitting the multicoloured scarf for my brother and it's now about 2 foot 6 inches long. Still a way to go. Finally I was working on Earlene. I had hoped to finish her completely the other night but something got in the way.  However there is very little to do, her shoes, one lot of fabric in her tote, a few bit in the other tote and the patches on her coat.

Since January 1st I restarted my challenge of stitching every day and so far I've managed it. In fact I've done more than 15 minutes. I'm not sure how easy it will be when I get back to work on Tuesday. Tomorrow I have my yearly mammogram which I hope will be clear. I have an annual leave day tomorrow and will be spending a lot of it sewing.

I'm linking this post with Kathy from Kathy's Quilts for her Slow Sunday Stitching. Do go and see what everyone has been working on. I hope you are feeling better Kathy. It's not a good way to start the new year but your post is very upbeat and inspiring.

Lyndsey