The wooden shed by the river. An AirB&B adventure a month.
My sense of things geographic is notoriously scatter-gun. Most of Norfolk has been transfixed by the treat of the tidal view of the bright morning light on the river from the London train when you pass Maningtree in Essex, so when I booked this I thought that was roughly where we'd be. But no, turns out we were headed to Suffolk and another river. No matter, Essex will be a different month.
Pin Mill is a beautiful little port village on the banks of the Orwell. It's famed for Authur Ransome having lived there and nestled amongst National Trust woodland. Mostly what people do from there is mess about with boats and mend boats, What leapt at me though, from my phone and the AirB&B app was this little wooden building. There's an adventure.
“Everything on the river was new to them. Only the evening before they had come down the deep green lane that ended in the river itself, with its crowds of yachts and its big brown-sailed barges and steamers going up to Ipswich or down to the sea. Last night they had slept for the first time at Alma Cottage.”
If you run your own business sometimes you get a bit over-focussed on the quotidian and if you live in a beautiful place, you sometimes forget to leave. So, we have decided to have an AirB&B adventure each month. Not necessarily far away, just a night or two, but regularly, to riffle up our molecules a bit.
Blog it someone said. So here we all are, settle in and keep an eye open for the egrets.
1. August. Pin Mill.
My sense of things geographic is notoriously scatter-gun. Most of Norfolk has been transfixed from the London train by the treat of the view of the bright morning light shining on the tidal river when you pass Maningtree in Essex. So when I booked this adventure I thought that was roughly where we'd be. But no, turns out we were headed to Suffolk and another river. No matter, Essex can be a different month.
Pin Mill is a beautiful little port village on the banks of the Orwell. It's famed for Authur Ransome having lived there and is nestled amongst National Trust woodland. Mostly what people do from there is mess about with boats and mend boats. What leapt at me though, from my phone and the AirB&B app was this little wooden building. There's an adventure.
A terrific man called David is going to feature a lot in this. Really our weekend turned out to be about David, his stories, and the river.
David lives on a metal house boat, permanently moored on the river in a community of house boats. He says he has no interest in sailing off to anywhere, he just likes to stare at the river, the woods and tend his garden. He has converted his wooden cabin on the bank into a tiny, comfortable mini house, with a veranda overlooking his jetty garden and the river. When the cabin gets a booking he's set the system to automatically block out the three days either side so he doesn't have to over-stretch himself on the breakfast cooking. David has finessed the art of convivial laid-backness. This also means book in time is midday but you don't have to book out till 3 pm the next day, so one night is like two days holiday.
After calling in on cousins further up the Suffolk coast and relieving them of tea, cake and chutney, we drove past Ipswich and down to The Orwell. David met us at the harbour, with a beaming smile and led us along the winding river bank, on the edge of the wood, to his mooring and jetty.
Tip 1. Use the resident's parking space up the hill, as instructed. Driving down to the harbour and having to turn round again on a busy Saturday lunchtime because you missed the car park entrance just makes you look like a tourist and can lead to in-car tension. Trust me.
Tip 2. If you aren't reasonably nimble this isn't one for you. Not least because when the tide is fully in, the only way back to the harbour is via a metal ladder in the wall below the pub. Reader, I coped perfectly well. Feel free to use me as your nimbleness benchmark.
David lived in India, and as he says, he likes "stuff". So the cabin is richly decorated with music and film memorabilia and Indian fabrics. We are not talking boutique hotel luxury, you are essentially living between a wood and the river, but the cabin is super-comfortable with squishy leather chairs and every square inch is fascinating. Everything I wanted was there - a jug of fresh milk, a kettle, PROPER GROUND COFFEE, a cafetierre, tea and a shower.
We took ourself off to buy some bread, tomatoes, smoked fish and a nice bar of chocolate and had a restorative picnic lunch on the veranda.
Tip 3. The closest farmshop is the very busy Suffolk Food Hall. I recommend driving to the other side of the bridge and going to Jimmy's Farm Foodhall. Not only does this give you access to much nicer, ahem, pork pies, but I think the food there is generally much better and has more choice, especially if you are after local provenance.
After a sunny walk down the river the sun seemed to be over the yard arm (whatever that is) so we plied a willing David with a bottle of wine that we'd had the sense to keep about us for the purpose of a little light socialising, sat at the end of his jetty watching the wading birds as the tide turned and we slowly discovered all the things we had in common.
David's one of these people with, what Dennis Healy used to call, a broad cultural hinterland, so I suspect most people would easily find things in common with him, but he and OH have a very closely aligned interest, nay obsession, with music and collections of vinyl, so they bonded instantly. My connection was that he used to work in food, albeit on a very different scale.
We'd booked into The Butt and Oyster, so made our way, possibly a little unsteadily, down to the pub, had supper and then back by torchlight, finding David had lit candles in the lamps on the veranda, and clambered up into bed, falling asleep listening to the river, the owls and the sound of rigging ringing against masts.
I'm an early riser and was in my element as I made coffee and sketched a little. There's no shortage of things to draw if you live amongst house boats on a river. David cooked us a fine breakfast on his boat whilst OH* companionably criticised his vinyl filing system. This is how men like OH and David make friends. We LOVED his boat, living there is definitely the dream. He loves it too. David is a happy man.
*Other Half
We drifted through the morning reading for a while and went for a walk up-river, picking blackberries along the way. We could have got lunch en route but breakfast and the blackberries seemed to suffice until we got back to Pin Mill and an ice cream from the gallery, after looking at their exhibition of Arthur Ransome's photographs of the village.
After an hour or so more sitting by the river we walked back to the car with David and said our cheerios.
As I had said to David over breakfast that morning, I think by choosing this as a our first monthly adventure we might have peaked early. The benchmark is now pretty high.
Next month: A weekend in Cambridge and The Fitzwilliam.
The tiniest train
Now, I'm not much of a one for steam trains. Somehow the gene that has directed the rest of my family to variously obsess, head to Greece on (full size) ex-UK, engine-buying expeditions, run station sweet shops etc has firmly passed me by. But I've found my exception.
As my half-anthracite brother was staying with me, and because I see a lot of the happy team at the Wells to Walsingham Light Railway on our regular visits to supply their little cafe (there will be a lot of diminutive adjectives coming up) with our sausage rolls , I suggested a trip from Wells to Walsingham. And just utterly LOVED it.
The Wells To Walsingham Light Railway
Now, I'm not much of a one for steam trains. Somehow the gene that has directed the rest of my family to variously obsess, head to Greece on (full size) ex-UK, engine-buying expeditions, run station sweet shops etc has firmly passed me by. But I've found my exception.
As my half-anthracite brother was staying with me, and because I see a lot of the happy team at the Wells to Walsingham Light Railway on our regular visits to keep their little cafe (there will be a lot of diminutive adjectives coming up) stocked with our sausage rolls, I suggested a trip from Wells to Walsingham. And just utterly LOVED it.
The engine and carriages are so tiny they melted even my mechanically indifferent heart a little. I'd tell you the gauge, but neither of us are interested in that, are we dear reader? But what unexpectedly thrilled and excited me was the journey. It was like a long, relaxed ramble through a nature reserve. I'll list the wild flowers I spotted below, and there were plenty more.
Most of the carriages are open, and the little engine is slow enough that you really have time to absorb what's very closely around you. More than anything, it reminded me of a sunny chug on a canal boat. Apart from the flowers, we saw deer, a buzzard, a marsh harrier and a very close (almost beak to nose) encounter with a barn owl, perched in a trackside tree.
The trip took about half an hour. You can time it to catch a later train back and have a good wander around medieval Walsingham village and buy treats at Walsingham Farm Shop. At that end there was a hilarious bold chicken, so big it was near half the size of the engine, which had to be entertainingly scooped off the track (I suspect it's an Equity member and fully trained).
Anyway, it's all delightful. On our homeward trip we even took a detour to have an evening stroll on the Warham Camp bronze age fort (which you can see from the train) and then stopped for a sip of Moongazer ale at the newly re-opened Carpenter's Arms at Wighton.
My WWLR North Norfolk May wild flower list...
All spotted from the carriage. I'd love to know what you spot that I've missed - do add a comment below:
Wild Strawberry
Cowslips
Ox Eye Daisies
Speedwell
Vetch - yellow and purple
Buttercups
Elderflower
Bluebells
Campion (White and Red)
Scabious (Bachelor's Button)
Crane's Bill
Something blue, a bit like Viper's Bugloss but smaller
Cow Parsley
Columbine
Stitchwort
Wild Garlic Pork Pies
I just love where we make the pork pies, we're in old flint barns, in an Area Of Outstanding Natural Beauty, so surrounded by some of the best countryside in Norfolk and the UK, and the sea is just over there.
““For those who like their garlic strong, ramsons will prove magnetic” ”
In Praise of North Norfolk
I just love where we make the pork pies, we're in old flint barns, in an Area Of Outstanding Natural Beauty, so surrounded by some of the best countryside in Norfolk and the UK, The River Glaven runs through it and the sea is just over there.
The Making of The Wild garlic Pork Pies
Little speaks of our glorious surroundings better than our Wild Garlic pork pies. Starting in March I take a basket, walk down the hill to our neighbours on The Bayfield Estate, Natural Surroundings, though the gardens, and into the wooded bit, beside the river, to see how "my" patch of Wild Garlic is doing.
The Art Of Wild Garlic Foraging
Once I think the leaves are big enough, with special permission, I take a basket down and carefully pick. Not too much from each plant and being very careful not to disturb the roots. I've always got an eye on making sure the patch stays strong and healthy for the rest of the season and next year, and the year after that, so I don't want to over-pick or damage any of the plants. I think of it a bit like farming. If you forage your local patch, please be kind to the plants too.
Then I take my pickings back up the hill to HQ and we wash and dry it and make it into our Spring special, Wild Garlic Pork Pies. We can only make as many as the woods provides, so it's first come, first served for the shops and pubs who buy them from us, but they're always very popular. And we only make them into small pies because the Wild Garlic is so precious. They're also available from us online - whilst stocks last...
Wild Garlic Pork Pie Mail Order
So. Head over to our Pies By Post shop and, for a very short while, you'll see one of the options is Wild Garlic Pork Pies. Unique and deliciously delivered to your door.
Natural Surroundings, our Bayfield neighbours