GoGo Mammoths

Over the past decade Norwich has seen an invasion of psychedelic mountain gorillas, a parade of glittery elephants, the flight of the camp dragons, a husk of vivid hares, a swarm of big bugs and a hungry group of dazzling dinosaurs. This year, the T-Rexes are back with a vengeance to sink their claws and jaws into a herd of steppe mammoths – all in aid of Break, a charity supporting children in care. A round of applause, please. Let’s not worry too much that the hunters and the hunted roamed the Earth at entirely different times, separated by millions of years. It’s just a bit of fun for the bored kiddies during the summer holidays.

Most of the proto-jumbos with their oversized tusks are more county than town, dotted about various corners of Norfolk, so I thought I’d never spot one grazing in Norwich. I made do with snapping a small selection of the dapper dinos in their flashy finery instead.

But then I spotted this handsome beast clad in metal nuts at the entrance to St Mary’s Works. The old shoe factory is now the venue for Norwich’s uber-trendy Junkyard Market serving up street grub and fruity cocktails to a youthful crowd of beards and tattoos. We were there to celebrate a village boy’s 40th.

The sun was setting on a scorching day, and Metal Mammoth was glowing in the twilight, hot and sticky to the touch.

Ant Wars

We returned from our glorious Greek idyll to a heatwave and an invasion of tiny black ants. The little buggers were climbing up and down our narrow cottage stairs, marching across our dining room floor and, horror of horrors, crawling all over the Pinot Grigio.

I know ants have their uses – helping to maintain a healthy topsoil and all that, and generally we live in harmonious co-existence. But that’s outside in the garden where they belong, not under our floorboards. They had to go.

Not in the house. Not on my watch!

Liam said.

He fought back with chemicals – sprays, powder and traps – a toxic assault of shock and awe. If he’d had napalm or mustard gas in his arsenal, he’d have used them too.

Then emerged the fatter, horny variety with wings, lusting after their mid-air shag-fest, triggered, no doubt, by the steamy weather. But instead of taking flight for their annual orgy, they staggered out of various cracks and crevices like drunks at closing time. We’d won the battle but have we won the war? Only time will tell. Odds are the colony has been living beneath our feet for ages. I’ve read that the queen can survive for 25 years. She might see me out.

Tomorrow belongs to the creatures that creep and crawl.

Jurassic City

It’s been a pretty dismal summer, weather-wise. The shortest of heatwaves in June, a washed-out July and a blanket of low cloud for most of August. Still, we didn’t suffer the death and devastation of flash floods, wilting temperatures and rampant wildfires that afflicted Turkey and much of continental Europe so I guess we should count our lucky stars. And who needs the sun anyway when the streets of Norwich are lit up by brightly coloured dinosaurs?

Over the last few years we’ve had an invasion of psychedelic gorillas, a parade of glittery elephants, the flight of the camp dragons, a husk of vivid hares and a swarm of big bugs. Now it’s the turn of dazzling dinosaurs on the Go Go Discover T Rex Trail inspired by the arrival in Norwich Cathedral of Dippy, the Natural History Museum’s iconic Diplodocus cast. It’s the final gig of his nationwide tour.

Twenty-one individually designed T Rex sculptures meander through the centre of the city as a guided route to the Cathedral – just in time for school’s out for Summer. If God can’t tempt the kids into church come Sunday, Dippy surely will.

Here’s a small sample. I guess my favourite ought to be the rainbow T Rex stomping all over Millennium Plain but actually it’s Sherlock on Cathedral Close that gets my vote.

As usual, the trail is all in aid of Break, a charity providing support to young people in care. They’ve also covered Cambridge in a herd of colourful cows. That’s a lot of painted udders.

Summer of Laughs (Part 2)

Hot on the heels of Teutonic comic Henning Wehn came a comedy night courtesy of Shaft of Wit and hosted by our very own village watering hole, the White Horse. It’s a regular gig but we were comedy night virgins, drawn by another big name off the telly box – Arthur Smith, the original grumpy old man, a tribe I’ve recently joined. He was top billing for a quartet of stand-ups – him, John Mann, Pam Ford and Earl Okin. They were funny and original – more a pit of wit than a shaft of laughs. But, for me, the stand out stand-up was Aussie Pam (or rather Brit-Aussie-Brit Pam). Comedy-wise, I tend to go for the female of the species and Pam Ford is right up there.

Change channels now if you’re easily offended by the lewd and the rude!

Summer of Laughs (Part 1)

It’s been a comedy season of fun and laughter, despite the COVID blues and the hit and miss weather. After drag gags from the extraordinary La Voix a couple of weeks ago, we were back at Interlude in the Close for another comic treat – Henning Wehn, the self-styled ‘German Comedy Ambassador for Teutonic jolliness’.

A regular on many a TV panel show, Henning has been living and working in Britain for twenty years and provides a ballsy view of the life on these islands from a continental perspective, always delivered with wit, insight and affection.

His was a show in preview called Das Neuen Materialen Nachten (The New Materials Night) – a brand new routine, testing the water before a big tour. And there was plenty of water to go round – our bottom halves were soaked through as we rushed along Cathedral Close and squelched across the sodden playing fields of the lower school. Liam was wearing trainers – well you can imagine.

What Henning ambitiously called a masterpiece under construction was more a work in progress but there was plenty of witty banter, and the jokes old and new made sure the angry clouds didn’t dampen our spirits. The wine helped, of course.

Rain, Rain Go Away…

British weather is famed for being predictably unpredictable – rain one minute, sunshine the next, with the mercury up and down like a fiddler’s elbow. The poor Met Office struggles to keep pace with an ever-shifting forecast. It’s no wonder the weather is Britain’s favourite topic of conversation – that and the footie (but best not go there). But so far this summer the weather has been predictably wet, windy and miserable even here in the driest county in the land (usually). A few warm days and a couple of BBQs in early June does not a summer make.

We may sit around the house in shorts trying to pretend it’s summer but who has the heating on in July? We do, that’s who. As more benevolent foreign climes are off the agenda this year for obvious reasons, we try to make do with what old Ma Nature chucks at us but please, old girl, stop pissing on our parade.

Every cloud, as they say. The damp and dismal weather has at least provided a bumper crop all around us, particularly now it’s become de rigueur to let the grass grow to encourage wildflowers, bees and other pollinating insects. And the ducks quite like it too.

On Yer Bike

I’m all for people stepping out of their cars and getting on their bikes. It’s good for the body, good for the soul and even better for the environment. And pedal-power has gone into overdrive since the pandemic. With quieter roads and cleaner air, people are turning and returning to cycling in their droves. New bike sales are up and old bikes are getting a makeover after years of rusting away at the back of a shed.

The flatlands of Norfolk provide an easy ride for cyclists and there are few better places to pedal push than the highways and byways hereabouts. On sunny days, it can be the Tour de Loddon along the high street with riders top to toe in fancy kit dismounting for coffee and cake. It ain’t always pretty. Okay, we can’t all look like six-times Olympic champion Chris Hoy with his thunder thighs and buns you could butter. But if all your spare tyres are wrapped round your waist, it’s best to go easy on the lycra. It’s enough to turn the milk in my flat white.

Wasp at the Picnic

Weather in these isles is notoriously unpredictable at the best of times but, all things considered, summer this year has been good. Just as well with all this lockdown business. June was warm and dry, July was wetter and August has been a scorcher so far. Whenever the mercury rises, out comes the BBQ, bangers and burgers. On the hottest day of the year, we popped to the shops for grill grub and, after getting home, threw open the stable door to our little porch. The heat rushed in and the fire alarm went off. We had to unscrew it from the ceiling to get it to stop.

Later that day, as I was flipping the burgers, I stepped on a wasp with my bare foot. Unsurprisingly, this didn’t go down too well with the wasp and the angry little bugger stung me. It was my first time. Until that painful moment, this city boy had never been stung – bitten many times, yes, but stung, no. I didn’t know how I’d react, physically. Thankfully, I didn’t go into anaphylactic shock and have to be rushed to hospital. I did, though, hop around the lawn screaming ‘ouch, ouch, ouch.’

‘Don’t be such a drama queen,’

Liam said before pouring me a large glass of medicinal white.

Holy Moly

Country life brings with it many rewards but one of them isn’t the common or garden mole. Our small rural patch was under sustained excavation from one (or maybe more) of these pesky pests burrowing beneath our feet to mine for juicy worms. The BBQ was in serious danger of dropping down a sink hole, and whole sections of the lawn began to resemble a toy-town Peak District as the industrious mouldywarp (as moles were called in Shakespeare’s day) built little hillocks from the tunnel spoil.

Mole hills are all too common in these parts. The local graveyard is full of ’em. The dearly departed may not mind, but the alive and kicking certainly do. I’ve had dreams of Mr Mole sunning himself on a little deckchair, cocktail in one hand, worm burger in the other; the party guest who never leaves. It’s the stuff of my nightmares – Wind in the Willows it ain’t. So I counter-attacked with organic repellent and coffee grains in the hope he’d get the message and move on to greener pastures. So far so good. I may have won the battle but the war is not over.

Street Life

It was a warm but rainy day for our first forage into Norwich since March’s lockdown. I must admit we felt unexpectedly anxious at the prospect of leaving the sanctuary of the village and heading into town on a bus. We girded our loins, with masks and sanitisers cocked and ready.

It was actually fine. Because of social distancing rules, bus capacity has been reduced and, as we were two of only six passengers, there was plenty of room. This didn’t stop a young couple sitting together in non-designated seats and removing their masks to chat. What is it with the young? They may feel indestructible, safe in the knowledge that the dreaded lurgy is unlikely to bring them down, but that won’t stop them super-spreading to the rest of us.

It was good to get back into the city again. Norwich was busy but not packed – almost normal. Big Issue sellers were back on the streets and most cafés and shops were open. The only thing noticeably missing were the buskers and artists who, in better times, provide a weird and wonderful addition to Norwich’s street life.

Wherever we went seemed well-organised and COVID-secure with lots of one-way systems going on. Most people complied. No one was overwhelmed with punters, though. It’s an anxious time for traders, I’m sure.

After a bit of retail therapy, we headed to the Lamb Inn for a cheeky bottle of blush and some hearty pub grub, using a handy app to order and pay. Our food and drinks were brought to our table by a delightful young waitress. It was all done efficiently and with a reassuring smile. I think this continental style table service might catch on – until winter sets in that is.

Norwich in sunnier days…