19-Jul-2020
Let's get the news out of the way first. Three things:
1. I am now, mercifully, cast-free. My hand is a bit stiff, but not nearly as painful as it was the last time I broke something. If I do my exercises faithfully, I should mend. Meanwhile, getting to the hospital was my first experience of taking the bus since the covid fiasco struck. If you catch a bus here, you're supposed to wear a mask. On my outward journey, there were at least two people with no masks at all, one person who though just pulling his jumper up over his nose would do the trick, one person who took her mask off to drink (on a five-minute trip), and two people with their noses poking out over the top. Seriously, we need better public education...
2. Sarawak's rules for returnees have changed again... We're now not allowed, even if we test negative, to do the rest of our quarantine at home. So, we're back to two weeks in a hotel.
3. We have our official permission to return to Sarawak. We sent the documentation off yesterday, and we received the go-ahead today. Let's hope the rest of the upcoming performance will go as well...
In the category "things that make life worth living", we continue to find Norwich a fascinating place for walking.
Monday's walk followed the western segment of the "Norwich's nooks and crannies" three circular tours.
We kicked off at the Guildhall: "It was built as a result of a royal charter of 1404 that gave the city the right of self-government. The east end ... is a glorious example of diaper flushwork, where alternating diamonds of dark flint and light limestone form a smooth (ie, 'flush') surface."
Nearby is the War Memorial, designed by Edwin Lutyens, whom we'd met not only in Delhi but also in Overstrand:
Then onwards:
Tudor-style chimneys in Chapel Field North
The remains of St Benedict's
Another of Norwich's cute thatched buildings
St Swithin's, now an arts centre
St Laurence's, but the martyr depicted here is St Edmund, with the wolf who guarded his severed head...
Gybson's Conduit, a 16th-century water supply
Once one of the major brewers in Norwich
St Miles Bridge, one of Norwich's earliest river crossings
St Mary's Coslany, one of only three churches in Norwich with round towers
Formerly home to one of the largest shoe manufacturers in Norwich
Pykerell House, one of the city's oldest inhabited houses
St Michael's Coslany, with its exemplary "flushwork"
On Friday we completed the tour with the northeast segment:
St John's Maddermarket
Norwich cobbles
The Garth
Norwich Cathedral
The Bridewell, said to be an excellent example of knapped flint
Saturday's walk took us past some more of the work of George Skipper, whom we'd first come across in Cromer.
The Jarrolds building
The London and Provincial Bank
Skipper's office
The Norfolk Daily Standard Offices
St Giles House
The Royal Arcade
Commercial buildings
Surrey House
And today we strolled Mousehold Heath, which, on a rainy day like today, is quiet, pretty, and atmospheric.
It contains the site of St William's Chapel. This commemorated the young murder victim whose death fuelled the rise of the "blood libel": unproven accusations of ritual murder that were routinely used to fuel campaigns of anti-Semitism.
Norwich, for us, is primarily a stepping-stone to home. But how rich a place it has proved to be.