What is not rubbish...

I realize blogs often, mine included, have a tendency to rant. Well I’m bucking a trend, going out on a limb, and throwing caution to the wind while clinging on to said limb…I’ve decided to feel the love today and say what I like – yes like – about Norwich.

You can’t have a list of nice things o’ Norwich without the obvious inclusions of almost every building built before WWII. You have to have Elm Hill, the Cathedral Close, the castle, etc. But I want to branch out into the things that are great about Norwich that you only get to know from living here for a while; things not necessarily in the guidebooks. So here we go:

Chapelfield Garden. Chapelfield Garden? You may ask starting to wonder if I am in fact a teenager with a propensity to wear black and drink early on a Saturday morning. Why I’ve even criticized Chapelfield before claiming it at times populated by zombies judging by the amount of shuffling swaying done by the inhabitants. Yes Chapelfield Gardens – but certain aspects of Chapelfield. Pedro’s is an clear choice especially with my long rooted love of Mexican food, the way some English people say tay-co for taco, and the fact I would never dare make a chimichanga at home.

But like I said – past the guidebook stuff – I love in Chapelfield Gardens that tree. You know the tree I mean. It is a London Plane and is huge, lovely, perfectly tree shaped, sweet smelling, with it’s hangy seed balls, beautiful anytime of year, and has cool webbed rigging in it I imagine to stop a branch from falling off (it really does, look closer its on your right-hand side as you stand looking at it from the path.) But to be fair even that is in a guidebook ‘The Trees of Norwich’ – yes such a book of such minute detail does exist.

So a little less written about, but still in Chaplefield Garden is that one Blackbird with the white head – I love him. He’s got a great singing voice and looks a little like a Bald Eagle with that noble white head. He’s great, check him out, he hangs out between Pedro’s and the good tree.

• I also like the quality of light you get; the subtle hues seem different than other skies.
• The fact that you can be looking at sunny skies yet it is hailing on you.
• The rabbits you see from the train where the lines branch apart at Trowse and there is a triangle of land – sometimes with horses, but often covered with bunnies.
• All the baby bunnies at UEA in the spring – I can’t walk without squeaking like a little girl wanting to scoop them up and keep them in my pocket.
• Earlham road in the spring with its trees freakishly identical and the crocuses in bloom.
• The little house on Unthank road that looks like the living embodiment of a house a child would draw: it is one level, with a door in the middle, two windows either side, a perfect triangle roof, with the chimney in the middle. It is the sort of house all nice grandparents should live in.
• The people of Norwich like the ever popular Puppet Man and the lesser known but still loved Stuart who is a very large man that loves to sing loudly along to the radio. Norwich has more characters then you can poke a stick at. Literally if you tried to using your poking stick just walking down Gentleman’s Walk on a Saturday it would be broken before you left the market.
• Street names like Rampant Horse.
• When Cow Tower gets covered in ladybugs, ladybirds, or bishy barnabees – what ever you’d like to call them.
• The word bishy barnabees.
• The cool cats I’ve hung out with in the Cathedral Close. Literally cats – especially the one that likes to lounge around Pull’s Ferry. I wonder how many people’s holiday snaps he’s been in.
• The pond at Heigham Park is a work of genius – it’s like your own little nature program.
• Doors. Yes doors. Sure the old buildings of Norwich are lovely but take a look at some of the doors they are just brilliant for their age, detail, or wonky-ness.
• Malcolm in the Vauxhall Street Post Office.
• The amount of pedestrianised places. I’m not good with cars – I’m glad when I can shop and they don’t hit me.
• Not one, but two, T.K. Maxx’s.
• All the little back lanes with there specialty shops.
• The odd red posts that have gone up with faces and birds and odd such on them, that I have yet to find out why they are even there. They are good on their own but the mystery surrounding them might be what intrigues me most.
• The fact that I can do all my daily shopping in skipping distance – which everyone knows due to the amount of energy it takes to skip it makes it closer then walking distance.
• Thorns. The place is Tardis. I swear it defies space and time. It probably has a tunnel to the cathedral filled with different kinds of screws.
• Waffle House. I mean EVERYTHIGN on a waffle, just brilliant.

Okay now I need breakfast, I can’t talk about waffles at nine in the morning and not need to break my fast so I’ll leave the list for now. Feel free to add some things you love about Norwich that might not be in the guidebooks to my burgeoning list.