Photoshop Elements randomly creates collages from my photo catalogue. This collage brought back some happy memories.

I loved receiving these reversible skirts hand packed with a personal note making me feel special. When the parcel arrived I always took time to open it slowly and savour the personal touches that were added to my purchase.

I enjoyed wearing this skirt for the first time during a holiday in Norfolk.

A brief history quoted from an information pack in our room at Bank House:

Described by Nikolaus Pevsner as one of the finest houses in King’s Lynn, Bank House was built in the early 18th Century for one of the King’s Lynn’s many rich and successful merchants. The house is Grade II* listed and is recognised as a stunning example of an early Georgian house. Of particular note is the panelling on the ground and first floors, the mantlepiece in the Boardroom and the pediments over a couple of the bedroom doors on the first floor. In what we call, rather unromantically, the Purfleet, on the second floor, the panelling is much older and thought to date from an older building and to have been used in the present Bank House as out of date and suitable only for servants’ quarters

Underneath the house, extensive barrel roofed vaults extend down to the river where wine coming in from the continent would have been stored before being shipped on to Cambridge (for the colleges), ely and Bury (for the bishops) or ports to the North.

Situated so close the Custom House and the Purfleet, the house was at the centre of the trading area of King’s Lynn, and merchants would stand around King’s Staithe Square haggling over cargoes as they were landed. In the mid 1700’s Joseph Gurney realised the potential of the location and set up his first bank in the house, which was then christened Bank House. Around 1780 the Counting House was added on (which now houses the bar and River Room restaurant). In 1809 the bank narrowly avoided a “run” on it by its investors. One of the bank’s partners had to ride in haste to Norwich to bring back gold to reassure the customers! Gurneys recovered from this excitement to eventually become Barclays Bank today, and in 1869 moved to Tuesday Market Place.

Over the door stands a fine statue of an English king, thought to be either Charles I or James I. The statue is said to have arrived in a wheelbarrow looking for a home when its original home in Tuesday Market Place was demolished. Charles II stands on the Custom House.

Captain Samuel Gurney Cresswell, the arctic explorer who was one of the first party to sail the North West passage, was born in the house in 1827. He joined the Navy and went off to fight pirates in the China seas, at age 16. In 1850 he was appointed Second Lieutenant and ship’s artist on HMS Investigator during its expedition in search of the Northwest passage. The ship became stuck in the ice from September 1851 through to the Spring of 1853.

The gardens are situation in what once was the friary orchard. When the friary was closed in 1538, the tower and the land around it passed to the Town Council.

Part of this land was never permanently built on. Tower Gardens was laid out in 1911 as a public park to commemorate the coronation of King George V.

In 1921 it also became the site of the town’s War Memorial, following the First World War.

The War Memorial was designed by Oswald Milne and unveiled by HRH Princess Mary, daughter of King George V, on 26 February 1921. It lists 569 local men who died in the First World War and a further 19 from the Second World War.

Greyfiars Tower is the only surviving above ground remains of the medieval Franciscan friary. It is about 93 feet high. It was built in stages from the 13th to the 15th century.

It is a lantern tower, with windows to provide light to the area below.

It is also a bell tower and orginally had a single bell in the top chamber. Only two other medieval Franciscan bell towers survive in England, one in Coventry and the other at Richmond in Yorkshire.

• Information taken from signboards in Tower Gardens.

The dinosaurs confined themselves to Norwich city centre but the mammoths wandered further afield around Norfolk. I saw a few in the wilds and captured a couple meandering around Kings Lynne.

Paramahansa Yogananda

Castle Rising Castle is one of the most famous 12th Century castles in England. The stone keep, built in around 1140ad, is amongst the finest surviving examples of its kind anywhere in the country and, together with the massive surrounding earthworks, ensures that Rising is a castle of national importance.

In its time Rising has served as a hunting lodge, royal residence, and for a brief time in the 18th century even housed a mental patient. The most famous period in its history was when it came to the mother of Edward III, Queen Isabella, following her part in the murder of her husband Edward II. The castle passed to the Howard family in 1544 and it remains in their hands today, the current owner being a descendant of William D’Albini II, the Norman baron who raised the castle.

The great earthworks which form the whole site and extent of the castle cover an area of between 12 and 13 acres, and comprise a main central enclose, or inner bailey, and two lesser outworks respectively to east and west. The central enclosure, in shape something between a circle and an oval about 73m north to south and 64m east to west, has a circumference around its crest of about 320m, and is far and away the strongest, with it banks, even now after the cumulative and combined effects of erosion and in-filling, rising to a height of some 18m.

Within the inner bailey can be found the remains of an early Norman Church. Discovered in the early nineteenth century when the bailey was cleared of accumulated sand and soil, it is the earliest building within the site, pre-dating even the castle itself. Dating from around the late eleventh century it is thought to be the first parish church of Rising (no earlier church has been discovered) and was probably replaced by the current twelfth-century church when the castle was founded.

Whilst Mr C was using the shower the water flow unexpectedly stopped. I was just about to go down to reception to report the issue when the water flow,  just as unexpectedly, started again. Mr C showered quickly before anything else could go wrong. The breakfast menu was comprehensive and cooked to order. I chose items from the meat free breakfast; falafal sausage, flat iron mushroom, hash brown and fried egg. It was delicious.

After breakfast when we got in the car to travel to Castle Rising we noticed that a bird had christened the new windscreen. How rude! Castle Rising has a keep surrounded by massive earthworks. It has been owned by the Howard family, Dukes of Norfolk, since 1544, although English Heritage maintain its upkeep. I gingerly walked along earthwork ridge before entering the keep.

Before going to our next destination, Welney Wetlands Centre, we stopped off at the tearoom near to the castle for elevenses. I settled on a refreshing glass of Elderflower Presse whilst Mr C enjoyed a cup of tea. We chose to sit outside on a garden bench surrounded by trees.

The road to the wetlands centre is long and extremely bumpy. The wetland site differs from the one at Arundel and indeed Slimbridge, both of which I have visited. We saw hardly any birds along the woodland path, although we could hear them. We decided to retrace our steps and visit the hides that were in a different direction. We had seen birds (including Martins close up) from the main hide as we entered the site but the other hides failed to reveal anything. We did see a lone swan walking with an ungainly gate across a dried up wetland area.

As we were leaving we saw more birds at the bird feeder next to the café than we had seen in the rest of the site.  I treated myself to a book on British birds and whilst making my purchase the lady who was serving me said she had had her eye on that book too.

We returned to the hotel where we had refreshments in the hotel bar before dining in the hotel. It was Sunday so a roast was on offer. I chose pork which was delicious but the meal was huge!