Week in Wells-next-the-Sea

Friday 30 May to Friday 6 June 2025

Where we stayed

Quayside Lookout, a second-floor flat in Quayside Court, a modern block with shops on the ground floor. Quayside Court is next door to The Granary, where we rented a holiday apartment in 2021. It faces on to the harbour and we were attracted to the apartment by its balcony and what looked to be great views from the living area. We booked it in May 2024 via Norfolk Hideaways, who had also handled our Granary rental. The total cost of the rental was around £1000 for the week.

Verdict: on balance, favourable, though we weren't sure it had quite reached a standard that justified the rental cost. We paid only slightly more than this to rent Cathedral House in St Davids last November (haven’t yet blogged that trip) and Cathedral House was a step above the standard of the Wells flat.

Upsides: Quayside Lookout must sell itself substantially on its views of the harbour and marshes, and these were fantastic: you could just sit and watch the tides and the boats all day, if you were feeling particularly idle. The open-plan living area is lovely and has a lovely light feel; it was all nicely fitted out with a newish big screen Smart TV. The location of the flat is convenient both for the town and for coastal walks, and Wells is usefully set up for buses to the coastal villages if you don’t want to drive to them (as I generally don’t). It has its own parking space in a courtyard at the rear of the block; it’s a snug space which would probably cause a problem for drivers of big vehicles, but it neatly fitted my Fiesta. We also liked the fact that the kitchen drawers are neatly fitted out with reasonably-new looking, coordinated mugs, cutlery etc rather than containing the miscellany of owner cast-offs that holiday rentals sometimes do.

View from the balcony

Downsides: not that the owner can do anything about this, but the balcony is absolutely tiny: there were two chairs and a small table on it, but getting to a position where both of you could sit down involved a lot of opening and closing the door and moving the table out of the way. We both thought the developer of the block had been a tad mean with this – even another foot on the balcony depth would have made it more usable. The other slight downside was the bathroom: while perfectly adequate, for the cost I’d have expected a bit more luxury and a better shower – IMO (not that I'm being asked) the owner should take the bath out and provide a spacious walk in shower instead (there probably isn’t space for both).

We did also have a more concrete issue with the shower, which when we arrived on the Friday would only dispense water of a temperature straight from the earth’s core, and as it was warm weather I’d been in the mood for a temperate shower. It was even too hot for Ruth, who does like to roast herself. On the Saturday morning we managed to make contact with the owner, who was in France, whether temporarily or permanently we didn’t know. He was a pleasant man and did arrange for a plumber to come out the same day, presumably at some cost to him as it was a weekend. To my relief, the plumber confirmed that the knob was indeed stuck and a new part was needed. He chipped off enough scale for us to be able to turn it but said that he’d have to order and fit a new one. I duly sent Mr Napier an appreciative text.

There were two visitors’ books in the flat, both stuffed full of fulsome praise of the property (do owners tear out pages where there are unfavourable comments??). Ruth and I guessed that a lot of the commenters were older than us (based I suppose on a combination of handwriting and names such as Prue and Sylvia) and we were both amused by the number of comments relating to the complimentary jar of jam that comes with the rental (it’s what you get by way of a welcome pack – not that I necessarily expect a welcome pack, but this is luxury-end pricing). Neither Ruth nor I eat jam much, but after all the comments we didn’t like to reject it, so brought it back with us.

Partial journey there

Our Thursday route

As driving long distances in the Fiesta has been giving me something resembling sciatic pain for the last year or so, I booked us an overnight stay in a Premier Inn on the outward journey. This meant we were able to set off in a fairly relaxed fashion and chunter up as far as the A14 north of Cambridge, where we checked into the catchily-named Premier Inn Cambridge (A14, J32), where we stayed in a Premier Plus room in the new Next Evolution Style. The pink lighting in the bathroom is evidently part of all this.

The Premier Inn we stayed in has clearly been placed for convenience for the A14, meaning that there weren’t many dinner options in the vicinity, so we had dinner in the hotel restaurant. Service was a bit slow but all the staff were lovely.

Relaxing in our room

Pink bathroom lighting

As a bit of a road geek, I was quite interested in the route that Google Maps took us. I chose to go with the route it suggested up the A1(M), rather than the simpler-but-duller carrying on along the M25 and going up the M11. This route takes you off the M25 at junction 21A and along a section of the North Orbital Road, which I would guess is one of the various marooned bits of the cancelled London Ringways project. It joins the A1(M) near Hatfield. We travelled north as far as Letchworth where we joined the A505 going northeast towards Royston and then, off onto the A1198, a smaller road that took us through the village of Bassingbourn cum Kneesworth, which we both found faintly amusing (ditto the sign to Shingay cum Wendy). Then north on the A603 (Cambridge Road) to briefly join the M11, and then onto the A14.

Sabre told me that the initial, straight, section of the A1198 that we drove along is the line of the Roman road Ermine Street, and follows the line of the original A14. It was apparently downgraded to the A1198 when through traffic heading north was being discouraged from using it and encouraged to use the M11. The current A14 is a thundering great trunk road running from the Midlands to the port of Felixstowe. We came to it late in our Thursday journey and used it for a stretch of the onward journey the following day.

Rest of journey up (Friday)

The following morning, we drove to Ruth’s parents’ house between Thetford and Dereham, where we had lunch and spent a few hours, then drove north to Wells.

For dinner I made ‘Nduja and basil roasted gnocchi, a recipe out of a Waitrose magazine which has proved a useful holiday meal.

Gnocchi dinner

Sunset from Quayside Lookout

Day 1 (Saturday): mooch around Wells

After the plumber had been (see above) we went for a bit of a stroll around the town. Ruth bought a posh new bedside lamp in posh interiors shop “Bringing The Outside In”, where I think she bought a plant pot on a previous trip. We had a bit of a stroll along the quay and out onto the coast path a bit.

The former Shipwright's Arms on East Quay

Re the 'Shipwrights' lettering on the building: this was the former Shipwrights Arms, on Wells East Quay. This webpage says that the pub closed in the mid-1990s.

Boats and marsh

The coastal path looking east from Wells

Day 2 (Sunday): Holkham circular walk suggested by Komoot

We did a walk, on a route suggested by the Komoot app. We walked up Beach Road and called in at the new lifeboat station and shop, where we had a look at the enormous new lifeboat. Ruth asked the guy on duty about the reason for the disco ball hanging from the lifeboat station roof, and was told that the space had been used for a bit of a knees up a while back (apparently the lifeboat was parked outside for the evening).

The Wells lifeboat

The disco ball

We then walked along Wells beach (families and beach huts, but spacious enough not to feel crowded) to Holkham beach (vast emptiness). We stopped at the Lookout, where I had a cup of tea and Ruth had an ice cream from a nearby van. Being Holkham, it was a dead posh vegan ice cream. Ruth had been hoping for a more traditional Mr Whippy, but she did at least get a (non-vegan) Cadbury's Flake stuck in it.

Wells beach

Holkham beach

After the snack stop, we carried on along Lady Anne's Drive to Holkham village, and along Park Road onto the Holkham estate, where we saw a bunch of deer lounging about. We turned left and followed a path that came out by Holkham’s East Lodge.

Looking back at the gates by East Lodge

The Holkham estate has a number of lodges; there’s a page on them here. They include the Triumphal Arch, where Ruth and I spent a few nights in 2019. You can rent some of the others as well.

After leaving the estate by East Lodge we followed a lane and then the road back into Wells. This was a walk of just over seven miles, which was allegedly longer than I had officially announced it was going to be, something that Ruth made a written note of.

Ruth made roast pork for dinner courtesy of pork acquired from Arthur Howell the butcher.

Day 3 (Monday): boat trip

Our tickets in my Google Wallet

I had booked us on to a Seal Trip with Bishop’s Boats. We were aware it wasn’t really the time of year to see many seals, but I generally enjoy a boat trip anyway. We took the bus to Morston village and walked down Quay Lane to Morston Quay, passing this impressive chap.

A turkey

The boat trip took about an hour and took us out to the far end of Blakeney Point, where we did see a cluster of seals right at the end of the spit of land. We also saw several heads bobbing about in the water. The boat chaps tried to keep our expectations modest in terms of the likely amount of seal-themed entertainment, but I was happy enough with what we saw. They did explain the various types of seal we saw - common seals and harbour seals, I think. I'm sure they told us that last winter there had been around eight thousand seals on Blakeney Point. That must have taken some counting.

Some seals

Having stuff pointed out

The boat chaps pointed out the old Blakeney Lifeboat Station, closed in the 1930s after the harbour silted up. I also noted a few what looked like small houses/holiday cabins dotted around. Apparently, there are still a few privately owned buildings on Blakeney Point but since the National Trust’s acquisition of the land, no more settlement is allowed. Apparently, once the current owners die, the dwellings cannot be privately sold or passed to family, but have to pass to the ownership of the Trust, which I found interesting.

The former Blakeney Lifeboat Station

After getting off the boat we walked from Morston Quay to Cley, via Blakeney where we stopped to eat our sandwiches. At Cley we had a drink in the garden of The George and Dragon, and then got the bus back to Wells.

Our walk from Morston Quay to Cley (about 4 miles)

Blakeney

Day 4 (Tuesday): reading

Lazy day. Ruth had a lie-in. I spent the morning finishing P D James’ Cover Her Face, which I’d brought with me as holiday reading. It rained, as per this video clip.

In the afternoon we dragged ourselves out for a short walk to the antiques market, the Co-op, the butcher for more bacon, and to inspect the menu at Platten’s fish and chip shop.

Come evening, Platten’s turned out to have closed, so Ruth got fish and chips from nearby French’s instead. I rustled myself up something vaguely Italianesque with pancetta cubes and tomatoes, and some cheeky garlic flatbread that I’d brought just in case.

Day 5 (Wednesday): Houghton Hall

I'd agreed in advance that I'd drive us to one garden this week provided I could lounge around/take buses for the rest of the week. Ruth chose Houghton Hall, about half an hour’s drive from Wells off the A148 between Fakenham and King’s Lynn.

We only paid for access to the walled garden, which is lovely, if formal. It's divided into a number of zones. We had lunch in the nice and not overly crowded café.

Map of Houghton's walled garden

Extreme hedge-clipping

I suppose I wouldn't have minded seeing the sculpture park as well but at the time we decided against paying the extra for that. I did manage to see some of the "iconic white fallow deer" referred to in the link above, by peering through some railings.

White deer, looking iconic

In the evening we went for dinner at The Crown on the Buttlands, an exclusive-looking square with some elegant houses.

Day 6 (Thursday): pilgrimage and another Holkham walk

Ruth stayed in the flat intending to do some work, but actually spent the morning reading her book and making a homemade rice pudding (we have still not fixed our oven, so any access to an oven fires us up with enthusiasm for baked goods).

I had a yen to visit the Catholic bit of Walsingham again, driven by some sort of nameless spiritual urge. I drove down some narrow lanes (go me) to Houghton St Giles and parked in the shrine car park, where I made a donation. Our Lady was no doubt round later to collect them.

I sat in the Chapel of Reconciliation for a bit, and stayed for a communal rosary that started booming out of the speakers at about 11am. No idea if it was being led by a priest or a lay person, as he was nowhere in sight. Over the past year I have attended Mass a couple of times at Our Lady and St Anne in Caversham, on a bit of a whim, but don’t know yet if it’s going to become a regular thing. Father Joe is a bit of a bellower. The shrine of Our Lady of Caversham (at St Anne's) is one of those pictured at the Catholic shrine at Walsingham.

English Marian Shrines (Our Lady of Caversham pictured centre)

The Chapel of Reconciliation opened in the 1980s, apparently to replace an open-air altar (and presumably because the old Slipper Chapel only seats about eight people). The Catholic shrine needs to do up its café, which is dismal - I had been hoping for a tranquil elevenses but the only things on offer were a handful of limp-looking sandwiches and sausage rolls.

In the afternoon we took the bus to Holkham and had a last walk along Holkham sands back to Wells. We saw lots of jellyfish on the beach, as per this picture. I was unsure as to their likely state of health.

Jellyfish

In the evening we had a takeaway from the Wells Crab House, as we did on our previous trip to Wells in 2021.

Yummy seafood

Postscript: Triumphal Arch

When planning this trip, I had had a yen to return to the Triumphal Arch for a couple of nights on our way to our week in Wells, as I had been taken on our previous trip with its peace and isolated setting. However, on searching, I noted that an additional holiday let has now been created on the other side of the arch - it had looked to be either offices or a storage facility when we stayed there in 2019; we certainly never saw anyone else. I get that the Holkham estate are trying to wring the maximum possible amount of money out of their lodges, but it's a bit of a shame. The Triumphal Arch West is the bit we stayed in.

The Triumphal Arch when we stayed there in 2019

RIP Chloe

Chloe was put to sleep late on Sunday night, after a short illness.

We adopted Chloe from the Oxfordshire Animal Sanctuary in 2022, with the intention of her being a companion rabbit to our rabbit Cassius (formerly Aragorn). Cassius had also come to us from the OAS in 2020 as part of a bonded trio with two female rabbits, Taylor and Arya, both of whom he has now substantially outlived.

“Bonding” of Chloe and Cassius initially appeared to have been successful, but rather rapidly came unstuck, as related here.

I had wanted us to return Chloe to the OAS and possibly look out for another companion for Cassius, but Ruth developed a fondness for her and went off this idea. As we (I, certainly) never wanted to risk putting them back together, this obliged us to a) set up two separate sets of rabbit living quarters, and b) ensure that the two were kept apart. The first has taken up space in the house that we could ill afford; the second has caused constant low-level worry that I might leave a door open that would result in Cassius hopping into Chloe’s proximity. For the subsequent c. two and a half years since we adopted her, therefore, Chloe had occupied the cupboard in the dining room that had been the quarters of all our previous rabbits, and Cassius has occupied the second bedroom upstairs, which is the room that I generally work in. The latter is not quite as bad as it sounds, as Cassius had developed a fondness for this room before we adopted Chloe, in much the same way that Harley had a fondness for being under the bed in the master bedroom. However, it would really have been preferable to allow Cassius to keep his ground floor quarters and its access to the garden – but I did not want to look at Chloe all day and we couldn’t come up with what else to do with her.

Chloe never ventured far from her home quarters until, perversely, the last month or so of her life, when she suddenly developed a fondness for hopping out into the garden and sitting behind the hostas (and eating the sage).

Over the last two months, Chloe had only eaten patchily and had lost a large amount of weight. We took her a few times to see Sarah Moffat at Cherry Orchard Vets, who did a blood test and suggested that it could be liver failure. Despite losing even more weight, Chloe continued to seem reasonably perky, but things went downhill a lot over the last week or so, with the result that Ruth called the out of hours number on Sunday night and we ferried her over to the Vets Now Emergency Care service that operates out of Castle Vets on Tilehurst Road, where the on-duty vet recommended euthanasia. Ruth managed to find a space in the garden to bury Chloe, so she’s now interred next to the dogwood plant by the garage.

Ruth admired Chloe for her strong, wild rabbit-adjacent looks; I sort of saw what she meant, and agree re the overbreeding of domestic rabbits that can result in snub faces, but my attitude to Chloe was always tainted by her aggression towards Cassius and the general inconvenience that resulted. It might have been different if we'd had the space to create a home setup where the two could have been kept in neighbouring enclosures and let out separately, but we just didn't have the space for that.

 

Chloe, large brown rabbit, born 2015, died 2025.

Some more books I have read recently

‘Black Sun’ by Rebecca Roanhorse

A fantasy novel, set in a region known as the Meridian. There are three strands of story, all leading up to the Tovan day of ‘convergence’, a coinciding of the winter solstice with a solar eclipse.

Strand 1: in the Obregi Mountains

The story opens on a scene between a twelve-year-old boy, Serapio, and his mother Saaya. After making him drink some poison to serve as a painkiller, Serapio’s mother carves an image of a crow on him, sews his eyes shut and then jumps to her death. So far, so normal. We later revisit Serapio a few times, as he grows up in more-or-less isolation with crows as his constant companions, aside from a series of “tutors” he is sent, who teach him various skills (before he kills them). To compensate for being blind, Serapio has a supply of a drug (“star pollen”) which enables him to throw his mind into a nearby crow and see things via the crow's eyes (“farseeing”). We learn that Serapio’s mother and some loony associates have used Serapio as a vessel for the crow god, to exact vengeance for the Tovan Watchers’ (we’ll get to them) past wrongs. Serapio’s destiny is to be the “Odo Sedoh”, the Crow God reborn.

Strand 2: in the city of Cuecola, and afterwards on the Crescent Sea

We meet Xiala, a sea captain who is in jail after a night of heavy drinking. Xiala is Teek, but has been driven out of her Teek homeland. Xiala is tasked by a Lord Balam with ferrying a human cargo across the Crescent Sea to Tova in time for Convergence. The human cargo turns out to be Serapio, who needs to be transported to Tova for a confrontation with the Sun Priest (see below) on the Day of Convergence. The Teek, seemingly an all-female race, have some sort of special affinity with the sea: Xiala can control the sea with her Song, and swimming below a certain depth to try to rescue a member of her crew triggers her to briefly change into a mermaid, to the consternation of the crew, who lock her up and plot to kill her. Thankfully Serapio’s on hand and gets his crows to gorily slaughter them all. Continuing the remainder of their journey together, Xiala and Serapio become fond of one another.

Strand 3: in the holy city of Tova

In Tova’s celestial tower dwells the Priesthood of Watchers. Tova is a strictly hierarchical society, divided between the four Sky Made clans (the nobs) and the Dry Earth folks (the peasants). Within the Watchers, there are four priestly societies. The current Sun Priest – i.e. head – is Naranpa. The previous Sun Priest named Naranpa as his successor, but her humble Dry Earth origins mean that she was a controversial choice; to add to that, Naranpa has made some reforms that are unpopular with traditionalists. The Sky Made clans hold civil power in Tova and the priesthood is facing a challenge to stay on top. Additionally, Naranpa is fighting a direct challenge to her authority by Abah, one of the other priests. There are also ongoing rumblings of discontent in the district of Odo, the home of clan Carrion Crow. Clan Carrion Crow were subjected a while back to a brutal killing rampage – the “Night of Knives” – ordered by a former Sun Priest, to deal with emerging heresy and worship of the Carrion Crow’s old god. A cult – the Odohaa – has grown up centred around the prospect of the Crow God returning.

It took me a few chapters to engage with this – probably standard with fantasy novels where the reader not only has the cast of characters but also whole slews of made-up city and country names to deal with, plus whatever else the author throws in. However, once into it I did enjoy it. The ending left more loose ends than I’d been expecting and had the distinct air of being set up for a sequel – at which point I discovered that Black Sun is, in fact, the first of a trilogy. I may be sucked in to reading the next one, which apparently is called Fevered Star.

Even allowing for its being the first in a trilogy, there were some frustrating things left unresolved at the end, a few too many for fairness given that some readers would be intending to read Black Sun as a one-off. Examples: we never discover who murdered the Carrion Crow “matron” Yatliza or who made the first assassination attempt on Naranpa’s life, beyond its being implied that it was not, in fact, anyone from the Carrion Crow clan. Also, even though Serapio was supposed to have died in the course of exacting his revenge, he seems not to have done. As Serapio is a bit of a disaster area, albeit through not much fault of his own, it struck me it would be better if he had done.

Black Sun was published in 2020. The Wikipedia entry on Rebecca Roanhorse currently has a lot of detail around the reception of her first novel Trail of Lightning, as well as information on Roanhorse's background.

The quote on the front cover from a Ken Liu ‘Roanhorse is the epic voice of our continent and time” fits in well with the tradition of fulsomely OTT cover quotes.

‘Cover Her Face’ by P D James

PD James' first detective novel, introducing the recurring character of Adam Dalgleish.

The story is set in and around an English country house, Martingale, in the village of Chadfleet. Martingale is the home of the Maxie family: Simon, a bedridden invalid (it’s not really clear what’s wrong with him); his wife Eleanor; their grown-up children Stephen, a “rising young surgeon” at a London hospital and Deborah, widowed (I don’t think it’s made clear what she does for a living, if anything). Additionally, there are family friends and weekend guests Catherine Bowers (a nurse; holding a candle for Stephen Maxie) and Felix Hearne (war hero, now part of a publishing company, fighting inner demons, keen on Deborah). Also in the household are Martha Bultitaft, cook and general housekeeper-type, and Sally Jupp, newly-arrived house-parlourmaid, an unmarried mother until recently resident at St Mary’s Refuge for Girls.

The annual fête is held at Martingale and the following morning Sally Jupp is discovered dead in her bed, apparently by strangulation, though it quickly becomes evident that some sort of sedative had additionally been slipped into her nightly cocoa. Her bedroom door was bolted from the inside and it seems as though the killer must have escaped out of the window (fictional killers, and fictional people in general, being implausibly adept at climbing out of upper-storey windows and nimbly making their way to the ground with the help of drainpipes and ivy, as opposed to the undignified slipping, cursing and breaking of ankles that would seem more likely in reality). Detective Chief Inspector Adam Dalgleish duly turns up, plus a lower-rank colleague, to investigate the crime. (As in The Private Patient, the other of James’ novels I’ve read thus far, it’s never made clear why The Yard has been called in over the local constabulary; there’s at least a hint of a suggestion in the PP that it was because the victim was reasonably well known, but there’s nothing in the murder of Sally Jupp that would equate.)

The person who eventually turns out to have done it was probably the one we as the reader had learned least about as they blended into the background rather. I suppose they had certainly been provoked though going to the lengths of killing seems a bit far-fetched – though it is held to have been a sudden and unpremeditated attack. I felt that there were other characters who would have been more plausible killers. The sedative turns out to have been unconnected with the murder; turns out Martha had been slipping it into Sally’s nightly cocoa so that Sally would persistently oversleep and thereby get herself into trouble.

The bit at the end, where an off-duty Dalgleish decides to take a diversion through Chadfleet on a drive home to London, in doing so encountering Deborah Riscoe and offering her a lift home to Martingale, seems a bit odd. AD’s feelings for Deborah? “he knew with sudden and heart-lifting certainty that they would meet again”. Did they? I guess I’d have to read more of the AD series to know whether this is followed up.

It’s a pretty good story and proved a good holiday read. It’s not too bad in terms of tying up the various potential red herrings and loose ends. One possible inconsistency that bugged me was that I was sure there had been a suggestion at one point that the way the strangulation had been carried out indicated that the murderer knew what they were doing, something that seems implausible given the identity of the killer - but I gave up trying to find the page I'd seen this on.

Cover Her Face was first published in 1962. My copy was the Sphere Books Ltd 1970s re-issue. The unpleasant cover art has no connection with the story; Sally dies through strangulation and the telephone plays no significant part in the story. The first edition cover, shown on the Wikipedia page, is clearly meant as an image of Sally Jupp and makes more sense in terms of connection with the story.

‘The Vegetarian’ by Han Kang

Korean novel that won the International Booker Prize (or the Man Booker International Prize, as it was then) in 2016. Even though I complacently consider myself reasonably bright, knowing in advance that a novel has won a major literary prize doesn’t necessarily fill me with optimism as to its likely readability, but I was encouraged by this one being blessedly short, at less than 200 pages.

The Vegetarian is centred on a woman, Yeong-hye, whose sudden decision to become vegetarian (vegan, in fact, though I don’t think the term is used) is the catalyst for the rest of the events in the novel. The story is divided into three parts: the first is told from the perspective of Yeong-hye’s husband, “Mr Cheong”, the second from that of her unnamed brother-in-law and the third from that of her long-suffering older sister In-hye. The story narrates Yeong-hye’s descent into ever more severe mental illness.

In Part 1, The Vegetarian, Yeong-hye’s husband wakes up one morning to find his wife throwing all the meat in the house into rubbish bags. She will give no explanation other than saying “I had a dream”. Short, italicized passages from Yeong-hye’s perspective relate the dreams she is having, disturbing dreams filled with blood and violence. She develops the idea that there is a lump in her stomach, caused by all the meat she’s eaten: “Because of meat. I ate too much meat. The lives of the animals I ate have all lodged there.” At a strained family lunch, Yeong-hye is given a general berating by her whole family, and her father attempts to force-feed her, resulting in her slitting her wrist in front of the family. She is admitted to a psychiatric facility, where she spends several months.

In Part 2, Mongolian Mark, it’s two years later. We learn that Yeong-hye's husband, Mr Cheong, has divorced her, deciding that his wife will never be normal again. In-hye’s husband, an occasional artist, has come to fancy Yeong-hye more than his wife, and this grows into an obsession with her after learning from his wife that Yeong-hye may still have a birthmark – a “Mongolian mark” – somewhere in the region of her buttocks. This develops in his mind into an image of an entwined couple with their bodies covered in painted flowers, and he becomes fixated on recreating this image in video art. Unknown to his wife, he asks Yeong-hye if he can paint her naked body and film himself doing it. This spirals a bit and leads to him painting himself and filming himself having sex with her. Unfortunately, In-hye discovers the tape and has them both committed to a mental hospital.

Part 3, Flaming Trees, is set a year later than Part 2. Yeong-hye is now resident in a psychiatric facility, somewhere in the mountains. She would seem to have been diagnosed with catatonic schizophrenia. Only In-hye visits her. All of In-hye’s family seem to have abandoned Yeong-hye following the “scandal” (presumably meaning the sex tape with her brother-in-law and its aftermath) and her sister alone cares for her. In-hye’s husband has left her. It becomes apparent that In-hye, like Yeong-hye, is suppressing a lot of anger (and emotion more generally). In-hye (no doubt, because she was the eldest daughter and didn’t have the option of falling apart) instead chose the path of working hard to appear the perfect working woman, wife and mother. Is In-hye’s extremely mild rebellion of “abandoning” her son in their apartment for a few hours while she wanders into the forest, supposed to signal that she could go the same way as her sister, if it weren’t for her self-control?

Verdict? Interesting, and also: huh? In-hye is the most sympathetic character in the novel, by some margin. Of the two men, I did have a certain amount of sympathy for Yeong-hye’s husband; not so much for her brother-in-law although he seems intended to appear the more sympathetic character of the two. Reading the book, I was expecting part of it, probably the last part, to be told from the perspective of Yeong-hye herself – but this does not happen. This makes it harder for the reader to gain greater understanding of where Yeong-hye is coming from, and harder to sympathise with her.

So what on earth is wrong with Yeong-hye, and what’s all the tree stuff? In the few glimpses of Yeong-hye’s thoughts in the earlier part of the book, she seems to be thinking that she might harm someone, and there are some suggestions that YH is suppressing violent urges; “on occasion, her eyes would seem to reflect a kind of violence … which she would appear to be struggling to suppress”. There is a suggestion that Yeong-hye showed signs in childhood of being disturbed (“In-hye remembered moments from their childhood when Yeong-hye’s face had worn the same expression as it did now… moments when [her eyes] would narrow and turn completely dark”). In the novel's later stages, Yeong-hye has become dangerously anorexic and appears to have become convinced that she is a tree and can therefore get the nourishment she needs by exposing her naked body to the light. But then, close to the end of the novel, In-hye also seems to have a tree thing (“In-hye hadn’t been able to find a tree that would take her life from her. None of the trees would accept her.”) And the ending? Frankly, who knows.

The Vegetarian was published in 2007, and was translated into English by Deborah Smith.

Our last Norfolk holiday, shortly before the next one

Yes, doing it again. After our pleasant-but-not-quite-cutting-it stay in King’s Lynn in May 2022, we were keen to return to the north Norfolk coast proper (interesting though the KL area is) and booked ourselves a coastal stay for the following year.

12-19 May 2023

Where we stayed

'Lazy Days', Gong Lane, Burnham Overy Staithe

Booked through Barefoot Retreats. Burnham Overy Staithe is a village we’d paid a brief visit to on our 2022 trip. Actually it’s probably a hamlet rather than a village – there’s a pub there (or there was when we were there) but no shops. It's a pretty little place with a harbour and boats moored along the tidal creeks. It's about a mile's walk to actual beach.

It wasn't a long walk down the lane to BOS's harbour, though “barely a pebble’s throw from the iconic salt marshes” is a bit of a stretch; you’d have to have one hell of a throwing arm.

The harbour at Burnham Overy Staithe

'Lazy Days' is described as a “luxury bolthole”. It’s an annexe to a larger house, separated from it by a (locked) door. The owners of the house were not in residence the week we were there, which made it a pleasanter and more peaceful stay. The road it’s on, Gong Lane, is a turn off the main A149, the opposite side from the harbour. There was plenty of evidence of newish luxury second homes: the house that the annexe forms part of looked to be fairly recently built, and the one next to it was even newer and bigger. The annexe itself is lovely, if bijou (it’s only designed for 2) and I think I’d happily stay there again.

'Lazy Days'. The holiday rental was the bit on the left behind the hedge

Our welcome pack

Day 1: walk to Burnham Market, via the Carmelite Friary of St Mary

We walked to Burnham Market along footpaths and country lanes, with a detour to see the ruins of this Carmelite friary, also known as Burnham Norton Friary. This was a short walk of only a couple of miles.

The gatehouse of Burnham Norton Friary

Tne River Burn at Burnham Overy Town

Burnham Market is an upmarket little town (or possibly large village) that's apparently nicknamed 'Chelsea-on-Sea'. We had quite a posh lunch there on our King's Lynn trip at 'No Twenty9' (pictured in the linked Express article), but this time had a lower key lunch at a café whose name I've forgotten, but it was about the least posh-looking establishment we could see.

Burnham Market

Before heading back, I made us locate what can be seen of the route of the former West Norfolk Junction Railway, which used to run between Heacham and Wells-next-the-Sea.

Part of the route of the West Norfolk Junction Railway

Day 2: walk from Burnham Overy Staithe to Brancaster

This was a walk of just under seven miles. Most of this walk is on the coastal path through marshlands – it’s not until you reach Brancaster beach that you actually see the sea.

The route

Setting out

Marshland scenery

Boats at Brancaster Staithe

We walked from the beach to Brancaster village and caught the Lynx Coastliner 36 (a fantastic service, this) back to BOS.

Day 3: bus ride to Sheringham

Ruth had suggested going over to Sheringham, I think to take in a more traditional seaside town. Apparently, as a Guide, she and a couple of other Guides once helped out at a Brownie Pack Holiday there, along with her mother who was the Pack’s Tawny Owl. I thought this might have been the motivation but she doesn’t seem to have retained much memory of what they actually did, so it wasn’t as though we could revisit anywhere.

Sheringham’s OK. Traditional seaside towns are not my favourite but it could have been a lot worse (see: Great Yarmouth). I much prefer Wells – although its harbourside does have fish and chip, ice cream places etc and at least one arcade, the sandy beach is a little way out of the town along Beach Road, while it’s the pretty harbour that’s actually in the town.

We got the Coastliner 36 service again for the c. 15 minute ride to Wells-next-the-Sea, and then had to change to pick up the Sanders Coaches CH1 Coasthopper service to take us on to Sheringham, a journey of about 50 minutes. We could of course have gone by car, but I managed to successfully persuade Ruth that going by public transport would be more relaxing for me. The coastal villages along the A149 are pretty but several of them (notably Cley) don’t look a lot of fun to negotiate a car through. The bus drivers do it with aplomb.

This was a cooler day. We had a short blustery walk and lunch at The Lobster.

My previous visit to Sheringham had been in 2001, when Ray and I had visited Ray's friend Dave and his wife Carol, who at the time lived there as Dave was for a good many years head greenkeeper at Sheringham Golf Club. Here I am by the golf course.

It was a slightly odd visit, as in addition to the four of us, Ray and Dave's friend Richard was also there, together with Richard's then-girlfriend, whom none of us had met previously but who turned out to be a girl I had been at St Barts with in the 1980s and hadn't liked. In fairness, I doubt I had been alone in that; she was objectively not very nice. As the only thing that I could think of to say on meeting her was "Oh yes, I remember you, you were a bitch", I thought it best to keep schtum and pretend I didn't remember her. She also claimed not to remember me, so we were set.

Day 4: walk to Wells via Holkham

Our longest walk of the week, at 7.6 miles. I assume the Strava image reflects high tide; we were not actually walking in the sea at any point.

Setting out from Burnham Overy Staithe

The route map shows the length of walk from BOS village to actually reach the beach, where we turned eastwards towards Holkham and from there on to Wells.

Dunes

Magnificent Holkham beach

We lingered in Holkham Meals (the scrubby woodland at the top of the beach) to recreate the atmosphere from the 1972 film A Warning to the Curious. I'm not sure I succeeded in being as scary as the ghost of William Ager.

At Wells, we paused to have a look at the new lifeboat station. Sadly the visitor centre and shop were closed.

New lifeboat station at Wells

Approaching Wells

We browsed around a few shops and then got the bus back to Burnham Overy Staithe.

Day 5: Felbrigg Hall

We visited Felbrigg Hall , about an hour's drive east from Burnham Overy Staithe. We didn’t actually go into the house, despite the entry fee covering this, as after a few hours walking around the gardens and parkland we’d run out of stamina.

Day 6: walk from the harbour at BOS to the beach, along a bit and back

For our last day, we spent a bit of time on Burnham Overy Staithe beach. Walking from the village, the Norfolk Coast Path follows the Overy Creek for a while then leads up over dunes to the beach. Looking at the map, there’s a whole network of tidal creeks here.

Path through the dunes

The beach is gorgeous, and very quiet, probably helped by its inaccessibility. There's no car park and no road there - the only access is the mile or so's walk along the footpath from the village.

The beach

Our route (about six miles in total):

We had a "last night" dinner at the village pub.

We're off to north Norfolk again tomorrow, returning to Wells-next-the-Sea for a week. It'll be nice to be there again.