Clueless In Roydon

Regular readers of this space will know that I like things organised. It's a bit of a blow then, to report that this week's walk was a shambles.

Our starting point should have been a disused railway line, located in the left hand corner of the car park just outside the village of Roydon, in North Norfolk. Yeh, that left hand corner bit was always going to be an issue. Could we find it? Could we heck. After wandering about like lost children in a supermarket, we finally threw caution to the wind and headed off piste. 

Ducking down a narrow lane between a couple of million pound homes, we emerged in a beautiful field, where we lay in the warm sunshine. I couldn't really relax though, because I hadn't told Sue about the "Beware of the Bull" sign. I figured one of the homeowners had put it up because he wanted the field as his private garden, but I couldn't be sure. Fortunately Sue was distracted by some noisy crows at the far side of the field, endlessly circling above the trees, like floating pieces of burnt paper.

Pushing on, we passed through a small wood with a dormant stream, before carefully edging round a farmer's field that was more flint than soil. This brought us out at the Anvil Arms where the star musical attraction for the weekend was "Bad Dog." Very loud and very  popular with the local farmers I should imagine.

Approaching Sandringham, there was a change in the landscape: suddenly the grass was greener, the brickwork more mellow and the driveways longer. For this, is indeed, the land of large country estates, the sort featured in period TV dramas: a place where at the sound of rotor blades, locals like to doff their caps, as young Will heads home to tea and Kate.

The reality, of course is that people, do actually live in these vast places. But I'm guessing it's  probably not anyone you or I know.