Adventures in Norfolk

Today we went on our First Adventure since Mat had his Test for Msgt.  We had been stuck in the house for many weekends to allow him time to study and prepare for this test.  Tuesday he tested and so this weekend we are spending as much time as we can out of the house and enjoying other parts of England. 

            Our first stop was Snettisham Park.  There we enjoyed seeing the baby lambs, feeding them, and learning more about how they use the sheep.  These little guys will not be kept.  It is sad to know that each of them pictured will be sent to supermarkets for food.  It is just how it is here.  We also learned that the markings on the sheep's backs tell them how many babies each momma is carrying.  They had Singlets with no markings, they have twins that are marked with Blue, Triplets with Red and Quads two red dots.  They keep them all grouped together in the barn and wait for the births. If they have triplets or quads, they have to be bottle fed because their mother's only have enough for two.  

        After we met and fed the lambs, we went into have lunch.  I had a sausage roll, Mathew and Mat had Venison Burgers... they were out of buns so they had to improvise but the boys did not seem to mind at all  and Paige had Butternut Squash Soup which was delicious!

 Once lunch was over we went on the Deer Safari.  This was very funny to watch.  The Males wanted to keep their heads inside the Range Rover.  They were very bossy males.  The Females barely came to the windows because the males were always there.  There is a very dominate male that circled and kicked everyone else out of the way to get food.  The other guy thought that Mat should give him his undivided attention and when he stopped to talk to the guy taking us on the safari ride, he was nudging Mat with his head to get his attention.  I know this will not be the last time we go there!!!

 After we finished with the farm, we headed out.  We were going to visit the Castle Rising but we passed a sign that said Snettisham Beach... so we turned around and headed to the beach.  We arrived at the beach walked up the berm and looked over... NOOOOOOOOO water for as far as we could see.  where it looks like water, it was really just wet sand.  The tide was so far out that we could not even see the edge of the water.  But that gave us a great chance to look for seashells and other sea life.  We found plenty of shells, sponges, and even a star fish.

 It quickly became to cold for us to stay any longer and so we headed to our original second destination, Castle Rising Castle.  What a great place to visit and check out.  The castle has a lot of history behind it.  Most of it is just walls but there are a couple rooms that are still well put together.  The view from the castle was beautiful.  Seeing a moat around a castle made it more like a castle you would think of as a child.  I hope that we are able to see more castles like this while we are here.

We did try to take another visit to see Sandringham  where the Queen stays sometimes but we decided we would do that another time and enjoy it more.

It was nice to get out of the house today.  Even though it was rainy and cold, we all enjoyed every part of the day.  It is England, you have to suck it up and just do what you want to do when you can do it.  Rain or Shine!