Sandringham-not-by-sea

We had tickets to a festival in Manchester but Cog knew she wasn't well enough to go.  She just isn't there yet.  I can see that maybe one day she will be but not yet.

So she didn't mope at home instead and I could not sit and stew on the amount of money those tickets had cost us we went out for the day.

Sandringham.

I'd never been before.  It was an easy, if long, drive.  Easy parking, clean loos and the slowest coffee shop on God's earth....

...and that's slow for Norfolk pace.  And Nooooooorrrrfolk pace usually does my head in!!!

Walking around the house was lovely,  It's not Buckingham Palace (clearly), it is a country house but still special to look around.


You can't take photos in the house (how else would they sell guide books!)

But everywhere else you can.

And there was enough  detailed architecture to keep me amused.

With some Guiding thrown in.

The museum is really interesting and big.  Enough things for me to be able to tell repeat to Cog old stories like the time my brother and I were stood staring through the gates of Clarence house when we were small and the gates opened for the Queen Mother's car to come out.  She stopped her car for us and the window went down and she waved and said hello.

And the time we went to a funeral in one of her old cars that was owned by a family member at the time.

I've never ridden in Victoria's bath chair though (although I did once sit on a chair she had sat on - my grandfather took his eyes off me for a moment and I was under a rope and testing the Royal seat - he didn't half tell me off I recall)

"Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, Grub."  I sang at her.  She did not thank me.

"Your grandma can work one of these" I told her and I stood marvelling and trying to show her what a London phone book looked liked whilst Cog was long gone.

Does anyone else have that moment where you think you are taking to your companion and you look again and you are stood explaining your mother's primary occupation to a total stranger?! German I believe, polite fellow!

The grounds are lovely, it was hot.  I paddled across the stream and found myself in a part of the grounds I'm not sure I should have been in, so I promptly paddled back!

The fish didn't seem to mind.

The grounds are lovely

There's no pomp here, mostly nature






















I wondered how a sundial managed Sandringham time (yes, that's a thing)

I'm always torn between the privilege and awe of looking at the things the Royals enjoy and contemplating the unfairness of life in general.

Even the dogs have it good in the royal household.

Because we were close to the sea we headed to the nearest beach before turning for home.

Snettisham.

Cog was off up the beach before I'd even parked.

The sea was not at home.  Do not be fooled by the sun glinting off the wet sand.

There was no sea.  Not even a glimpse of where the sea might be.

Nada.

And it being the phone signal wasteland that is Norfolk I couldn't even look up when it planned to leave the Netherlands and return to the Wash.

We went home with dry feet!