North Norfolk, Horse sanctuary, four seasons in one day

For once I'm not due anywhere on Monday morning so I get the whole weekend off! We weren't too sure what to do this morning, so after thinking to myself "we don't spend much time in the car..." [snigger, snigger, snort] I decided to take her on a drive-about. We headed up the coast which is pretty scenic.

The last time I drove that route I was actually entertaining an Indian couple and they were trying to teach me Punjabi on the way. It's weird the way the human mind works. As TT and I drove along one windy road today I was thinking "Mama, Mami, Papa, Papi, Khan, Gi Dahn...." and other Punjabi stuff. I've not thought of those words for a couple of years but today they just came flooding back so my brain must have some how associated them with the landscape?

We headed up the coast with no particular destination in mind. Then I remembered that TT loves horses and we have a horse sanctuary up that way. We went there. She loved it. It's grown since I last went. They are now almost an entertainment zoo with all manner of animals and shows. I was a little shocked at the admission price of something like 10pounds per person, but once we got in I saw why. They've certainly changed from the charity animal sancutary they were last time I visited and we were occupied for a couple of hours.

Our fave display was the "Coutning Pony". It was a little pony that had been tought to stamp its hoof the required number of times. It couldn't count any more than I can speak Mongolian. Ie., Not at all. But it could stamp it's hoof between 1 and 5 times depending upon the trainers body position. We watched the show a few times and it seems that he used almost a kind of semaphore language. If he raised one hand the pony stamped once. If he raised both then it stamped twice. If he moved his left foot forward it would stamp three times, etc.

Our major entertainment came from trying to work out the code he was using. He was doing it very subtly of course, a left foot forward was more like a tiny shuffle so it was pretty difficult to spot.

Between shows the pony was put in a stable and we went to visit him. I waved my arms about and shuffled around on my feet. The poor pony danced like a tap dancer on ecstacy. I like animals so I didn't do it very much, but it was funny.

We left there and went for a pub lunch. It was a really rural pub and I enjoyed it. We then continued up the coast to a place called Wells-on-sea. Something really odd happened that I'll never forget. We stopped to re-fuel the car. TT had one of her her favourite CDs on: "Crowded House", the song was "Four seasons in one day".

It had been sunny all day but as I got fuel it suddenly got really windy and rainy. Didn't think much of it at the time.

We arrive in Wells, parked in the carpark, and couldn't get out of the car. Why? Because it started fucking SNOWING! In Norfolk - in May! Totally odd. And the day thus far had been sunny and hot. Hence the relevance of the Crowded House song. Four seasons in one day was the most apt thing ever. We drove home in extreme rain. We stopped at a place called Sutton, in the hope to visit the aquatic centre, but due to the weather they'd shut early.

We saw a mummy duck trying to cross a busy road with her baby ducks and the cars weren't stopping. I stopped my car, got out, (got soaked) and stopped the traffic to let her cross safely. Aren't I nice?