18/NOV Wandlebury Wonderland Walk

Wandlebury is a magic place and again, it's a very special for me and Marcus too. I'm not going into detail, but we both love this park. 

Somehow I missed it very much, I was thinking about walking along the Roman road. So, when Marcus came round to stay at mine on the weekend, I asked if we could go there. Of course, that meant popping into Cambridge TK-MAXX too. ☺And he knew it.  I know it's naughty to keep popping in and spend money, but can't help myself for good bargains. I don't really buy a lot for myself, but for making my holiday money! ☺ Anyway, after popping into the huge shop, we managed to find our way to the Wandlebury park. We just followed signs to Adenbrooks Hospital. We remembered it was near there. Last year we went, we got lost a bit, a year before, Marcus drove there without getting lost. Miracle. Previous visits there, it was warm, I fell a sleep on the grass. But this time, ground was wet so that I couldn't fall asleep.

We started wondering around. Leaves on trees were still colourful, and the same time they were getting bearer and bearer... We were following the footpath, did big circle, and came back to the car park... I wanted to walk along the Roman road. I started feeling myself a bit grumpy...Where was it? Eventually we found it, I thought a moment, it was different place. thanks to Marcus, he remembered where it was. ☺ 

This Roman avenue leads to another Roman road which starts from Cambridge, finishes in Haverhill. It's a loooon way, but we'd love to walk that one day with our snacks and smoothies. 

I love the avenue because almost as if I time tripped into different era and to me, it has really cool energy. One day I love to visit all the significant places(all pyramids in the whole world, Jersarem, Mecca, Tibet, China great wall, all the stone monuments etc...) and feel them!!! When I close my eyes, I can feel inside, I'd love to feel it physically. One day!

Anyway, we saw cute cow chilling out between the tree, tried to talk to her/him but we were ignored. ☹ Never mind, he/she was maybe thinking, didn't want to get bothered by humans!

Here's some photos I took in Wandlebury. Very pretty aren't they? It was mild and even sun was out. So we made the most of it. And it was awesome day and walk.

    We were walking on the carpet of leaves! It was very very autumny. When we were admiring those colours of leaves on trees, a older lady stopped and spoke to us how splendid trees were up in Scotland last week. Wow! When I see nature like that, I always feel very grateful to be able to do that. So, I always enjoy and breath the colours and air in and fill me inside! And then, when I get home, I can still feel it inside. Every time I frustrate /stressed at work, I just need to remember to breath in the colours and air, and breath out frustration/stress out. Actually I started doing that recently, and it works(for me)! 

This is the Roman road/avenue. It's beautiful. In summer, it's proper green tunnel and smells gorgeous with leaves, trees and plants. It's defo worth visiting for walks. The day we went, it was quite busy, car park was almost full, never seen such many people there before, but by the time we got there, it was quiet. It's a big park, also, there's a big green where families can have a picnic, play footballs and having fun. I don't remember parking fee, I'm sure it was a couple of quid. And now they have parking space for bicycles too!

Look! Found a funny tree too. Looks like a granddad! Or only me think so?

14/oct walk in Holkham, Norfolk

Me and Marcus were talking about Holkham last week, we hadn't been there for ages. We wanted to pay a visit to the beach before it got too cold. Love Norfolk coast, beautiful coast line, grey sky, brown sea, and very English. To me, Holkham is a very special place. One, my first ever walking on Norfolk coast (apart from Waxham sands camping site), two, our first mini holiday together! Three, first time EVER saw geese flying (almost)next to me(and I had tears in my eyes!)

So, I was really looking forward to visit Holkham again. I took my rain jacket and warm hat with me, I was ready! I was told the weekend was going to be quite warm and sunny, they yet again, lied! It was cloudy and cold. Never mind. The most important thing was that we went to Holkham and enjoyed the view.

It didn't take long time to get there from my flat. When we got there, it was freezing. Even though I had warm-ish jacket on and hat, I felt sea wind was very harsh and chilly.

We parked our car by the harbour and started walking to the right.  It was quite busy that day, first time I saw the boathouse was open and people were in and out. Pubs in the area( there were some nice gastro pubs with garden outside, but it was a bit too cold to sit outside...) were quite busy too, having Sunday roast. We didn't go into the pub near by, we had our snacks from lovely Swaffham Waitrose.
Anyway, we began our walk along the foot path. It was sandwiched between the sea and the field. We heard birds were singing and flying over us, nosy cows were chilling out in the field.
And then heard geese! Not sure what it is, I love watching geese flying and listening to them. I still, feel tearful when I see geese flying close to me. Always makes me think "where are they going?"

Oh, I saw some posh English country people were walking along there too. They always have the same sort of style. Green jacket(tweed or quite often Barbour jacket or waxed coat), long wellies(either green ones or they like Joules/Hunters) and a hat. I saw this couple walking in front of me, and thought they were sweeeeet!

I love watching really old couple (granny and granpa) walking in town holding hands. I always smile. I think it's really sweet.When I was in Japan, I never saw granny and granpa holding hands, I reckon it's cultural thing(more like western culture), I hope Japanese old couple will be one day walking with holding hands. I remember a advert( i think it was washing up liquid or hand cream) on T.V years ago(back in 80's...), people were even talking about it(how sweet it was), but in reality, never really took off. I can't see my mum and my dad will be holding hands when they are in their 70's or even 80's. I can see me doing it, but not my parents... Especially my mum now walks with a walking stick.....

Anyway, by the time we got to the beach, it was quiet. No-one to be seen, only us and sea gulls. Sea breeze was very chilly. It was only mid October, felt like it was December! 

Cor, blimey, it was too cold for me to stay in the beach, after 30mins or so, we walked back to our car. All I could think was: a hot cuppa and an cake. We had pour snack in the car, then drove off. I don't remember where we went after that, I think we stopped at a part of Thetford forest for a quick walk. That's where I found a red trippy(naughty) mushroom! Apparently this mushroom is very naughty and slightly poisonous. I don't know much about it, and I never even did mushrooms back in days either. Looks quite cute yet dodgy. I wouldn't fancy eating/smoking that!  ☺

By the way, when we were on the beach, we could see rain pouring down in Wells-next-the-sea. Holkham and Wells is very close, yet, didn't get rain together. But we knew it was a matter of time, we would get rain in where we were.

It was a bit too cold for me to put my swimming togs on and dance in the rain...never mind! I can wait till our holiday in Greece again next year!

Suffolk Walks--Southwold- Marcus's B'day weekend

The end of last month, (29/30th sep) was Marcus's b'day weekend. 

We bumped into one of his old mate in Waitrose in Sudbury, and he said: "didn't look bad for his age! he's older than me y'know"

He was right, he does look good for his age. First, his diet, secound, qi-gong defo helping for good aging. Nutrients deficiency leads to premature aging, good healthy balanced diet (and custom made) is the key for health and beauty! Hoooray!☺

On Sat eve, we chilled out at mine, on Sunday we went to see Marylin( Marcus's mum) who lives near Southwold.

She cooked lunch. Yummy salads. After our lunch, we went to southwold for quick walk. It was chilly, I could feel autumn was there and winter was on its way! 

Sky was grey, still, looked beautiful.

Even chilly Sunday afternoon, there were quite few people there walking on the pier and eating cakes or chips. (not together though)
I do like English coast, it's not like Greece or La Gomera, but I think they have good character and sometimes it touches my heart.....♥

When I popped back from toilet, I saw Marcus and Marylin together standing next to eachother again. Arrr, bless. I thought it was really sweet✿

It's really lovely to see them like that. I miss my mum! I am hoping to go home some point next year. I want to go for a walk with her, standing next to her like Marcus and Marylin. My mum now walks with a stick, she had hip opperation after falling down from stairs. I'm sure my dad is alright, I sometimes worry about my mum. I sometimes wish I lived near her... I'm used to not having my family around, still, I get homesick...☹

So, it's my goal for next year to visit Japan! 

 

On sunday night, I cooked Marcus's B'day dinner. If we were living in London, I would take him to yummy vegan restarant, but there wasn't nice yummy funky vegan restaurant in Suffolk. So, I cooked.

It was lovely chilled weekend, just how we liked it...✿✿✿

Holiday in Pelion- Kissos, Mouressi & Choreto

It was really really raining and cloudy on our holiday Day 11.

One point, it stopped for a couple of hours, didn't want to stay indoors, so we drove off.

First we drove to Kissos, Moressi, then Chorefto. There wasn't much in Chorefto, but on our way there was fun. We stopped off at this little preserve shop where we bought nik-naks last year. The lady who owned the shop didn't speak much English, I didn't speak no Greek at all, but we communicated well. She makes preserves and picks mountain herbs for tea and sell them at her little shop. This year, she had lots of beautiful looking red apples outside. This place was on the way to Zagora, famous for their apple produce. Anyway, this year we bought a jar of sea herbs in salted water & chestnut honey. The honey had dark colour. It was very different from the honey we bought on our first day. We finished 350ml jar in a few days, this nutty tasted honey was also different from Italian chestnut honey. I really liked it.

This is the lady's dad I think, he showed us "Raki" (I'm not sure the spelling....) he made with his smile, and looked very proud! Bless☺☺ We told him we didn't drink alcohol, he looked a bit disappointed... Anyway, look at those beautiful apples! I could hear "Norie, eat me, eat me!!!"

After we came out of the shop, guess what we found on the road... Walnuts!
So, that made our scrumpings: 2x red apples, grapes, pomegranates, plums, figs, chestnuts and walnuts! We didn't go hungry while we were there. ☺
Really this part of Greece was resourceful wherever we went.
On our way back to Damouchari, we saw a little water fall! How exciting!

Bye the way, Chorefto was small sea side village. Due to off season, it was very quiet when we got there. That was where we found yummy red grapes. I'm sure when it's season, there will be full of people and becomes lively beach...On the way there, we saw apple orchards everywhere. That was where we picked apples from. A bit naughty, but hey, we were on holiday, I wanted some fun experience! ☺

First day I went back to work, I was working in the kitchen in that afternoon. I was hungry and picked up an apple, had a good bite. That was disappointing. Even me, (I eat anything) I couldn't eat it, I had to chuck it away! The apple tasted nothing and texture was hard and horrible. I thought I spoiled myself too much in Greece.... Oooops! ☺

Walk- ✿"Damouchari" to "Mouresi"✿

Day 10 into our holiday in beautiful Pelion. We got up really(?) late, 10am. By then, it stopped raining. Raining all night, our apartment got flooded a bit, water came through under the door, I had to wipe the floor when I got up. All part of fun! ☺ I didn't mind at all.

Anyway, after our smoothies, we left our apartment at 11.15am heading towards small village called "Mouresi". According to the map we had, there was footpath from Damouchari. But where????

We were wondering where exactly the footpath begins, we started walking about 20mins or so, we found the footpath! It was small sign pointed to "Mouresi" (in Greek). 

This footpath, I didn't like it to start off with, it was smelly and dark. Old stone path was really slippy after the rain, it lead us to the woods. 

We followed red mark all the way, it was easy enough walk. And then... we lost it yet again, was it Greek style? or us too busy looking at fig trees??? 

We ended up walking on the road for a while till the vegetable shop on the junction. This little shop had delicious Greek olives for sale, we kept going back to get them during our holiday!.

Anyway, we found red mark next to the shop, it was slightly steep hill to go up, and we saw lovely fruits trees along the way. Then, we walked on the main road a bit, then saw another red mark. This foot path had lovely view of the beach down below. We found grapes! Oh, they were sweet and delicious! Of course, we scrumped a couple, eating them as we walked. We came out to another main road, next to the lion cafe( I'm sure, it had name like this.). opposite the cafe, there was red mark to go up. From there, it was quite good marked up to Mouresi. Still, we got lost. We ended up walking on the road to Mouresi till where the junction with wooden sign was. 

We walked round the village a bit, we found red mark to go down, so we followed. Then we found cute square with big trees. Later, we had our last dinner there. (Please see my other blog, carrot-munch-healthydinner@blogspot.co.uk) 

In the village, quite often people had their own allotment either near by their house or in their garden. growing tomatoes, courgettes, squash, cucumbers, aubergines..... I really wanted to scrump them, but i didn't otherwise, it would be called stealing!!! I'm not that naughty anymore! ☺

This walk, I only took this photo... not sure why I didn't take anymore, I'm stereo type Japanese person, I love taking photos of everything I see, just like my dear dad does. Not as bad as him though...☺

Anyway, from there, we found footpath to Ag.loannis, Papa nero. So we followed. This path took us into beautiful olive grows and houses. And came out on the main road again. One to go up (left), one to go down(right). There, red mark was nowhere to be seen. So we took right. I felt really long time walking this road, but I'm sure it was probably 15mins or so, we saw sign to Papa nero beach. 

Then, we knew where we were. 

we walked up the steep hill,  back to the spring water point, then down to Damouchari. 

I was quite grumpy, tired and hungry....

That evening, we went to Ag. lonnis for dinner. All food we had tasted even better every time we had good walk. 

I'm not sure where we are going next for our holiday, I can't wait to walk beautiful places! ❀❀❀

Big circular walk ✿Damouchari to Tsagkarada✿

Day 6 into our holiday, it was cloudy to start off with, then it got sunny. I couldn't sleep that night, I kept waking up, and in the end, I gave up trying to get some sleep. So, I went outside, there were untold numbers of stars in the dark sky. I could see clear milky way, planets, and star constellations... And I saw shooting stars! I was watching stars, not sure how long, I wanted to take all in, but so many stars, I felt like I had not enough brain capacity to do it...☹ Having say that, when I close my eyes now, I can still see the stars... It was another precious magic moment. ☺

Woke up 7.30am with some noise outside. I quickly got up, went outside. Because, I had funny feeling it was the naughty dog doing something to our shoes. (Previous day, he was trying to steal Marcus's shoes...) And here they were, they chewed our shoes didn't they!

after being washed, saw the damages

We had to wash them, they were muddy! Naughty dogs! They knew they weren't supposed to do that, and I can still see their faces in my head! There were quite few naughty dogs around on Greek beaches. I think lots of them were stray, but kindly, locals were feeding them. Bless☺

Anyway, after being really pissed off, we needed to let go. Then we were ready for our little (?) walks!
We began our walks from the first kiosk, then took right path to walk up to the top kiosk. I suggested Marcus, I thought it might've been easier....?☺ Then took the right path (narrow bushy path), straight up. To the chestnut forest.

Right path to Tsagkarada...

 After the top kiosk, going through the forest... It was very green...

 We came out to a small village...not sure the name. And we saw spring water on the middle of the road. It had good view of the beaches. If we hadn't got carried away looking at the walnut tree, we would've been taking the foot path(quicker), but we missed it. We went straight past the footpath (later on our way back, the red mark was hugely written on the left wall from where we came from.) We carried on walking on the road. Then we found an apple tree! No-one was to be seen, so naughty Marcus scrumped a couple of apples. And they were delicious!

Originally, I wanted to follow walks info/ guide I got from some website, but it wasn't informative, we got lost anyway. (we didn't take map with us, this is Norie & Marcus style ☺) We love adventures, always do walks without map is also a part of holiday fun. And we came to conclusion, it was the best way to find out paths was getting lost (sometimes). We kept walking, turned the corner, and we saw...figs! Initially, we walked past the fig tree, but couldn't help it, we had to go back to pick them. They were ready to get picked up. and delicious! Took a good few of them, put them in our back pack, carried on walking. Then we saw...massive chestnuts! They were huge! And they were everywhere!

Then, there were junctions. Oh, dear... ☹ One to go down (left), one to go up(right), one to go straight. By then, of course, we couldn't find "red marks" anymore. So, we just needed to follow our instinct. So, we went right up to the road. Then we saw red marks. It looked like way-in to the another chestnut forest.

This is the junction.

This is the road to the magic chestnut forest.

We carried on walking, and wondering about Greek foot path signs why they quite often disappeared and how we got lost. Anyway, plants on this particular path there was over grown, confused (me) to follow the path. And we found red mark on the tree! I kind of felt relieved we were on the foot path.

Every time we came across junctions, we wondered...which way shall we go? 

After this junction and forest walk, we came out to big road(asphalt road with another junctions).

It had 3 roads again, left up, straight on, and right down. So we walked straight up, and got lost yet again. Luckily, there was an old-ish guy working on his allotment, so we asked hoping he could speak English. And he did, he told us which road to take from the junction. Took left to go up. 

By this time, sun was up, and it got quite warm, we were sweating. Then I saw a lovely looking hotel called "St.Stephano" I'm sure it had the name like that. 

When we got to this square I knew we were close to Tsagkarada. Also Marcus told me when we walked past really nice looking apartment where he stayed before. Hooray, he remembered the road.

This was cute little square. after this square we walked on the road to the Tsagkarada junction. It didn't take us long to get there. Probably another 15-20mins or so. 

 This is the junction, all sign posted for us to follow! We walked down to the square.

Now, we were entering to the square with massive, beautiful tree.

We had a glass of orange juice. It was delicious, especially after the walk. We wanted to eat some chips, but by the time we got there, we weren't feeling hungry anymore. All fruits we were eating on the way made us feeling full!

On our way back to Damouchari was really easy. we just followed the foot path which was quite clearly sign posted. And it was lovely foot path. It went through St Kyriaki church square and it was cute. By the way, we bumped into our German neighbours again! They were having coffee there. We waved at each other then we separately walked back. I wondered which foot path they took.....

Anyway, didn't take long to get back to the little village where we missed first turn. We had little sit down by the spring water tap.

Look, big red arrow pointed to go there, but we completely missed it! ☺Never mind. We had lots of fun getting lost.

Oh, this footpath took us into woods, and found very old spring water tap. 

This is me with smile on the little bridge. I was thinking about Lay's olive oil crisps...☺

Took us about 1½hours to get back.( approx 2½ hours to get to Tsagkarada from Damouchari including losting time.) It was easy coming back, no problems at all!  I loved it so much, I was looking forward to our next walk...Mouresi!