Norwich, Norfolk

Norwich. Norwich was cold. Finger-bitey cold. It wasn’t quite the Ukraine, but it was approaching Latvia, and I’m faintly surprised that Polly, Kyveli and I retained all limbs and extremities. Might have had something to do with our expert café-hopping skills. It was a great excursion, all churches and coffees and tank-shaped teapots.

First impression of Norwich: this is a lot like Canterbury. Churches cropped up all over the place, each and every one of them looking a whole lot like a cathedral, which didn’t really help things during our struggle to find the Actual Cathedral. Like Canterbury, the whole piece was incredibly picturesque. The overcast sky did nothing to detract from the dramatic castellation of the local castle, which was Stop No. 1. We weren’t much impressed by the museum inside. The highlight of the collection was the world’s largest – and most awful – teapot collection. I'm talking tank teapots. I'm talking camels.

Starving, we left the castle in search of food. Kyveli found us a vegetarian restaurant nearby the market, so we ate and warmed up a bit before continuing on our adventure. The Norwich market wasn’t much to sniff at, so we soon left, embarking on a church-crawl.

Apparently Norwich has one church for every Sunday of the year, and one pub for every weekday. The churches were all highly good-looking, but more importantly, warm.

After my natural instincts kicked in and we utterly failed to find the Cathedral, some kindly local pointed us in the right-ish direction. It turned out to be a good sort of cathedral: what it lacked in hunchback, it made up in choir. The courtyard outside looked like it had been pinched from Westminster Abbey, or Cambridge, according to Kyveli. We admired it with solemn dignity, as was its due.

We wandered around Elm Hill and the Cathedral Quarter until someone mentioned waffles, prompting an immediate stampede. Belgium has ruined me for waffles, but these were still delicious. And the shop was warm. Which was becoming increasingly important.

We left the waffle place – hello, Cinderalla! – and ducked in and out of endless cutesy shops, unable to stick the cold for more than a few minutes at a time. (Somebody later told me that it had been minus five degrees that day. Felt like it, too.)

We finally gave up and collapsed over hot drinks in a nearby café, before striking out for dinner at the town’s oldest pub.

Turns out the town’s oldest pub stops serving food at 7pm. Option No.2 was starters in Zizzi, and it was quite satisfactory. Polly discovered pesto sauce. It was marvellous. And then we headed over to the train station, freezing our bits off, having had a wonderful Norwich day.

Things got exciting when we got back to London. SNOW. SNOOOOOW. Snow created perpetual delays on the Central line. Snow made London transport (and the three of us) panic a little. But once Polly and I had farewelled Kyveli and finally made our way to Borough Station, snow was incredible. Cue crazy shameless photos and an impromptu snowball fight in the Great Dover Street courtyard at midnight.

SNOW.