The Zozo had a trip into Norwich on Thursday to buy a few things and to get out of the house for a bit. Coupled with my early arrival at the office we decided to meet up aft work and have an early dinner.
My first choice of place (Zizi’s) had the advantage of being close and cheap (I have a Taste Card that gives me 2 for 1 deals there) but sadly lacks parking. We also seemed to have timed things so it was school kicking out time and given there is a posh school right behind the place what few spaces there were had already been commandeered by an army of 4x4s waiting to pick up mummies precious little darling rather than make them walk or, God forbid, use public. We decided to stuff that for a game of soldiers and go eat somewhere with ample parking close by, or in other words, Riverside.
Now, there is a really nice Thai place by Riverside located on a boat and I’d have loved to have eaten there, but it was closed that early. So we didn’t. I suggested Chinese. The Zozo didn’t fancy it. 9 months pregnant and starving beats not pregnant and eaten 2 hours ago so we vetoed that idea. In the end we settled for a nice Greek[ish] place we’ve been to before which we had all to ourselves for the most part. We were served by a very charming waiter who got a nice tip because of that and have rather a nice time thank you very much 
It’s quite scary to think that the next time we eat out we may have a small one with us.
This post was written on Friday but failed to publish. That seems to be happening a lot with the current version of WordPress for iOS 
The Zozo has started her maternity leave which means, for the first time in a while, we’re getting a whole weekend together. Not only that but we get the whole of next weekend together, and the one after that, and the one after that. In fact we’ll have every weekend together until Nubbin appears, then it will be weekends with the three of us. I suspect there will be less lie ins with a baby about though, so for the next 7 or 8 weekends I think I’ll make the most of them
Pinky, one of our mice, looks like she may be going the way of The Brain next. She’s been thin for a few weeks now, but then she is old. The other mice are fat porkers so Pinky often gets taken out of the cage for a little hand feeding. Normally this involves putting a small pile of sunflower seeds somewhere for her to eat which she will shell and then devour. Apparently, however, she gets bored of this. Or at least that’s what The Zozo tells me as she’s shelling the sunflower seeds for Pinky to just eat. Whatever the reason she’s certainly trained The Zozo to do the work for her. I’m just impressed how many sunflower seeds such a little mouse can eat.
People keep asking me if I’m nervous/scared/worried/otherwise concerned about my impending so called removal of freedom.
The answer is a steadfast no. It’s nearly two years after we started dating and I still rush to get the train home in the vain hope that it will somehow get me home to The Zozo faster. Besides, we both gave up this so called ‘freedom’ two years ago when we started dating. I’m not giving up anything, I’m making it legally more difficult for the current state if affairs to change. Something I’m all for.
Now if you’ll excuse me I have a station to rush to and a Zozo to get home to; something I’m very excited about
This year is the first year I’ve been about for Cromer Carnival which is a week of festivities including the crowning of the Carnival queen 1 (Saturday), airshow2 (yesterday), fireworks (tonight) and fairground (all week). I believe it’s one of the larger carnivals in North Norfolk.
Last night was the big parade. Cromer is closed to traffic and floats, bands, dancers and becostumed people paraded along the streets to throngs of happy, cheering and quite tipsy people. The Zozo and I went out to see this spectacle, eat burgers, hotdogs and doughnuts and generally join in with the revelry.
Being my first carnival I wasn’t sure what to expect but I was very impressed by the quality of the floats and costumes. I was also stunned by the number of young girls in leotards twirling batons. Either they were imported from round the county or Cromer has the highest number of twirlers per capita of anywhere in the world.
Parade over the Zozo and I investigated the fun fair and the Zozo treated me to a few goes shooting prizes with cork guns (she won 3 prizes, I only managed 1) and a go throwing surprisingly light balls at clearly weighted cans. Neither of us won a prize although I managed to cheat and catch the ball on a rebound without anyone seeing giving me a fourth shot. Didn’t help
We went to sleep that night with full bellies, smiles on our faces and the sounds of revelry drifting on the night air. All in all a great evening.
1 which was more of an afterthought after the long and boring speeches by local dignitaries
2 the Red Arrows pitch up and do their thang. I missed that unfortunately