Our flat is like a weather chamber. When Mother Nature decides to throw a wobbly, we hear every eruption. So last month when Storm Doris (Doris?) huffed and puffed with 90 mph winds, we feared she’d blow the house down. We decided to abandon the microloft and seek refuge elsewhere. Usually this would be the pub but on this occasion we choose the Bridewell Museum. The Bridewell charts the civic and social history of Norwich – from its modest beginnings as a few Anglo-Saxon huts on the muddy banks of the river to the nasty Normans, the religious glory days of spires and steeples, economic salvation courtesy of Low Country refugees, a spectacular rise to become England’s second city, a slow industrial decline and the city’s renaissance as a financial centre, cultural hub and UNESCO City of Literature. It’s a ripping yarn of churches and chapels, friaries and priories, martyrs and merchants, weavers and cobblers, chocolatiers and mustard makers, fire and flood, black death and blitzkrieg. Norwich was the first British city to build social houses and the first to have them flattened by the Luftwaffe – two of the many things catching my attention as we meandered through the exhibits. And what fun we had dressing up.
Football? What’s that then? 
Yellow really isn’t my color 
Shiver me timbers 
Rainbow town 
LGBT life 
Top hat, no tails 
Yes, Guv’nor 
Hello sailor
If you’d like to know more, check out Norwich Museum at the Bridewell.
Afterwards we did make it to a local hostelry for a few jars. Well who am I to argue with the lady?
And so we survived Doris’ rage in one piece. Which is more than I can say for the roof.
