At the start of the holidays we asked Arthur if there was anywhere in the world he'd like to visit this summer. He said Norwich. (Blame Alan Partridge.) He was not wrong. We had a lovely day out.
The castle/gallery is ace and mad. A proper municipal collection of random and locally relevant stuff.
Local wildlife is gathered in cabinets, numbered and labelled.
Plunderings from around the world have been donated by local benefactors.
Local industries are represented. Obvs.
And there's the odd thing you've never heard of before. Like Custard Cups.
But it's not just the usual. There's a Jeff Koons show on at the moment.
And there was this rather interesting experiment with 'unwanted' museum stuff.
Then we drove out towards Kings Lynn to visit Houghton Hall, where there's a bunch of art.
They have a lovely Richard Long.
And a fantastic collection of model soldiers in dioramas. Exactly what you'd do if you were a wealthy schoolboy.
My favourites are made with flattened, almost 2D figures. They had a similar quality to a Hanna-Barbera cartoon, as though Lawrence of Arabia had been shot by Ruby and Spears.
But, the main event, why we were there, was a sort of glacial 'son et lumière' organised by James Turrell. It's a pretty good excuse to sit on a lawn for 40 minutes, though as soon as Anne muttered 'Pimp My Stately Home' I couldn't help but think that it's exactly what a car modder would do with a stately home. Lots of pink and blue neon under all the ledges.
It rather made me nostalgic for my car account days, when someone would have suggested sticking a massive bass bin in there too. The background chat would also have been less (or at least differently) annoying too - not so much talk about the Chinese stock market and Waitrose points.
The next day we rounded off the trip with breakfast at the fantastic Cafe Britannia, handily located in Norwich prison.
Well done Norwich.