What Has Made You Happy Recently > Reviews (27)

Let me confess up front. This did not, strictly speaking, make me happy. I wasn't unhappy to begin with. What I was afterwards is….well, does 'suffused with joy' sound too pretentious?…."glad to be alive" too trite?… "pleased to me" too self-satisfied?

They all apply, but let's just settle for 'happier'.

What it was, was a lunch-break. An ordinary everyday lunch-break. All employer-initiatives notwithstanding, I am still one of the miscreants who cannot be relied upon to take a break in the middle of the day. My problem is getting started again afterwards…but you don't need to know this. One day this week I was sent on a mission. A Guitar Player had to be found.

Would that it was indeed that exciting. In fact, a "Guitar Player" had to be found. The magazine of that ilk. However, I digress. I was merely despatched to pick up said magazine for reasons withheld to protect the innocent.

~ ~ ~

Mission Accomplished. & I've been out of the office for oh, a good five minutes, and the sun is shining. I am not going back. Not yet awhile.

Sometimes I realise just how lucky I am. For those who don't know I live and work in Norwich. My office is very close to the Wensum, which means it's on the edge of the old mediaeval city, which makes a lunchtime stroll a wonderful prospect. I have several favourite routes. This is one of them…on a perfect day.

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Foundry Bridge, dating allegedly to 1888 (although sources differ) is a solid iron rail-age bridge. Unpretty. Crossing the river by road, at the main entrance to the rail station, it fits. From my office this is where I cross the river to walk on such a sunny lunchtime as today provided. Cutting through the Compleat Angler's terrace as the footpath encourages one to do (from dawn ~ or whenever the keyholder awakes ~ until dusk), pass among the umbrella'd tables, & down the steps to the Riverside Walk. The path is shaded by weeping willows, which obscure the view of the river, provide shade for sitting under, help absorb the noise from Riverside Road and the Yacht station.

The route is simple enough. Along the Riverside Walk (entered as above), at Pulls Ferry turn left & follow the road through the Cathedral Close, do not exit by the Ethelbert Gate, but cross the green, past Nelson's memorial, and out via the Erpingham Gate. Brave the roundabout to pass the Maid's Head keeping that wonderful old coaching inn on your right to regain the river at Fye Bridge. Onto the Quayside, which will lead you back onto the Riverside Walk which then leads back to the start. More or less. As a circuit it is, at a guess a little under or a little over a mile. (There are options, short-cuts & extensions.) Flat, paved (or gravelled) walking. Fully wheelchair accessible.

So what's so special?

The weather helps. September sunshine is high enough to be out of your eyes at noon, yet low enough to cast interesting light-shade. September sun is strong and warm on your skin, yet the ambient temperature is comfortably cool.

Skies are blue, clouds are cotton-wool-fluffy. The river is polished glass, rippled, but reflective.

Pulls Ferry. Traditional views of this building from across the river are now obscured by high trees and hedges. I heard that the newcomers who had "waited years to get this house" then found it to be "a goldfish bowl"….which clearly they could not have predicted having ogled it themselves for years. I understand their view, and resent it, in equal measure. I wonder about the Ferry, known for its first two hundred years as Sandling's….renamed for John Pull in the mid 1800s……the river is not wide at this point. Bishop's Bridge predates the Ferry and (until the ministrations of May Gurney earlier this year) stood undaunted 200 yards upstream. Still the Ferry operated until 1943. The landing stage under the "Ferry" archway would certainly have seen the landing of the Cathedral stone carried from Caen. Now there is the "landing", the towerlet, the archway, and the main house (which was presumably Pull's inn). It is a bit of hotchpotch, flint and stone, twisted with age, tiny windows, straggling cottage gardenry. Having outlived its purpose, it speaks of its past, gently, quietly…you need to be still to hear such whispers.

The Close. I believe not many survive intact, fully enclosed, mediaeval Cathedral Closes. Norwich is lucky. More on this another time. For now, know that it is one of my most favourite places in the City. It has a peace that you cannot believe. You can step through one of the gates out of the bustle of a modern city and (although you will see cars parked around the driveways) be transported in time. There is a quietness that is tangible. An ancient stillness. The greens do not tell you to keep off. Diocesan policy would seem to be that trees are to give shade and grass is for walking across barefoot, or for sitting on. At all times of year, but especially on summer lunchtimes, people do stroll here or sit. Picnic. Read. Talk. Paint and write. They sunbathe. Deference is shown. One wouldn't dream of stripping off, but sleeves are rolled, and skirts hitched a little shorter. Bags form pillows, and maybe a touch of grace is savoured. Children play. Students revise. There are terraces of buildings venerable with age. Intact Elizabethan streets. Birch trees…my favourite of all aboriculture. Silvern bark, peeling. The whiskery drapes of bare branches in winter and curtains of summer leaves.

The Cathedral. On this walk-through I absorb the light reflecting from the recently cleaned stone, glowing its original warm sand-hue…I smile at the clock chime…but pay no real heed. Other days I will take a different route or will sit by Nurse Cavell's grave, on the floor, my back warmed against the solid ancient walls, or on one of the benches, where I will certainly be joined by a neighbourhood cat. Groomed, and soft, and well-fed. Not begging, merely making your acquaintance, or stopping by to greet a friend.

As I cross the upper green (or is it the lower?

) I look up and smile at Nelson. It's not his fault. His sculptors have placed a canon at his feet, and resting on it a telescope, the overall effect to my mind creating a giant's pipe that he must have wrested from who knows whom. My smile is at myself ~ for it took me several years to see past my own mis-sight, and I'm amused by it still.

Gaining the river, I note the latest progress. The river frontages are gradually being redeveloped, and the City Council are (for my money ~ & I'm a taxpayer here, it IS my money) doing a reasonable job in keeping the balance between affordable and (frankly unaffordable) private housing, and commercial development. They are maintaining the banks, and improving the walkways. Above all they are trying to retain the history ~ and to at least signal it where it is lost. The Quayside was a working quay not so very long ago. When I first explored this part of the city, the vestiges of that remained, low-key businesses struggling on in old warehouses. Gone now. Installation art, of a very subtle kind, lies along the quay. It intrigued me, misled me, but then I understood….and am slowly developing an affection for the piece. I look at it anew each time. Railway sleepers and metal bonds, forming a link to a past, and to a people long gone. Such things must discovered in situ to be appreciated.

Generally I walk this route anticlockwise, so today I come upon my favourite bridge from a less familiar angle ~ and find it framed by riverside trees with the ivy-draped tower of the Yarn Mill rising behind. Bridges are special…but why this bridge in particular? It is not the oldest, not the prettiest, has no drama appended to it, in truth it doesn't even have the best 'setting'…on the normal criteria I should choose another, and others do speak to me…but Whitefriars Bridge captivates me every single time. Simplicity. Elegance. The shape of it is just so…….. I pause and watch my fingers as I lapse into my usual visual description of this span….they struggle as do my words, for there is nothing special here. It is simply a bridge. The arch is clean and simple. The parapet, unfancy, low-ish, adorned by a pair of simple lamps. The pale grey facing stones (granite?) gleam in sunlight and glisten after rain. On the darkest of winter days they float as a patch of light ~ if indeed something so sturdy could be said to float. Today, I find my treasured arch sailing in a sea of green leaf and blueish water and I am again struck by the perfection of proportion. Lest I'm conjuring a false image here, let me say that this is a road bridge, no modern architect's flight of fancy, but solid interwar engineering ~ it has the grace & elegance not of a ballet dancer, but rather that of a frigate: incidental to its purpose rather than intrinsic.

If the bridge is a frigate, then just beyond is an ocean liner. St James Mill was built for the Norwich Yarn Company in the last ditch campaign to save the local weaving industry from competition for the Yorkshire mills.

The campaign was doomed, but the building survived. It's now part of the print works.. The Mill is tall, redbrick, basically rectangular in shape, but softened at the bow by a gently curving prow and a partly absorbed, dome-topped turret. Redbrick it may be but designed as a mill in the mid 19th century light was crucial: five storeys of large, small-square-paned windows line the length, with a sixth on the turreted frontage. The roof, presumably flat, is invisible from ground level. Hard by the water's edge, the river wall provides the ship-side and gunwale, the space between that and the building: a promenade deck. Yet that is in the end an imagination. This is a building. Solid and grounded. Willows flutter along that deck, dipping to the river where reeds grow up from the bed in organic, not merely visual, reflection. Rampant ivy softens the brickwork, rich green now, it will be vibrant red as the next month turns.

The Mill, St James', is now owned by Jarrolds, whose standard flies proudly from the prow. You will have seen the Jarrold logo, on cards or calendars or books, even if the name means nothing. I mention this merely to underline the fact that this is an in-it-for-profit commercial organisation. Hold that thought as you walk past the mill, for the works continues beyond it, more modern buildings now, glass boxes and metal sheds, buildings reflecting later ages. For these no thanks are needed, but for the landscaping… the shielding …trees in shades of green and vibrant summer gold, softening concrete and steel and glass. The Board should know that at least one local walks the path opposite and takes a great pleasure in the results of this nil-return expense.

This area around Whitefriars ~ there is virtually no trace now of the friary ~ is probably where I learned to look at buildings, where I discovered that beauty can exist in the industrial as well as the rural, that each age has something to give us yet, that cities are living organisms that need to be nurtured, not controlled, allowing the growth to blossom or fail before we reach for the bulldozer. Yes, there are places where I'd be happy to drive the JCB rather than lie in front of it, but the beguiling thought is that some of today's monstrosities may be tomorrow's treasured gems and we have absolutely no way of knowing in advance.

Meanwhile, I'm still strolling on, and on this particular day the Wensum slips slowly past, snakelike. Shimmering reflections of my cathedric willow cave, cut by swan-wakes and surface-feeder fish-rings. When I first came here, some 20 years ago, there were hopes of restoring life to the river. Look into it depths now and you will see fish. Not 'if you're lucky'… you will. It is alive again. Tiddlers in the shallows tempt tots with shilling-nets, while anglers with thousand-pound extension rods and tension lines and who knows what seek the deeper, larger swimmers.

Over the waters dragonflies marauder, and kingfishers skim. This year's cygnets lounge on the banks.

The ducklings are long grown and gone.

Following the river I am absorbed by it. The light-play on water, sensuous in the still shaded shallows, frivolous in the rippling eddies of sunlight and current midstream. The trees that bend to meet the river and those that strive tall, as if to escape it. Reeds, newly planted to bind the banks. A new-dug pond to contain the annual flood.

This is in the heart of the city, it's the reason for the city. This river is tidal even now, in the middle ages it was a gateway to the world, an important port. This river is why this town is here. That the cathedral nestles in this bend, with the meadows between itself and the water is no accidental geography. The river, so small and sleepy it seems now, the river, this river now only tranquil and beautiful was once a source of industry, trade, power.

It's the heart of the city still. The world goes on all around, but it is easy to be selective: to ignore the glass walls of the gym and the macabre building (for those who know that the burger bar was once the city morgue) and the new style-less flats. These can be faded out, in favour of glimpses of the Great Hospital, the most ancient inn (appropriately named the Adam & Eve), the Cow Tower guarding the river's turn, the 12th century arches of Bishop Bridge, the only "distant" vista of the Cathedral across the playing fields.

I suspect the noise meters would tell me that what I can hear is traffic and building sites and people talking and dogs barking. Yet what I listen to is birdsong and the lapping of water and the wind in the trees. What I feel is the caress of a sun-warmed breeze. The clock chimes and time slows from its relentless march, to pause, and allow the whispers of the past, and the present and the future, to filter and mingle.

Emerging at Bishop Bridge, I cross those ancient arches (restored now, following their encounter with the dredger) and step back into the 21st century. Broads cruisers line the river bank, families and 'gaggles' of youths (I'm loath to call them gangs), radio stations competing, unfit bodies displayed in all their glory to worship their sun god… and the only judgement I care to make is that they seem happy enough. There is laughter ~ that too can be heard above the noise of the world being busy.

So sometimes, you see, I know how lucky I am. I live in a truly beautiful city…one that doesn't stand still. It absorbs its history and steps forward, slowly enough, this is Norfolk after all, and we (we incomers too) treasure the slower pace, but time moves, and the river flows, and it's good to be able to go back to your desk with a beatified smile on your face. If any one asks….well, they probably wouldn't understand the answer.

I've been for a walk, up through the Close and round the river.

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hiker@Ciao!
4.9.04