As a special offer for Rest Less members, Crabpot Cottages are delighted to waive the booking fee when you call up to book, quoting Rest Less.
My husband and I (and, of course, our dog Rollo!) were invited to stay at one of the newest additions to Crabpot Cottages’ portfolio of holiday homes in Norfolk.
And, typically, the dates we’d chosen coincided with an almost continual downpour, which was a shame. Our holiday was spent doing the traditional British thing of sitting in the car with a coffee, gazing at the beach, and watching the rain bucketing down.
We’d arrived around lunchtime on Monday and visited the local dog-friendly pub for a hearty meal. We even ordered Rollo a big sausage as he curled up under the table!
The pub was quite busy and filled with birdwatchers who were visiting the nearby Wild Ken Hill nature reserve.
Tummies full, we decided to visit Wells-next-the-Sea which sounded like an intriguing place to explore…and finding an old, beautiful green with free parking was definitely a bonus! Staithe Street is a fascinating High Street with all manner of friendly and relatively upmarket shops – and, despite the rain, there were lots of tourists like us wandering around.
Several purchases later – including a beautiful, greenish, woollen scarf (reduced for the summer!) – and with the rain hammering down even harder, we gave up exploring and headed off to Snettisham and our cottage to unpack.
Strawberry Cottage was the cosiest, cutest holiday home I’ve ever stayed in. We switched on the fire, settled down on the sofas with some home cooked food from a nearby deli, and waited (and hoped) for the rain to clear.
Crabpot Cottages (love that name!) is a small and friendly family-run business that’s dedicated to making your stay in Norfolk as wonderful as possible.
They’d emailed us in advance with a comprehensive guide detailing absolutely everything we could possibly want to know about the cottage, the area, places to go, and information about their other hand-selected properties, which I felt showed a very high standard of customer service.
Strawberry Cottage is actually owned by the people next door who’ve repurposed part of their drive as allocated parking.
Inside, the cottage was beautiful. Going through the back door into a long and well-fitted kitchen, I was desperate for the loo, and leaving my husband to bring both Rollo and my suitcase inside, I charged upstairs. Only to run downstairs again as there were just the two bedrooms up there. Meanwhile, my husband had found what I’d missed and discovered a modern bathroom tucked away by the back door. Phew!
Since we’d had such a large lunch, we made sandwiches for supper from some cold meat and nice rye bread. We enjoyed these along with a bottle of rosé wine and a bag of posh crisps left as part of our welcome hamper, and settled down to watch the snooker.
Rollo hadn’t been forgotten either – he enjoyed a bag of his favourite treats from the hamper (although, to be honest, any dog treat is his favourite!). You can access Netflix on the TV, so I’d suggest that you bring your account details with you.
And so to bed. With Rollo settled in his supersized basket at the bottom of the stairs, my husband and I both slept straight through the night – unheard of normally! – in a huge, very comfortable bed in a spacious and calming bedroom.
And where to go the next day? You guessed it, it was still raining!
But, undeterred, a PR friend had advised us to try Brancaster Beach which was only 20 minutes or so away. Parking in the large car park, I asked the attendant when high tide was and was treated to chapter and verse on how the road floods at high tide and how many cars have been stranded. Meanwhile, Rollo was snuffling along in the sand as, guess what, it’d actually stopped raining!
As it’s so large, the beach wasn’t busy, although it had lots of dogs and their owners taking advantage of the break in the weather. This lasted all of 30 minutes, but was just long enough for Rollo to race around the sand and for us to have a windblown stretch of our legs.
Then, of course, down came the rain, so we retreated to the car with some hot chocolates from the friendly stall by the car park, next to the clean (and free!) loos.
We abandoned the beach to stop off at a big and attractive deli we’d spotted on the way there, figuring we’d get some nosh for lunch – and probably supper too, since, once again, we were drenched.
A giant, homemade lasagne, a couple of pork pies, and other assorted foods later, and we were back at the cottage drying off and cosying up in front of the fire. But then the sun came out. Quick! Into the car and we were off to Holkham which was also just a short ride away – Snettisham, and Strawberry Cottage, is ideally placed to visit practically everywhere.
Holkham house and grounds are wonderful, but with Rollo with us, we just wandered around and discovered not only the shop (yes, of course we bought something), but a lovely tearoom which served cakes and hot chocolates piled high with cream and marshmallows.
We’d saved visiting Sandringham for our last day, so off we went – still in the rain! Unfortunately, the lovely restaurant that we’d planned to enjoy a large brunch in to sustain us until supper time was closed for maintenance (well, I guess it has to be done sometime). There was just the takeaway coffee shop and the tourist shop to cater to everyone and, even at that early time of day, the coaches were rolling in.
We’d already bought a gorgeous plant at Holkham and, of course, the obligatory fridge magnet. So, we decided to buy an equally beautiful fridge magnet from Sandringham, along with a tub of Sandringham biscuits for our neighbour who was happily cat-minding for us.
We’d been keen to take a walk through the nature reserve, but it was just too wet. So, bacon brioches gobbled up with yet another hot chocolate, we gave up on our planned walk as a bad job and headed back home to Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire.
Asking our cat-minding neighbour what the weather had been like whilst we were away, we were delighted to be told that it had rained continually. Unlike a fellow tourist we’d met in the deli who’d made the mistake of checking the weather forecast back home, and was totally dismayed to find that it was absolutely glorious.
I would’ve loved to take some photographs to show you a happy Janet, husband, and Rollo doing the touristy bits, but, honestly, it just wasn’t possible. Though, here’s Rollo in the short time when the sun actually shone.
If you’re thinking of visiting Norfolk (and why wouldn’t you?), check out Crabpot Cottages’ website. As a special offer for Rest Less members, Crabpot Cottages are delighted to waive the booking fee when you call up to book and quote Rest Less. Happy holidays!
For more holiday ideas, you might like to check out the travel section of our website. Here, you’ll find articles like; 7 must-see places on the Norfolk Broads and 14 of the most underrated countries to visit in 2024. And you can browse UK staycation deals below.
Have you been to Norfolk? Are you currently planning a staycation? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below!