Castle acre priory & Titchwell marsh

Sunday was supposed to be an easy day but was not. Was a very memorable day for both myself and Mr. Chandru. Went for a walk on a bright and sunny day (fortunately) but was freezing cold in the morning. Went into the woods very close to the home of hillary and we could see bluebells which were flowering and were lucky to see them as they bloom only in this part of the year.

Hillary had some ideas to give us some surprise and both chris and hillary drove us to a place by name castle acre priory. A priory is a place like a monastery where in monks stay, pray and teach. This place carries the ruins of a priory which was built a thousand years ago. The place is a heritage site in UK and has been very well maintained. The story goes back to henry the 8th who started the Protestantism, who demolished many catholic churches and monasteries. The castle acre priory is also an example of his actions. The whole priory was demolished and in 1700s the same was rebuilt the we can see what was rebuilt in the front side of the priory. Hillary is multifaceted personality and not only she knows about flowers, birds and language, but also about history. Both husband and wife make a fantastic pair and intellectually very strong. In every room in their house you see only books!!. We could see daffodils, chestnuts and also heard the story of chestnuts which children used to play in her times.


Dandelions and Buttercups which are grown on the green carpet of grass in the surroundings of priory makes the visit worth while. Wall flowers add to the glory of the ruins and makes it look like a bollywood set. Orangetip butterflies fly all over accompanied by Brimstones which create a mood for any one who visits the place. Made some good pictures and are satisfied by our visit.

King couple showed us how to pull a pint and also got me a ploughmans lunch which is very typical of that place. This has a plate served with cheese, some pieces of bread, onions and local pickles. I am still drooling thinking over it???

Titchwell marsh:

Knowing our interest in nature and wildlife, King couple (Mr. and Mrs. King) had planned to take us to the shore in north Norfolk and it was titchwell marsh. This is maintained by RSPB (Royal society of protection of birds) of UK and it is a very well maintained area where many birds come and breed there. There are some wonderful resident birds too. It can be compared to our rangana thittu but it is well spread and has many hides to watch the birds and make pictures.

We had a very warm welcome from the chirping Robin which was very very close to us. Later on we found people feeding the robins with the worms and it was quite an experience. These robins are used to humans and they are not afraid. What an example of how these people maintain a place and respect the space for the animals and birds. I could see more than a hundred people all with very expensive digiscopes coming there to learn and enjoy the birds.

We could sight a lot of birds namely, Pheasants, Green finch, Black bird, Coot, swan (first time I saw a swan in the wild), Black headed gull, avocet, harringer gulls, shovelers, shelducks, red finch, chiff chaf, blue tit, moor hen and so on and so forth. I could make some pictures of some of the birds shown here.

We generally have a discussion every day evening when we sit on dinner and each day on a different topic. King couple wanted to know generally what is that we pray before we eat food. We described about our shanti mantra sahana bhavatu. She was so impressed about our culture on how we speak about peace and the discussion went on for more than an hour. She was somuch involved in this and eventually she requested MR. chandru to chant it and she wanted me to write the translation in English so that she can use it as a prayer when we meet on Friday. Amazing things to learn here.