The return to an old favourite this week: Massingham Brothers of Hoveton, this time in the form of small pies. The chosen munching location was Happisburgh cricket ground, after completing the Walk Master’s challenge. We set off west only to be brought to a halt after a couple of hundred yards, as Margaret had received a call regarding her poorly 102-year-old mum. Determining that no immediate action was necessary, the party of 12 munchers set off again... We now entered a field of barley, with
Bishy-barney-bees running all over the footpath.
The 1957, 175,000-gallon Happisburgh
water tower loomed on our southern horizon. The footpath continued through fields of wheat and barley, passing a field of potatoes that had purple flowers. The footpath took us to Ridley,
where we headed to
St. Peter’s church, where we found a scratch dial on a buttress. Ridley was having an open day with a flower festival in the church and gardens open to the public.
We therefore had to eat our sandwiches sitting on the church wall at 2 ¾ miles. Then Don disappeared into one of the gardens... when it was time to move off, Josie went looking for Don, having to pay to get into one of the gardens where she found Don eating a meal! He had to “doggy bag” his chicken & rabbit pie and eat it as we walked along... We headed north along the edge of a field of treasure hunters with metal detecting equipment, then east along a quiet road to the
Lighthouse Inn for liquid refreshment, at four miles. The pub served a very refreshing pint of
Harviestoun’s “
Natural Blonde” that we consumed in the garden. Refreshed, we headed for Walcott and then along the beach. Here Manola, José and Don decided to take a
swim, Manola and José had come prepared for the event, bringing a towel – Don used his hat!
Further along the beach, back at Happisburgh, the Walk Master’s challenge ratcheted up a notch: the slope up the cliff to the caravan park had gone, so scaling the cliff was proposed. Charles’ National Service commando training came to the fore and he made short work of the challenge. Further munchers followed, but the Führer led a breakaway group on a detour, further along the beach to some metal stairs. Regrouped, we visited the church of
St. Mary the Virgin with swifts nesting in the porch. No dials here and we headed off back to the cars for another feast. The first course consisting of spinach bourekia, an M&S meze selection, organic houmous and Highland oatcakes. Then followed a soupçon of pork pie – due to unpunctual pie procurement, just three small pies were available at Massingham Brothers. Cutting the pies revealed a nice pink meat filling and the merest hint of jelly. No aroma was present and munching the pies was dominated by the crust, this was not particulay good. The meat filling was tasty though. Opinions differed resulting in a high standard deviation of 0.84477 with the score being somewhat lower than
before, at 7.68182. The small pie portion was probably a good thing as organic dark chocolate, ginger & pear flavoured biscuits and milk chocolate florentines supplemented the shortbread! So a normalised score of 7.5 for Massingham Brothers of Hoveton’s small pies.
The return to an old favourite this week: Massingham Brothers of Hoveton, this time in the form of small pies. The chosen munching location was Happisburgh cricket ground, after completing the Walk Master’s challenge. We set off west only to be brought to a halt after a couple of hundred yards, as Margaret had received a call regarding her poorly 102-year-old mum. Determining that no immediate action was necessary, the party of 12 munchers set off again... We now entered a field of barley, with Bishy-barney-bees running all over the footpath.
The 1957, 175,000-gallon Happisburgh water tower loomed on our southern horizon. The footpath continued through fields of wheat and barley, passing a field of potatoes that had purple flowers. The footpath took us to Ridley, 
where we headed to St. Peter’s church, where we found a scratch dial on a buttress. Ridley was having an open day with a flower festival in the church and gardens open to the public.
We therefore had to eat our sandwiches sitting on the church wall at 2 ¾ miles. Then Don disappeared into one of the gardens... when it was time to move off, Josie went looking for Don, having to pay to get into one of the gardens where she found Don eating a meal! He had to “doggy bag” his chicken & rabbit pie and eat it as we walked along... We headed north along the edge of a field of treasure hunters with metal detecting equipment, then east along a quiet road to the Lighthouse Inn for liquid refreshment, at four miles. The pub served a very refreshing pint of Harviestoun’s “Natural Blonde” that we consumed in the garden. Refreshed, we headed for Walcott and then along the beach. Here Manola, José and Don decided to take a swim, Manola and José had come prepared for the event, bringing a towel – Don used his hat! 
Further along the beach, back at Happisburgh, the Walk Master’s challenge ratcheted up a notch: the slope up the cliff to the caravan park had gone, so scaling the cliff was proposed. Charles’ National Service commando training came to the fore and he made short work of the challenge. Further munchers followed, but the Führer led a breakaway group on a detour, further along the beach to some metal stairs. Regrouped, we visited the church of St. Mary the Virgin with swifts nesting in the porch. No dials here and we headed off back to the cars for another feast. The first course consisting of spinach bourekia, an M&S meze selection, organic houmous and Highland oatcakes. Then followed a soupçon of pork pie – due to unpunctual pie procurement, just three small pies were available at Massingham Brothers. Cutting the pies revealed a nice pink meat filling and the merest hint of jelly. No aroma was present and munching the pies was dominated by the crust, this was not particulay good. The meat filling was tasty though. Opinions differed resulting in a high standard deviation of 0.84477 with the score being somewhat lower than before, at 7.68182. The small pie portion was probably a good thing as organic dark chocolate, ginger & pear flavoured biscuits and milk chocolate florentines supplemented the shortbread! So a normalised score of 7.5 for Massingham Brothers of Hoveton’s small pies.
