Norfolk: broads and abandoned brides, plus a small miracle at the Walsingham Shrine.

With Grateful Thanks to Our Lady of Walsingham

The Sat Nav stated with guileless sincerity that the next nearest EV charging point lay 20 M out into the North Sea.

We are not driving onto the beach my husband and I agreed. For by now the weather had set in and the weather in Norfolk is an ill-behaved dog of a beast. It comes roaring at you, buffeting you aside as it storms around your legs, splashing you with mud, shaking water off its shaggy sides until you are gasping for breath

 All day the car had led us down winding single track lanes through torrents, in search of mythical charging points that did not exist. We had enough charge to reach our rooms but not enough to drive 200 odd miles back to Hampshire.

So far, we had visited the Slipper and main shrines at Walsingham and had been enchanted by their serenity and grace. But since then, we had been led by marsh pixies as much as google maps and were now stuck in Cromar after spending an hour at a Tesco charger that had singularly failed to add so much as a spark to our car’s energy capacity. We decided to head back to our B+B where we knew the very expensive hotel opposite boasted of a rapid charging device.

We drove back watching our range drop from 90 to 70 miles and pulled up at The Windmill carpark. The perfect setting for your wedding…proclaimed its board as we got out to find the vaunted charger a mere plastic shell. Once it had a 13 amp plug but now its ghostly remains was clearly disconnected. Already ivy was throwing a veil across this failed technology.

I looked up to find a young bride standing outside a wooden porch of a summer hut. Utterly alone, dressed in full bridal rig of ivory lace and satin, she was blue with cold and miserable. She clutched a mobile phone in her hand and looked close to tears. Do you think she’s trying to phone her husband? I asked struck by this dark cameo Where could he be?

The Norfolk dog bounded up to us again. The rain flew in at a sideways angle. Still the bride remained almost dissolving in the deluge. We have got to get out of this place said my husband, I can see why the groom fled.

We returned to our B+B downcast.

The next morning I decided on a different tactic and joined Walsingham Shrine Facebook page and prayed for a miracle. Please help us find our way home.  We were admitted to the group almost instantly and the second post on the page said an EV could be found at the Running Horse. This was appealing and even more so that the Running Horse was a pub that lay along our route home.

My husband remained despondent. We’ll never get out of Norfolk and must buy a house here and live forever with the wretched beast of the weather.

I have confidence in the Walsingham Shrine and set the Sat Nave telling it to get a grip as By Our Lady it was being monitored. We found the Running Horse pub and to our profound relief it did in truth have a functioning charger. We had a fine lunch while the car refuelled and the sun came out. Honestly it did. All I missed were the flights of angels singing Halleluiahs on white fluffy clouds as we drove safely home to Hampshire in a car fully restored to its 300-mile range.

Written by Sarah Keen.