Quote: Norfolk Lavender is located on the A149, south of Hunstanton at Heacham. We drove past it on our recent trip to the area, and the following day my mum decided we would go and visit as she wanted to buy some lavender plants.

As we’d driven past the previous day, I’d been quite captivated by the fields of lavender, which made me think of Provence and southern France. I was quite looking forward to visiting Norfolk Lavender. I think I was expecting some wonderful little south of France "island" in the midst of the English countryside. It was a bit more twee than that.

At Norfolk Lavender there is a surprising amount to see and do. There is, of course, lavender, but there is also a lavender oil distillery, a rare breeds animal centre, tours, shops, restaurant and lavender sales.

The fields of lavender which I’d spied the day before are not actually at the centre, although they are nearby. The centre has a couple of very small fields beside it, which allow you to get a glimpse of the idea of fields of lovely purple lavender, but is somewhat spoiled by the traffic roundabout in the background. I watched a bee for a while as it flew about in among some blossoms.

The lavender sales section is quite large – I was surprised at just how many varieties of lavender there are. In fact, thinking about it I wouldn’t have even realised that lavender comes in more than one shade of purple. Anyway, we had a long wander round the plants, trying to find varieties native to Norfolk for my mum to buy as a present. You can buy lavender in different sizes, so you can buy a good sized plant if you don’t want to wait for it to grow, or you can buy a teeny one, which is what we were looking at.

The shops obviously stocked a lot of lavender related products, pretty much everything you can think of doing with lavender, and some things you couldn’t. It really was all a bit twee for me – cute little embroidered hankies, lavender toiletries. I like the smell of lavender, but only in small bursts and after an incident where I smelled like a grandmother for a few weeks after buying lavender scented laundry gel, I wasn’t keen to try any lavender toiletries. My dad and I found an amusing stand of greetings cards and had a giggle.

More interesting was the Walsinghams Farm Shop situated beside the carpark. I like farm shops, full of fresh veg and interesting products. I was very tempted by a few things, curry kits and blood orange juice, but I managed to resist the temptation to spend my hard earned cash on overpriced food. As I say, I love farm shops – I’m just not at a stage in life yet where I can spend lots in them.

Norfolk Lavender is obviously the place to go for lavender, but it wasn’t really of great interest to me, although I can’t say I disliked our visit – I thought the lavender was very pretty and liked wandering among the plants for sale.

From journals Sandringham and Surrounding Area