Joleen talks about how historical Norwich is and what she loves about the city.
I'm Joleen Easterbrook. I have long red hair, I'm wearing a black sweater and a puffy black coat. We're sitting in my plant shop on Norwich Market. It's a really small area with wooden walls and shelves full of plants and terrariums and there are many hanging plants above me and other plant accessories.
The neighbourhood I live in, in Norwich, in NR2 is called Golden Triangle. It's really nice mix of uni students, young families, you know, pensioners, that have lived there for decades. Yeah, it's energetic but also quiet and peaceful at the same time. I love living in Norwich. I think it is such a unique city. Just the history alone is amazing. I just can't believe I'm here some days walking around this, like, medieval city.
I think that arts and culture here is so great. We've got a theatre that's just up the street that we've gone to a few times already. At Christmas time, I took my daughter to see the Nutcracker and we were able to walk to the theatre, watched the performance of the Nutcracker and walk home. And it was incredible. I felt like we were really a part of Norwich and the city, doing that. And I just love seeing what's happening like we have so many different festivals that go on in the city like all through the year. There's like the Norwich Norfolk Festival that went for a couple weeks. It's incredible. It did things that were for grown-ups. It did things that. I could do with my children, like, it just appealed to our entire family and we had such a good time.
We have the NUA, it's like this art university. Such talented students coming through there and they're like pushing boundaries; they're creating art, they're inspiring everyone around them. I love the uni students that come through my shop. I just think it's so fun. It also brings a good diversity to Norwich. I know at my daughter's school, I think there're like more than 40 languages that are spoken. I think that's incredible.
Because I'm in Norwich Market, we're all you know market traders and there is a community in that where you can go to one another and get like the advice and the help. Some of my neighbours on the market have been here for decades. I'm a member of the Norwich Market Traders Association and so we meet monthly and we sort of go through issues that like the market might be having, things we want to focus on, you know. We usually have a council member there and we'll have a representative from BID and sort of these three different organisations trying to work together.
I'd like to see more like collaboration within the market. I think we offer so many amazing services. I think it would be really good to see like different market stalls doing like collaborations together, even if it's like gift baskets you know. My husband and I always talk about empty stalls in the market being used as like pop up artists' studios where people could be in there like making art and also selling their art.
People that live in Norwich love to come to the market 'cos they feel like they're a part of this community when they come here and if we could offer more events you know, more programming, it would really pull people in, like live music down on Gentleman's Walk always brings people in. You know more evening events would bring people in. People want to be a part of it they just need that opportunity. And I think the city in general as well could really try and keep these artists here in Norwich if they offer more things like that. You know if like more old buildings were turned into like affordable artists' studios. If there were, you know, art galleries that could be rented out affordably. I think that these art students finish NUA and they just want to run to London like maybe we could make Norwich more of a place that they'd want to stay.
So in 15 years, I'd like to see an improvement on the same I'd like Norwich to still have all of the independent businesses that it has right now. I think people come to Norwich to shop because they know that we do have all these great independent businesses, along with, like, the big ones.
You know there's been some articles about Norwich being like a great place to live and things like this and I think people here get a bit like no, we don't want our secret out! It's true, [Joleen laughs] and I think I'm becoming one of those people even though I'm like this random American that ended up here but I'm like, no, it's our secret place! [Joleen laughs]