The Strange Things Found ............

...........at Car Boot Sales.

A group of us from Stowmarket Grammar School  went on an Educational School Cruise on board the SS Nevasa in October 1969  but I  have nothing left to remind me of it - and very few memories .

So spotting this among the house clearance stuff at last Saturdays car-boot sale was a Huge surprise. 

It's a  scrapbook by Sally-Ann Rogers, a Bury St Edmunds Silver Jubilee pupil (a girls Secondary Modern school that amalgameted with the boys school in 1971 and no longer exists) who went on an educational cruise on the SS Nevasa in 1966.

She had kept a lot of the brochures they must have been given - I don't think we had any of these.

I kept my log book - like Sally's below for many years but don't have it now.

Her cruise was two weeks and they went to different places to our cruise (except for Gibralter). She even received letters from her mother and a friend sent to the ship and they did lessons everyday too. I don't think we did and certainly no one sent letters to the ship. From what I can see there were also other adult independent passengers on the cruise apart from the various school groups and their teachers, that's something I don't think happened on our cruise.

I'd not thought about my 1969 cruise for ages - I have no photos. My dad was into slides for photography and so any photos I took were made into slides and I don't remember seeing them. I do remember my camera going wrong somewhere so maybe I didn't get any photos at all.

I googled SS Nevasa to see what I could find online  and discovered a facebook group HERE just in case you are curious!  By the time of our cruise there were just two ships doing Educational Cruises - The Nevassa and the SS Uganda.

I spent £2 on the scrapbook and it's been interesting looking at all the pages and finding things online about the ships and the cruises.

You just never know what's lurking in boxes at boot sales!

Another Look at the Work of Local Artists

 It was the small Art Exhibition in a nearby village at the weekend. I called in to look on my way to Son and DiL's house where I'd been invited for a Sunday roast - very good it was too. Hadn't seen the Grandchildren for a couple of weeks so it was good hear that 6 year old MGS had started Beavers after all - a few weeks ago he was adamant that he Wasn't Going! And YGD has started Brownies, she used to go to Rainbows until they ran out of leaders but wouldn't start Brownies when she was 7 for reasons only known to a 7 year old, so it's good to hear that a year later she's now at Brownies.

Anyway..............the art Exhibition was smaller than some years and I only took a few photos.

Some interesting pottery

Local Artist Reg Siger always has paintings in exhibitions and had 10 on show this time 

including 'Derelict Cottage' . 

And this below is Gipping Church (one of the first I visited in 2018)

 Acrylics by Susan Baldry ( I think as I missed the label)

I thought this was interesting - an etching by Hilary Evans

Three Pen, Ink and Watercolour paintings by Linda Seager

Apologies to the artist - but I didn't like these at all - even though I can see they are very good

I took a few other photos but there was a bit too much reflection on them.

Purchased a couple of greetings cards - Southwold Beach by Diana Kearsley and this fun one by Les French, a guy who paints imagined pictures of how things might have been years ago in places round about and puts them on local Facebook pages where he often adds in people and animates them. 

This is his idea of how Haughley Castle would have looked when built . All that's left is the mound (Motte)- and the moat .

Next Art Exhibition is probably in Debenham Church in June - I'd better check on the date.

Thank you for yesterday.

Back Soon

8 Years.

Thank you to everyone for comments on Saturday, I hope that will be the one and only time  I'll be swearing in a blog post and not a lot more about politics either!

I'm not really worried about what will happen with Suffolk County Council - nothing works as well as it did 20 years ago (or is that just my rose tinted glasses looking back like a silly old woman!) and probably won't be any better or worse whoever is in charge!

**********************************************

 8 Years today - It still hurts like crazy - they're wrong when they say Things get Better and Time Heals. They don't and it doesn't. The years just pass  and you just have to cope.

I'm coping.