Thursday, 31 January 2019

Last Day of January........ Financial Ins and Outs

Didn't spend too much although there were things not planned but needed like the vegetable seed order and a gas cylinder for the cooker, printing out the photos for Christmas cards, peanuts for the birds and a new swimming costume. All except the swimming costume would have waited until February but that's pointless really. Then when I thought that was it for the unexpected I  had to take Polly to the vets - she seems to have developed an allergy to something, so it was a steroid injection and £52 - gulp.
[There was one interesting thing at the vets that almost made up for the expense. Someone had just brought in an injured owl so I got to see a young barn owl at close up - a very cross owl! They put him in a cage and covered over so he would calm down. Hope they get him sorted]

Planned things that Had to be paid.............. the dentist check up, scale and polish and then a filling; diesel for the car, food for me and the cat; broadband and phones direct debits.

Things I bought that I really didn't need in my so called "No/Low Spend January"
Flower Fairies Book
Stuff for grandchildren
The Cheese Plate
Jam doughnuts! 


The only Frugal bits I can think of.......
  • Using the leeks from the garden, made a big batch of veg curry with leeks, apple, prunes,onion. spinach from the freezer and small potatoes. Put 4 boxes in freezer.
  • Reading free library books
  • Using homegrown peppers, mangetout peas and courgettes from the freezer.
  • Still eating beetroot from the garden
  • Picked up twiggy bits from the meadow to dry for kindling wood.
  • Dried washing outside and then in front of fire 90% of the time. (Had to use tumble drier once)
  • Still mixing whole milk half and half with water. 
  • I've been using up  meat from the freezer - some had been there since before Colin died!I'm eating so little meat now I'm on my own.
  • Mended a woolly hat that had developed a hole because I'd removed the bobble!
  • Ziffit were doing a 15% extra weekend, so I went through lots of books Again and found just under £16 worth they wanted which became over £18.


More stuff out (or nearly out)
  • Two inherited 9 carat rings that I couldn't wear because they were too chunky and a pair of stud ear rings sold at the Auction House in town and brought me £92. A 22 carat ring goes in another sale later in the year.  Then I'm going to buy some jewellery I can actually wear......just plain rings or a wind-up watch.
  • Few books to the charity shop
  • Some cross stitch bits into the car boot box under the stairs. 
  • A mug that got chipped into the bin
  • A circular Christmas tablecloth - forgot I had this - it's gone into the car boot box under the stairs
  • A jam dish into the car boot box
  • More of Col's pairs of trousers to charity shop
  • 2 Jigsaw puzzles into Car Boot box 
  • Sorted through the reels of cotton in my sewing box and moved a small bag full to the car boot box


Februaries financial outlook. There are two bills due.............House insurance and the half year water bill. I need to restock the freezer with a few things but otherwise it should be a low-ish spend month.
Said the same thing in January and November - it never happens!

Business Group Calls for Cuts in Delaware State Spending ...


I've been trying to work out how much it costs for me to live here, there are so many columns in my accounts book

  • Council Tax ( the biggest expense)
  • Food
  • Phone and computer
  • TV licence
  • Heating oil
  • Boiler service
  • Gas for cooker
  • Electric
  • Water
  • Sewer pump out
  • House insurance
  • Expenses in the kitchen
  • Expenses in the bathroom
  • Laundry stuff
  • Household stuff
  • Car Insurance
  • Car Service
  • Breakdown Insurance
  • Fuel for car
  • The cat
  • Wild birds
  • Garden
  • The Grandchildren
  • Christmas 
  • Birthdays and gifts
  • Postage
  • Clothes and shoes
  • Dentist
  • Health
  • Miscellaneous 
  • Personal
Some just have to be paid, some can be cut, some I don't want to cut, others go up every year and nothing goes down but the worry is that it adds up to needing nearly £1,000 a month. I can't really afford to live here but I plan to stay and my income isn't anywhere near that so I'm living off savings for two more years until I'm 66 when I get the state pension.
Sorry Kids!

Thank you to everyone for comments over the last few days, it's good to know people are enjoying the church photos - just wish I was a better photographer!


Back Tomorrow
Sue

Wednesday, 30 January 2019

St John the Baptist Church Needham Market

Until I started this tour of 100 Suffolk Churches I hadn't noticed how many St Mary's and St John's there are
Last week it was St Johns in Felixstowe, this week closer to home and St Johns in Needham Market.

A very small church for the size of the town now, it has no tower, no churchyard and sits surrounded by roads and old houses in the middle of the main street. The Suffolk Churches website HERE says it was just a Chapel of Ease to the adjoining village of Barking until 1901.


It's the roof that you notice as you step into this church. Some have said it's "the best in England". It's certainly pretty amazing. A Unique C15 Angel Roof, a masterpiece of medieval engineering. No iron bolts, straps or nails. Simple morticed and tenon joints secured with wooden pegs. Looking up at the double hammer-beam roof is much like looking down into the hull of a old ship.


Just as there were in Felixstowe last week there are modern Stations of the Cross around the church, this time they are painted by Francis Hoyland in 2000.


The font is interesting
And so is the organ


There is just one stained glass window, showing the crucifiction of Christ


 The church was closed for several months last year as repairs and alterations took place. Inside some pews have been replaced by chairs which can be moved and re-arranged to suit whatever is happening. There are several dozen lovely stitched kneelers.


 In the porch are two pilgrim figures dating from C16 they represent St James of Compostela
I'm not sure if they were brought back from a pilgrimage or made to take on a pilgrimage. Hopefully someone will know.
Outside is this interesting arch in a buttress is to enable the Corpus Christi procession to go around the church while staying on consecrated ground ( bit of a tight squeeze for C21 bodies!)


This is the back of the church, you can see how close the roads are, and parked  cars squeezed in everywhere.



Back Tomorrow
Sue


Tuesday, 29 January 2019

A Few Cards

Using a few bits from the card making stash and then some more of the 3D Decoupage sheets that I got last year I've made some thank you cards and a couple of birthday cards. I think there are now enough cards in my card box for the year.


 I'm working my way through all the card making stuff acquired over the last 30+  years, really don't want to buy more or move it all again.

Thank you for all the comments yesterday

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Monday, 28 January 2019

Aconite and Hellebore

Apart from snowdrops, the earliest flowers in my garden are a few little Winter Aconites and the Hellebore or Christmas Rose


There is a Flower Fairy for the Winter Aconites





No Flower Fairy for the Helebore



I can see I've got a heck of a lot of tidying and weeding to do in the quarter - circle flower garden once spring arrives!


Back Tomorrow
Sue

Saturday, 26 January 2019

Walking, Railways and Answers

We walked the footpaths around us several times in the first months we were here while Colin was still well enough but since he died I've not done much walking at all. Trying to keep busy has taken all my time.
That needs to change as swimming once a week isn't really enough for fitness. So last week I did a short walk (and I mean short!) one day and then two days later a wee bit longer..........which is the smallest circular walk - only just over a mile................. I need to build up gradually!

Before I got to this lane I had to cross the field at the end of the meadow - 'twas a tad muddy.

 A tree covered in small crab apples, it was also full of blackbirds eating them until I came along, the caravan is in the garden of a house and looks really old. I expect someone lived in it while they were doing up the house and then just left it to fall apart.
 This is a small barn that's falling down. I wonder if someone will get permission to rebuild it as a house  one day, it happens a lot in Suffolk
On a dull day none of the photos, taken on my phone, were much good.

Made a decision  to get myself some walking shoes rather than my big walking boots.... next month. The boots are so difficult to get on and heavy too, especially when caked in good Suffolk sticky clay soil.

With a bit more walking I'll be able to get down across the fields to the Middy Heritage Railway Museum when they have their WWII re-enactment weekend in May. I just had a look on  THEIR WEBSITE and found they have a "guest engine" there for the season - it's the little shunting engine Sirapite which is usually to be seen at the GARRETTS LONG SHOP MUSEUM in Leiston, just down the road from daughters house. What puzzles me is Sirapite is one of the main attractions at The Long Shop so people visiting there  to see it this year will be disappointed.


Sirapite at The Long Shop Museum in Leiston


Here are the answers to the spot the difference jigsaw puzzle pictures from Thursdays post.
Top is  the picture on the box
  1. The ladder doesn't go as far up the tree
  2. The weather vane on the summer house becomes a ball
  3. The man digging has a blue instead of brown jacket
  4. The man digging is using a spade rather than fork
  5. The statue figure is reversed
  6. The right hand butterfly by the roses is a different sort
  7. There is a hedgehog by the greenhouse door instead of a rabbit
  8. There is a squirrel in the apple tree instead of a bird
  9. The pigeon flying between house and greenhouse is reversed
  10. There is a rose bud rather than full rose in bottom left rose bush
  11. The man pushing the wheelbarrow has a cap instead of a hat
  12. The front door of the house is red rather than blue
  13. The thrush on the pond surround has become a blackbird
  14. The cat on the path on the left hand edge is reversed
  15. and finally - most difficult to see - on the ground by the ladder an extra apple has appeared.
and here is the puzzle.

Think I may have got rather too choosy about jigsaws, went round all 10 charity shops in Stowmarket and didn't find one I wanted to do!

Have a wonderful weekend folks,
Back Monday
Sue

Friday, 25 January 2019

St Pauls Day and Burns Night

St Paul in Ephesus

 Another Saint's Day with lots of weather lore attached. In the past they thought it could even affect political events.

If St.Pauls Day be fair and clear,
It doth betide a happy year;
But if by chance it then should rain,
It will make dear all kinds of grain;
And if the clouds make dark the sky,
Then neate* and fowls this year shall die;
If blustering winds do blow aloft,
Then wars shall trouble the realm full oft.

* Neate is an old word for cattle


Also                                          
St Paul fair with sunshine
Brings fertility to rye and wine



It's party night tonight up north of the border to celebrate the birthday of  Robert Burns and many other places too. Hope everyone enjoys their Haggis, neeps and wee drams of whisky. 

If I'm remembering right Robbie Burns poem Tam O' Shanter was one of the narrative poems that we did 40 + years ago for O levels. I didn't understand it then and still don't now!

It's a LONG poem! Here if you want to read it.


Back Tomorrow
Sue

Thursday, 24 January 2019

Spot The Difference Competition

This is the  jigsaw I've just finished. It was interesting to do as there are 15 differences between the actual jigsaw and the picture on the front of the box




 I eventually found them all, some are small so might be difficult to see from the photos.

How many differences can you find?
No Prizes but  I'll list the answers  in a couple of days.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Wednesday, 23 January 2019

Gorse ........................

..........................and replies to comments.



Gorse, common on the heaths of the Suffolk coast where we used to live.

Ulex (commonly known as Gorse, Furze or Whin) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae. The genus comprises about 20 species of thorny evergreen shrubs in the subfamily Faboideae of the pea family Fabaceae. The species are native to parts of western Europe and northwest Africa, with the majority of species in Iberia.





 On a back road I use not far from home there are half a dozen gorse bushes on the grass verge between road and field. I always think they look wrong on the edge of the heavy clay soil fields.There are no other gorse bushes anywhere around for miles.
They looked so bright against the brown field and dull sky on my way home from swimming that I had to stop and take a photo..........................just so I could add another page of my Flower Fairies Book to the blog.


Two Fairies this time, but I do worry about them having bare feet on such a prickly bush!

According to a book I have .....England in Particular  (when I found it at the big charity book sale and mentioned it on the blog in November 2017 I said I would be quoting from it often......but never have) Bach Flower Remedies use the flowers as a cure for  hopelessness and despair; the Pre-Raphaelites loved to paint it and the Swedish naturalist Linnaeus fell down on his knees and wept for joy when he saw the swathes of gorse in flower on Putney Heath.

It was once a valuable commodity because it burns with a high temperature and was used by brick-makers, potters and bakers. It was also used as fodder when the branches were crushed in special gorse-mills to tenderise the spines; under haystacks to stop the damp rising; in field drains to help drainage and to make wine.


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

Thank you for comments yesterday and previous days.

Thanks to Jen, a Suffolk girl  now in London, I've added a bit after your comment  on the Felixstowe post. Also thanks to Sue at My Ponderosa - we are lucky to have so much history all around us all the time. I have a feeling that those of us who've lived in an area all our lives with ancestors who also lived in the same county often feel quite grounded, so much has happened in the world yet we all survived and will keep surviving whatever goes on, so as you say it gives us a different outlook on life.
Pru commented that I could look on line for details of the Felixstowe Book Festival, which I knew but always prefer the real thing to look through to choose which talks I'll go too.
Much more about St Vincent has been found by "P" on wiki and she has copied some of it in a comment on yesterdays blog - Thank you.
Had to smile at a comment about the Horatio Clare book that I belatedly found - Harsh! Liz D....Very Harsh!

Back Tomorrow
Sue
 

Tuesday, 22 January 2019

January 22nd..........St Vincents Day

Nothing much is known about Vincent of Saragossa apart from the fact that he was martyred for his faith in AD 304.

Now his day is only remembered in weather rhymes


Remember on St Vincent's Day,
If the sun his beams display,
Be sure to mark his transient beam
Which through the casement sheds a gleam 
For 'tis a token bright and clear
of prosperous weather all the year


                                     

Oh here's another thing about the 22nd January. In 1901 this was the day Queen Victoria died, aged 81.


  (I said I was short of ideas for posts in January!)

But then I found these feathers on the meadow, among lots of other small black/grey feathers  where a predator of some sort (sparrow hawk/kestrel?) had taken some smaller bird. They are small but both have the flash of white ..........so any ideas? I thought maybe chaffinch?


Also did you see the eclipse of the moon in the early hours of Monday morning. The full moon in January is called The Old Moon or the Wolf Moon and it was a Super Full Moon too. Should have mentioned this on Saturday but I forgot.......now it's too late! By chance I woke up at 4.45 and looked out to grey low cloud, which apparently covered quite a lot of the country. A shame really as it was a clear full moon when I went to bed.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Monday, 21 January 2019

Felixstowe St John the Baptist or St Andrews?

St Johns or St Andrews - a very good question.

Before I went to the church I called in to see my cousin and her husband who have recently moved here. "Which Church are you going to" asked my cousin. " The one in the town" I said and I THOUGHT I knew exactly where I was going "How many are there?" I asked and A told me of the one just along the road from their home and the one just off the main shopping street. "I'm sure it's the one nearest the town" I said and went and parked in the town centre car park and looked at the book
and found I should have been at the church near their home. DUH! In my defence  - the page of the book about St Johns didn't have a picture of the exterior and also didn't have the road name BUT I should have looked at the book earlier in the day!

Anyway this is St John the Baptist in Orwell Road and not St Andrews ( which is a strange concrete building) in St Andrews Rd.

Not an old flint church like so many I've visited but an early 20th century brick  church built for the expanding population of Suffolk's main seaside town. The spire soars 130 feet above the town.


Lovely and warm  inside............there was a notice saying the heating was on so Please Shut the Door.
The lights were switched on around the choir stalls and and Altar but the rest of the church was very dark

and my photos are dreadfully poor. Much better photos on the Suffolk Churches website HERE   where there are close up photos of all the Saints featured in the stained glass windows on both sides of the church.



The reason this church has a page in the 100 treasures book is because whereas many churches have 14  Stations of the Cross around the church, St John has 16. They are all simply etched onto slate and fixed to the pillars

Some are much smaller

Here's some more Saints





The highly decorated carved  Font cover made by an Ipswich craftsman in 1912

I think this church should feature in the book as the only Suffolk Church to be mentioned in a poem by John Betjeman

Felixstowe, or The Last of Her Order.


With one consuming roar along the shingle
The long wave claws and rakes the pebbles down
To where its backwash and the next wave mingle,
A mounting arch of water weedy-brown
Against the tide the off-shore breezes blow.
Oh wind and water, this is Felixstowe.

In winter when the sea winds chill and shriller
Than those of summer, all their cold unload
Full on the gimcrack attic of the villa
Where I am lodging off the Orwell Road,
I put my final shilling in the meter
And only make my loneliness completer.

In eighteen ninety-four when we were founded,
Counting our Reverend Mother we were six,
How full of hope we were and prayer-surrounded
"The Little Sisters of the Hanging Pyx".
We built our orphanage. We built our school.
Now only I am left to keep the rule.

Here in the gardens of the Spa Pavillion
Warm in the whisper of the summer sea,
The cushioned scabious, a deep vermillion,
With white pins stuck in it, looks up at me
A sun-lit kingdom touched by butterflies
And so my memory of the winter dies.

Across the grass the poplar shades grow longer
And louder clang the waves along the coast.
The band packs up. The evening breeze is stronger
And all the world goes home to tea and toast.
I hurry past a cakeshop's tempting scones
Bound for the red brick twilight of St.John's.

"Thou knowest my down sitting and mine uprising"
Here where the white light burns with steady glow
Safe from the vain world's silly sympathising,
Safe with the love I was born to know,
Safe from the surging of the lonely sea
My heart finds rest, my heart finds rest in Thee

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


I'd planned to go around the charity shops in Felixstowe - There are Lots - but the weather was freezing so I only did a few and found nothing. I also planned to go in the Bookshop and put my name down for a brochure about the Book Festival held in the town at the end of June every year (they sponsor the festival) but they were closed for the week for holidays. I'd already asked my cousin to look out for a brochure for me nearer the time, so hopefully she will spot one for me. Last year I was able to pick one up at the Tourist Information Centre in Stowmarket but funding for TICs has been cut and like most of the others in Suffolk the Stow one closed at Christmas.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Saturday, 19 January 2019

The January Library Book Photo

Here are the books that I'd ordered and were available to  collect from the library van this week. Jack Munroe's Cooking on a Bootstrap should have been there but it's still in transit - hopefully not lost - so that and several others I've ordered in the last week will be ready for me in February.

There are two more crime books by Joy Ellis who I've recently discovered. I've not read any Donna Leon but Rachel said I would probably like them and this was on the library van shelves so I'll give it a go. The Elly Griffiths book isn't in either of her previous series but sounds a bit ghostly and chilling so might not be my cup of tea and at the bottom of the pile is a new book "The Creative Kitchen" which is subtitled "Seasonal plant based recipes for meals,drinks, garden and self-care". Sounds interesting.


I have kept several still to read from this lot that were collected in December (Tombland, The Kate Ellis book, Murder by Matchlight and A Handful of Ash).
December's Library Book Photo
and even a  book collected in November ( The 3 in 1  Ngaio Marsh book) is still waiting for time for me to read it.

November's Library Book photo
Books read are always added to the separate pages and anything else has gone back unread - usually because I just couldn't get into them. The Stately Home Murder by Catherine Aird went back because it did one of those name change things and I'd already read it under it's original name which I now can't remember. I've not added 'How to Give Up Plastic' to the Books Read pages because I just flicked through and decided it was too dull to read properly.


Not sure what I'm doing this weekend I might head to a garden centre and a jumble sale or stay at home and keep warm. One thing I won't be doing is the jigsaw puzzle of Staithes, much too annoying. I started with the horizon and it was easy to find the pieces  but then very difficult to get them in the right order and even though I had the right number of sky bits to fit in the space I couldn't get them in the right places. I tried each piece each way in every space several times but then thought Blow This! and put the whole thing back in its box and into the Car Boot box.


Then I started the other puzzle of the Summer Garden, which didn't seem quite right for a cold, windy winter day but will be much easier to do as it's a House of Puzzles jigsaw like the Corner Shop and the Lifeboat Rescue puzzles that I did without hassles in November.  You can tell I'm a bit fussy about jigsaws just like I am with books! No point spending time on something that's annoying when there is a whole world of other stuff out there to try!

Many thanks for comments about the cheese plate yesterday, it's a keeper at the moment unless I change my mind at Christmas.
Have a good weekend whatever you are doing.
Back Monday
Sue

Friday, 18 January 2019

It might be a Christmas Present..................


..........or I could keep it.



 This was on the shelf in the charity shop when I went in to do my stint last week.  I picked it up, dusted underneath and then decided not to put it back on the shelf and it came home with me. With volunteers 20% discount it was 80p so didn't break the bank.
I was thinking that with some cheese or biscuits it could make a present but maybe I'll keep it. I was very good and moved two rarely used items from the dining room cupboard into the car-boot box under the stairs..........one in and two out is supposed to be my plan this year.


Back Tomorrow
Sue

Thursday, 17 January 2019

Old Twelfth Night

It's Old Twelfth Night..................Old Twelfth Night?
All due to the change of calendar in 1752..
I read quite a lot about calendars in a book that I found at the Giant charity book sale in Colchester last October. I shelved the book and forgot I had it until last week.








This is my Very Short History of calendars..............

Around 4,000BC the Egyptians were the first to calculate the solar year of 365 days dividing it into 12 months of 30 days each plus 5 days. Later they calculated it should be 365¼ days
The Romans had originally used a 10 month lunar year of about 304 days but around 700BC they added 2 more months making a year 355 days. By Julius Caeser's time the calendar was way out and in 45BC he introduced the Julian Calendar, based on a 365 day year with an extra day every 4 years. The only thing they didn't work out back then was 7 day weeks, instead they reckoned the days before and after set points.  Things should have been OK from then onward except that  sometime before AD 377 Emperor Constantine introduced the 7 day week but put the organising of the calendar back in the hands of religious groups who wanted the calendar to link to the moon for their major festival of Easter.
After the collapse of the Roman Empire the Christian church was the only organisation able to control the calendar and because they regarded any scientific enquiry into dates as heresy things got very confusing.
The errors became obvious and annoying and in 1582 Pope Gregory   announced changes to correct the faults including the problem with the ¼ day over. (The Gregorian Calendar) Easter was still being calculated by the moon. BUT newly Protestant countries such as Britain thought the whole thing a Popish plot and refused to change, so for more than a century half of Europe was 10 days ahead of the other half.
(So disagreeing with Europe isn't a new thing!)
But it all got sorted in  1752.


Didn't do the wassailing of my Apple trees on the 6th as I had no cider or apple juice in the house so I'm out there tonight with my cider soaked toast....... and have a bottle in store for using with Rosemary for that cold cure. Just in case.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Wednesday, 16 January 2019

The Light in the Dark by Horatio Clare



Cover


 I was looking forward to reading this as I'd previously read his biography of childhood " Heading for the Hills".

This is the Amazon description........ Winter...............
It is a time of introspection, of looking inwards. Seasonal sadness; winter blues; depression – such feelings are widespread in the darker months. But by looking outwards, by being in and observing nature, we can appreciate its rhythms. Mountains make sense in any weather. The voices of a wood always speak consolation. A brush of frost; subtle colours; days as bright as a magpie’s cackle. We can learn to see and celebrate winter in all its shadows and lights.

In this moving and lyrical evocation of a British winter and the feelings it inspires, Horatio Clare raises a torch against the darkness, illuminating the blackest corners of the season, and delving into memory and myth to explore the powerful hold that winter has on us. By learning to see, we can find the magic, the light that burns bright at the heart of winter: spring will come again.


Well, that's what they said but I found it disappointing. It's a short book written as a diary of the winter of 2017/18 by someone who suffers with seasonal depression.
This is the way he gets through the weather and work and I think could have been written by anybody slightly depressed and living in the North of England through last winter!

An interesting short read  but it didn't cheer me up, just made me thankful for libraries so that I hadn't had to spend £12.99 to read it!

This is the 4th book read this month, the rest were all crime fiction so it was good to have a change. The library van is round again later this week and I still have 8 books unread.
Notes about books read have been entered on the new 2019 page.

Thanks for all the comments yesterday and hello to 3 new followers, hope you enjoy reading.



Back Tomorrow
Sue

Tuesday, 15 January 2019

St Peter's Palgrave

 I think more church visiting might have to wait until the weather warms up and the days are brighter because Palgrave St Peters was freezing and gloomy.  Inside I tried flash which reflected back but without it couldn't see much at all.

Very impressed by the gardens each side of the path, shows that they have lots of people caring for their church.


 Anyway here are the photos I took.

 The reason this church gets a mention in the 100 treasures book is because of its C15 painted hammer-beam roof but on a dull day it looked like this. The colours didn't show up at all. It would have had carved angels too........on the bits that jut out......... but they must have been sawn off during one of the periods when churches had to remove all symbols of  Catholic worship.



 Down the nave to the altar


 A square font- very unusual and very old......800 years they say.


 Commandment boards would have been over the altar. They were restored in the 1960s and are now in the North aisle.


This modern stained glass was designed in 1995 by a local artist


This looks like an old coat of arms. It doesn't say on the Suffolk Churches website if it for someone local or the royal coat of arms that churches had to display at one period in history.It was too high and not light enough to read the inscription.


All the pews have little gates, not the high box pews I've seen in some churches. These wouldn't have protected from many cold draughts (or drafts if you are in the US) so not sure why they are there.



Palgrave is a village just outside Diss and in Medieval times was two parishes with two churches but Palgrave St John has long gone.

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

Thank you for all the comments yesterday about The Flower Fairy books. Yes the Snowdrop Fairy is in the book I found last week and it is odd, as Phillip said, about the interest in Fairies in this period. I don't think I would want to do one in X stitch - far too fiddly but I did have some decoupage sheets of some of the fairies in the past and they too were not really suited to cutting out and layering.
Because I didn't have many books as a child I only knew about this author when I started working in libraries. The four tiny books in my picture were found at a Jumble sale or charity book sale in the last few years. They have just 7 fairies in each book and are printed on thin card pages, they will be passed on to the 2  granddaughters very soon I think. Just the right size for small hands.


Back Tomorrow
Sue