End of the Week and March Finances...................

..............................the ins, outs and frugal bits

In some ways March was an ordinary sort of month cost wise, saving in some places to have more for spending elsewhere. But a huge spend was paying  the Council Tax bill. My monthly income for the next 2 years  is less than outgoings, that means I'm living partly on savings, which earn hardly any interest,  so I've paid Council Tax all at once to get it done and out of the way.
In our early years of marriage, when we hardly had "two halfpennies to rub together", I always made sure all the bills that meant getting a fine or losing the house were paid first and then had to budget carefully with what was left and even though I now have more money my mind works the same. Paying the Council Tax all at once feels like securing a home for the year!

Then there were the  normal usual expenses........... Food for me and the cat, diesel for the car, phones and broadband direct debit, charity direct debits and the quarterly electric bill
Other outgoings -

• Gift for son-in-law's birthday  
• Present ready for Jacobs birthday
•  I actually went and got a haircut..........this is my first paid-for hair cut for about 6 years. 
• Cinema visit - the cost for everyone for screenings before 6pm is £5.95 which doesn't seem too extreme. I have no idea what cinemas cost elsewhere. 
• Stocked up on postage stamps, enough for the year, before prices went up... saving several  pence.
• Polly Cat's annual cat flu etc injection
• Printed out photos of the grandchildren to give to the family(then forgot to give one to my sister with her birthday card!)
• Car boot and jumble sale things for grandchildren 
• Got 3 bags of multi purpose compost as I was passing the garden centre 
• Window cleaner

A few frugal bits, added to the list through the month

•  5 small pizzas - yellow sticker at Co-op for 29p each.(I use home made pizza topping on them to cheer up their meagre topping)
• The gift of onion sets from my sister, enough for a row. 
• 3 lots of rhubarb from the garden and new growth on the chives
• Eating home grown peppers, mange tout and courgettes from the freezer 
• Present ready for Willow's birthday from charity shop
• 3 pairs of  new socks for me from the charity shop for £1.20
• Gifted a big bag of purple sprouting broccoli 
• Toys, clothes and books for grandchildren from car boot sale and a jumble sale.
• First pesto made using wild garlic (ramsons) that we planted two years ago

Still clearing and sorting, OUT  went...........

Another box of books and OS maps to Ziffit = just under £19
Several books to the charity shop
Another suit of Colin's to charity shop
Suit cover to Youngest daughter's OH.
 OS Maps to the charity shop
Few odd bits from workshop into dustbin.
Collection of peel-off stickers into cupboard for car-boot sale
A very old sun lounger to the Household Recycling Centre
Plus an old picnic stove ditto 
Some bits of junk from a drawer in the dresser into dustbin
Few other things from the same drawer into the car-boot box.
Two swing seats (that were here when we moved in) to Son and DiL who have got Willow a swing for her birthday.
Lots of old letters and diaries into the recycling bin

Thoughts on the month
Electric bill higher for me on my own is a worry, due to having the TV on for company and having the boiler on more as I hate being cold in my own home, which happened a lot at the smallholding.

Must take my stuff to a boot sale...... as soon as the small local one starts next month and the weather forecast is good.


As it's Saturday, here's  my weekly round-up too.

The last week of March and the weather here hasn't been as good as some parts of the country, chilly with cloud cover most days,  but the week has sped by.......................

Swimming - I'm going earlier to a Swim for All session rather than the over 50's session and it's quieter, won't be able to do that in the Easter hols as the pool is used for other things before the over 50's session.

Charity shop morning was a bit different as our manager was away so we had a lady from the Eye shop to help but we were all a bit surprised  to find that the overall shop manager, with her family to help,  had been in over the weekend and moved things all around and thrown out masses of books for recycling. The ladies upstairs unpacking and sorting found everything they had organised the week before had all been changed around! Very frustrating.

I'd been planning to go to the cinema again but didn't feel to good so thought I'd better stay at home, I've made a note to order Aftermath on DVD from the library once it's released in July.

Quizzing with Small WI in the Suffolk East Federation spring quiz on Friday evening. It'll be late when I get home so as this post is scheduled  I'll have to let you know how we got on next week.



This week I am grateful for

• One sunny and warmer day on Friday to get beetroot sown and hoeing done.
• Having the finances available to be able to help youngest daughter onto the housing ladder. 
• Bumping into two people I knew from school between 1966/71, one last seen in 1988 at the school reunion and we recognised each other, so can't have changed too much!

Hope you all have a  lovely weekend and I'll be back Monday
Sue

3 Crime Books

I've read three crime fiction books in the last couple of weeks, set in different situations and times.

First


The Stone Circle by Elly Griffiths.
Published in 2019 and set mainly on the Norfolk coast.
This is the 11th featuring Dr Ruth Galloway. The discovery of modern bones in an archaeology dig on the saltmarsh starts the search for the killer of a girl who went missing from the Royal Wedding street party 30 years earlier. DCI Harry Nelson is getting anonymous letters similar to ones he received when another child went missing. But the author of those letters is dead.  Everyone seems to have secrets and in his private life Nelson welcomes his new son and his older daughters find out about their half sister.

Second


Nemesis by Rory Clements.
Published in 2019 but set in 1939 France and Cambridge.
This is the 3rd in a series featuring Professor Tom Wilde, an American living and working in Cambridge. On holiday in France just before the war he is approached by a stranger and asked to rescue one of his students, Marcus Marfield, from an interment camp. This starts a horrible chain of events just as German tanks roll into Poland and a U-boat sinks the Athenia in the Atlantic.



Third

 
The Division Bell Mystery by Ellen Wilkinson
This is the oldest as it was originally published in 1932.
Ellen Wilkinson was one of the first Labour women in parliament, elected for Middlesbrough East  in 1924 giving her a good insight it to the setting of this crime story and a witty insiders perspective of political machinations.
"Of course, but everything depends on how it's done.nothing gives the other side such a chance in politics as looking as though you were having facts dragged out of you. The best way to keep a political secret is to take a large hall and call a meeting to make a speech about it. Then no one takes any notice".

When a financier is found shot in the House of Commons it is assumed to be suicide. But the police and the beautiful granddaughter of the man are sure it's murder. Robert West, a parliamentary  secretary takes on the role of amateur sleuth but needs to keep it from becoming a scandal.


I enjoyed them all.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Down The Lane

Seems an age since I took photos down the lane to show the changes each month and when I looked it was actually November 2017, so about time I did it again.
So here it is on a dull March day.

I'm standing on the road here to take a photo up the lane, you can just see the top of my house.

Opposite the houses in the lane is a wide ditch which is probably where they would have taken clay to build the original houses. They would have been made of clay lump standing on brick plinth and were built as cheap housing. Built  later than timber framed and wattle and daub and mostly now have block walls inside and out, which is what happened on the only remaining wall of clay lump here. This house was almost completely rebuilt and doubled in size in the 1970's .

 The ditch holds water through the winter but dries out in the summer.

Pot holes up the lane. It was bad when we moved in 2 years ago and we shared the cost of having it sorted with road planings. (Asphalt scraped from roads that are having new surfaces). We had £20  worth of planings delivered just before Col died last year and next door neighbours used some to fill the potholes last summer, now the rain dripping from trees through the winter and the traffic up and down has made some holes appear again.

Hidden beneath the ivy is the base of an old pump which would have supplied the houses in the lane with water before it was piped to individual houses

There are lots of primroses down the lane and some pink primula......and nettles.

Below is opposite next door neighbours house and garden. She loves gardening so much that she's expanded her garden  to fill up the bank of the ditch

I love the moss on this old tree stump opposite my house

The leaves of the  lilac in the front garden are just appearing

There are masses of violets all over the grass all around the garden

I found some comments on the Woolpit church post that I'd missed so hello to Jen who has worked out how to comment. Sharon asked about the phone box but I'm not sure if it's still a working one or not. I used to go to Woolpit often when son and DiL lived there but since they moved this was a special trip. Thank you to everyone who said they enjoy the church tours.


Back Tomorrow
Sue

Old Toys

Yesterday Jules mentioned keeping a toy for future grandchildren and I have a few things that we managed to keep for the last 30 years but this little trolley of bricks and small stool  are even older.......... about 60 years old. Two  toys brought from my childhood home and surviving all our seven house moves and our 3 children.
So many things were wooden and home made back then. I had a dolls cot, a ride on horse, a sit on train, a doll's house ..........but I don't know who made them. Maybe Grandad W - my Mum's Father? There is no one to ask now.

 Now they can be used by the next generation.We got the bricks out when Jacob was here and he was soon practicing his  tower making skills...........and then crashing it down with a toy car - his favourite occupation..............hope he grows out of crashing cars before he learns to drive!

Thank you to everyone for the name of the Pulsatilla plant and I've remembered that the other is actually something growing from a big bulb that spreads like an iris and I might be wrong about the spelling! I'll have to wait for it to flower and then put a "name that flower" post on the blog!

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Car Boot Sale at Last

The horrible wet, cold and especially windy weather in the first half of March wasn't conducive to car boot sales so when at last things calmed down it was a sure thing that I'd be there.

As usual the Grandchildren  were the main benefactors. Sand  toys were £1.50 for Willow  and a puzzle for sometime in the future....£1. (I'll probably get her a sandpit for Christmas but get it early so it can be used towards the end of this summer when she's one and a half).

 

Clothes for Florence for the summer were £2 and a big bundle of mostly brand new books to share out came to £3.20p. The Emma Smith book for my WWII collection was  50p. The other book there, another 50p, is probably the oddest thing I've bought - a 2013 Diary, in other words a diary that's 6 years out of date (What sensible person buys a 6 year old diary for goodness sake!) but it's an earlier version of The Country Wisdom and Folklore Diary that I've used for the last 3 years, so will have bits of folk stories that I might be able to use in the blog and I'm thinking about cutting bits out of all the old Folklore diaries to keep before I chuck them out.

I also bought two large perennials for £2.50 each, but can't remember what they were called.One was something beginning P U L S and has purple flowers rather like an anemone and the other is something that has leaves like an Iris and began with C A L A and in late spring will have tall spikes of white flowers. Whatever they are they are new to me and the garden and I soon got them planted out. To make a bit of space I dug out some of the bluebells, which have spread like crazy and moved them down to the meadow.

Next time I'm at a boot sale I'd better look out for something for Jacob.....more cars probably.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Woolpit St. Mary

Woolpit was a wealthy parish in medieval times, popular with pilgrims visiting the chapel of Our Lady of Woolpit and the Lady's Well, the water here was supposed to cure eye problems.

The picture below is from the Suffolk churches website, my exterior photo wasn't very good


A wide light large church for a large and very old village, one of only a dozen or so Suffolk churches to have a spire.

This is just a quick tour of the church, many more photos and information HERE on the Suffolk Churches website

Like a couple of others I've visited it's the roof that is the amazing thing about the church. A mid-C15 double hammerbeam roof full of saints,angels, bishops and kings

The screen below, showing Saints also dates from that period but was repainted more recently

This wording over the door is interesting

 The porch dating from C15, is said to be one of the best in the country. Like several others in the county it has a small room above the entrance where important papers and perhaps the churches holy items would have been stored.

This house right beside the church has unusual paintings in the mock windows

Woolpit was just a couple of miles from where I lived as a child and we all knew the story of "The Green Children"

The two green children, who climbed out of the ground, speaking a strange language and afraid of the sunlight. The boy died soon after, but the girl grew up and married; she learned to speak English, and told of St Martin's Land, from where she and her brother had emerged. There are holes in the ground around Woolpit, quarries where bricks were made in the 19th century and gravel extracted through much of the 20th. But perhaps there was once something much older, for every Suffolk schoolchild knows that the name 'Woolpit' is nothing to do with wool, but with the wolves that once lived in the pits here...........


 Thank you for comments on Saturday and apologies for not replying

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Seven Days in March

 I've had two bits of sunshine in the house this week. Starting with these from the garden

Followed by the tulips from WI

Before I forget...........Hello and welcome to several new followers. Numbers have been creeping up so I hope you enjoy reading.

Thank goodness for Colin's brother A. He's a busy bloke but very kindly spares a few hours now and again to give me a hand with stuff here. On Sunday he came and helped me with several jobs  including bringing the chainsaw to clear the willow that had come down over the ditch and fixing the linen-line post upright again. He also fixed the baskets on the garage wall...... the sunniest spot for the trailing tomatoes that I shall grow in them. I cooked him dinner in return.

The rest of the week passed by as usual with......

 Swimming - quiet-ish pool - forgot to count lengths.
Charity shop, lots of help, so I've cut down to 3 hours as I still find it very tiring
Good weather for a couple of short walks and for visiting a car boot sale
Going across to the coast to visit youngest daughter and Florence

 On Thursday I had one of those days of being overwhelmed with everything that needs doing and the thought of having to do everything myself. I should barrow some of the heap of road planings down the lane to fill the pot-holes and I want to move all the stuff from one of the big compost bins down to where I've got all the grass cuttings from last year and mix it all in.
Just thinking about those jobs and all the other things that need doing made me feel so tired that I ended up doing nothing much all day except a 20 minute walk, reading and watching too much day time TV!
On days when I feel like this I can quite see the attraction of moving somewhere easier but then when the sun shines and everywhere is quiet and peaceful I don't know where I'd want to go.



 This week I'm grateful for

• Less windy weather
• Help from BiL to do things I couldn't manage myself
• Yellow tulips

Hope you all have a good weekend
I'll be back Monday, hopefully with more energy than Thursday and Friday.

Sue

The WI in March

At big WI we found out all about journaling, I thought this was much like scrap-booking but I was wrong. It seems a bit more adventurous, using paints and making little books and envelopes to go inside the journal.

The lady had started journaling as a relaxation after retiring from primary school teaching. She bought several journals along, so we could see how she made them and she also brought a couple of others made by primary school children and members of the journaling group she runs at her house.

They looked interesting and would be a good way to use up all my craft stuff but  I don't think I have enough hours in the day unless I was to stop blogging!

Coffee and cakes as always were delicious.


At small  WI a lady came to talk to us about her father, now in his 90s he was a Bevin Boy during the war. She has done this talk many times so was very fluent.

He was a Suffolk boy born in a village near Hadleigh and had rarely left the county but when he was 18 in 1943 he was called up to be a miner. He'd been in the Army Cadets and had hoped to be called up for the Army but he was the 1 in 10 young men who went down the mines.

The government had failed to make mining a reserved occupation early in WWII so many young men who were miners left as soon as possible to join up ........although mining might have been a family tradition for decades there were not many people who actually loved the job. Of course after a few years of war and older miners retired there was a huge need for coal to keep factories running and a drastic shortage of miners, hence the ballot where 1 in every 10 men were ordered to serve as miners. There was no getting out of it what ever your background or class and it must have been a huge shock for so many 18 year olds.

Her father was sent off to the the Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire border collieries where they had 4 weeks training before starting work underground in the awful conditions of the time.

One of the sad things about these men was that their war work was never recognised. They were civilians and had no uniform, so when on leave were often shouted at for not doing their bit for the war effort. The pay was bad, less than the equivalent for the armed forces. After war ended they were not allowed to leave the mines for another 2 or 3 years, there was no organisation to recognise their work, the British Legion wanted nothing to do with them as they weren't in uniform and when mining was Nationalised all the records were destroyed. For 50 years they campaigned to be allowed  to parade at the Remembrance Day Cenotaph service and were finally allowed just a few years ago. There was also no memorial to those who had died while working in the pits but this too has recently been rectified and is part of the National Memorial Arboretum.

The speaker had thought about writing a book about her father but decided instead to spread the word through talking to groups. There are only a few Bevin Boys still alive, all in their 90's but the Association carries on, to collect and store information and to keep the memories of these young men alive.

In 1943 this country faced a crisis in coal production as there was only three weeks of coal stock available. This put the country’s ability to win the Second World War in jeopardy.
The then Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, charged Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour and National Service to increase coal production.
Mr Bevin decided that from all 18 to 24 year old men conscripts drafted to serve in the armed forces one in ten were to be directed – on pain of imprisonment and irrespective of background or ability - to work underground in British coal mines.
Approximately 48,000 Bevin Boys (as they came to be known) undertook unskilled manual jobs to release more experienced miners to move on to coal production at the coal face.
The role played by Bevin Boys should not be lost to history



There is much more about The Bevin Boys HERE

 It was a fascinating talk followed by coffee and cakes again.


Back Tomorrow
Sue

The Fourth Drawer Down

The fourth drawer down of my "dresser" was very heavy to open. Time to have a sort out.

Blimey, its a wonder the bottom of the drawer hadn't fallen out

 I unpacked the drawer and in it I found

• Nearly a dozen various screwdrivers
• A huge box full of various screws and other bits
• A Huge adjustable spanner - too heavy to hold let alone use!
• A small adjustable spanner
• A couple of small spanners
• 2 penknives
• 3 tape measures
• A tin full of drill bits
• 2 rolls of parcel tape
• A roll of duct tape
• 3 rolls of some sort of other tape - electrical?
• A sat nav given to me ages ago that I've still not used
• 9 hooks that fit on a picture rail -  but there is no picture rail here
• A roll of sellotape
• A box full of keys - for what?
• 4 padlocks with keys attached
• A padlock with no keys
• Some pads that go on the bottom of chair legs
• Odd electrical bits supposedly for the conservatory heater
• A heavy thing that I think is a towing loop?
• My little hammer that I used to use with the corking tool when I made wine
• PLUS random other odds and ends

It's tidier and weighs less now............ quite a few things went into the bin including the Phillips screwdriver that's lost its point! The massive spanner is in the garage and lots of things have gone into the car-boot box. And I will learn how the sat-nav works sometime soon.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Spring

In the Northern Hemisphere the Vernal or  Spring Equinox happens today and at 21.58, according to my diary, astronomically Spring begins. The word vernal comes from the Latin vernare, meaning to bloom.
This book was donated to the charity shop this week and I snapped it up because of the illustrations.

This is the page for the Spring Equinox, showing the wheel of the year

 Ostara  was the pagan festival celebrating Eostre, a Saxon goddess and gives us the words East and Easter. She is often depicted as having a hare's head on a human body.

The Year's at the spring,

And day's at the morn;

Morning's at seven;

The hill-side's dew-pearl'd;

The lark's on the wing;

The snail's on the thorn;

God's in His heaven.......

All's right with the world!

Robert Browning 

To welcome spring I have these lovely tulips....................... a draw prize win at small WI.

If you choose  the flowers and vase (a horrible metal thing.....ooops controversial! - prefer my jug!) for your draw prize there is a catch, as I now have to take the vase back with flowers for a draw prize at next months meeting!

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Treasure in Debenham?

The National Trust Anglo Saxon Burial Ship site at Sutton Hoo near Woodbridge has been shut all winter for "an exciting transformation". It was  certainly needed because how things were arranged before was pretty boring considering the uniqueness of this site.

Over the last month volunteers from Sutton Hoo have been touring Suffolk  with some of the artifacts (actually copies as the originals are in the British Museum) and information about how the new displays will look when it re-opens.

.

As they were just down the road in Debenham Primary School on Saturday I thought I would pop down to have a look and to find out if they would be open again before my Membership runs out in July!

They didn't really have a lot to look at.........a few craft activities for children and some boards with artists impressions of the new entrance.
 The large metal representation of the helmet that was previously up high over the doorway will be down at eye-level........... much better. On the right of this artists impression you can see what will be a huge metal sculpture copying the remains of wooden ship which the archaeologists found in the original dig.

Below is the artists impression of the viewing tower which will be built to give a fantastic view of the whole burial site. I wondered how they would blend this in but is to be timber clad on three sides.

These are the copies of the treasures that were found in the ship burial, the amazing helmet

The solid gold belt buckle

And this beautiful shoulder clasp

All this skill and wealth in what we know as The Dark Ages!


This is what The British Museum says about the ship burial

In 1939 Mrs Edith Pretty, a landowner at Sutton Hoo, Suffolk, asked archaeologist Basil Brown to investigate the largest of several Anglo-Saxon burial mounds on her property. Inside, he made one of the most spectacular archaeological discoveries of all time.
Beneath the mound was the imprint of a 27-metre-long ship. At its centre was a ruined burial chamber packed with treasures: Byzantine silverware, sumptuous gold jewellery, a lavish feasting set, and most famously, an ornate iron helmet. Dating to the early AD 600s, this outstanding burial clearly commemorated a leading figure of East Anglia, the local Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It may even have belonged to a king.
The Sutton Hoo ship burial provides remarkable insights into early Anglo-Saxon England. It reveals a place of exquisite craftsmanship and extensive international connections, spanning Europe and beyond. It also shows that the world of great halls, glittering treasures and formidable warriors described in Anglo-Saxon poetry was not a myth.

They are going to be open in the summer but not all the work will be finished. I'll  go and have a look before my membership runs out but the Grand Re-opening is not until September.


Back Tomorrow
Sue

PS. Did you know there is only one factory in the whole country making dried pasta? No I didn't either until yesterdays local news...........it's in Norwich. They are making more than usual...... Just In Case, but their flour comes from the France but don't have a pasta panic as they have 6 months of flour in storage in Gt Yarmouth.

Never Before Seen on This Blog............

...............A Film Review!

I took myself down to Stowmarket Regal to see All is True.



In 1613 a cannon used in the Shakespeare play Henry VIII at his Globe Theatre misfires and the Theatre burns to the ground. Devastated, Shakespeare returns to Stratford where his family have been much neglected by him.

The film imagines the last 3 years of his life, including the truth of his son Hamnet's death at the age of 11; the reason for leaving his "second best bed" to Anne; who his sonnets were really written for and about and the reason for his death in 1616.

It isn't filmed in black and white, or foreign with subtitles and the subject is certainly unfashionable
but as Kenneth Brannagh directs and stars as Shakespeare (with large false nose!) and Judy Dench is Anne and these two can surely pick and choose whatever they want to do they must have thought it better than some of the reviews it has had.

It is written by Ben Elton and there are several little reminders of his brilliant TV series Upstart Crow.

I enjoyed it in a quiet sort of way and also enjoyed being back in The Regal. Apart from going there with small WI last year to see Mamma Mia, Here We Go Again I think the last time I went to the cinema was to see Crocodile Dundee in 1986!.......... Colin wasn't a great film fan and there was no spare money anyway.
Back in the day........when I was 14 and 15............... I used to go to The Regal every Saturday night (3 shillings down the front!)with friends or whichever boyfriend, no one bothered what the film was, it was all about being out and about and being seen out and about! I'll be a bit more choosy now and you won't find me there watching anything weird, arty or nasty.

 ***************

The weather forecast for IP14  looks much better this week - less wind and dryer too. The BBC online forecast says " gentle/moderate breeze" rather than "strong winds".......... thank goodness. I was getting quite fed up with the continuous blowing and having to prop the garage door up to keep it open to get the car out.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

All of a Sudden We Are..................

...........................halfway through March

When I was out last Sunday a little orange spanner symbol appeared on the dashboard- Bother. I rang the repair place and took the car round on Monday and luckily it was nothing, or rather nothing to worry about, just something to do with settings from new, showing when it's due for service......which has already been done. NOTE TO SELF..........when this happens in March next year I have to hold down throttle and brake pedals together for 20 seconds to clear the prompt signal.

It was so cold and windy this week that I wimped out of swimming, stayed at home and sorted through some more craft bits instead. And, on a whim, decided to make some Easter cards. The only Easter-ish bits I had were some small "Happy Easter" peel off stickers.But what I did have - from the 2018 car boot haul -were some big square peel offs that I'd kept even though I wasn't sure when I'd use them.

 Inspired by stained glass in all the churches that I've been visiting I got out the fine-line felt-pens

Colouring in all the little spaces was quite therapeutic.


This week I am grateful for

• My wonderful children and grandchildren
• The ease of printing out photos to keep 
• An invitation to  roast dinner with my brother in law and sister in law
• The car problem that wasn't a problem after all
• Letters from penfriends
• Finding out that if I knock 1mm of car wing mirror on the garage door and it falls to bits then I can click it back together again! Another  NOTE TO SELF.... probably not a good idea to try this again!

Thank you to everyone for comments over the week, I just don't seem to have time to get around to replying, which must be annoying for everyone - sorry.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend, wherever you are and what ever the weather.........the forecast is awful more windy weather, rain and snow in some places.

Back Monday
Sue

The March Library Book Haul

4 weeks and it's library van visit again...........time flies when you have good book to read. Trouble is I've got rather too many!

This month I collected this lot, all ordered online and by chance all arriving at the same time.

The book at the bottom of the heap is something I saw mentioned well over a year ago, it must have been published late to have taken this long to arrive. There are as always lots of crime fiction including Yippee Do! the new Rory Clements, the new Kate Ellis and best of all the new Elly Griffiths. There are a few here by authors I've not read before. Also a couple more non fiction including the intriguingly named "The Real Witches Garden" and "Red Rag to a Bull" subtitled Rural life in an urban age.
I'll let you know how I get on with them all.


I took back some of the fiction and  non fiction from last month's haul.

I've read Mrs Tim of the Regiment, Toll the Bell for Murder and Spring Magic. Currently reading The Year of the Gun. After just glancing at the Economical Environmentalist, and Better than Before I knew I wouldn't bother to read. I've kept the rest with every intention of actually getting into them.
Books I've read have been added to the separate Books Read 2019 page.

Which means I have  22  library books here at the moment! This is quite an achievement because we are only supposed to have 20 at a time..........good thing the library man can over ride the system.

If I disappear it will be because I've been buried under a heap of falling library books.........just like something out of  one of the crime novels!

Back Tomorrow............. I hope
Sue

More from Bury St Edmunds

More of storm Gareth passing by made the weather very rough yesterday. A car ahead of me had to swerve to avoid a man on a little moped or scooter as he was blown sideways out into the road. At home I found  a small pollarded willow down across the ditch. I'll need to try and haul all the branches back to my side of the ditch - although that's a job that will have to wait until things calm down a bit. It means more wood for cutting when Col's brother brings his chainsaw round.


A few more photos from Bury St Edmunds..............last week when the weather was so much better.

In the Abbey Gardens there are  a few bits of the huge Abbey that once stood here.

The River Lark runs along the edge of the Abbey Gardens and a Little Egret was padding about in the shallows under

the Abbots bridge

and a close up

Amazing to think the River was once naviagable all the way from The Wash in Norfolk right into Bury St Edmunds..... Information HERE

Now it's just a shallow stream

In the town I remembered to take a photo of this building, The Grade 1, 17th Century Cupula House. Recently rebuilt after a huge fire swept through the building in 2012

  The Cupula on top is quite unusual and the rebuild is beautiful. It's now available To Let and was used before the fire as a restaurant and before that as a hotel.

After charity shops and before the walk down to the church just had to stop for refreshment in Greggs and tried the vegan 'sausage' roll which has had good reviews - a bit tasteless I thought. I'll stick to chocolate doughnuts in future ;-)

Thank you for lots of comments yesterday. It's fun to be known as the Nanna who brings books and cakes, although madam was in quite a grumpy mood when I saw her and didn't even want the new book read........... The terrible twos!

Back Tomorrow
Sue