I hope I've not moaned too much in blogland about the silly delays in this house move. Have to look at it this way.................................
IF
I hadn't decided to sell at all I could have stayed at the cottage and spent many thousands of £'s on a new sewer system within the next year, probably a new boiler very soon, contributed to resurfacing the lane again and heavens knows what it would have cost if the water main up the lane had needed replacing.
IF
I hadn't decided to move out to rent to make sure I didn't lose my purchasers (who had offered more than I was expecting to sell for) I could have still been living in among all the boxes waiting for exchange and completion and being nagged by them to hurry up and risking all or any of the above, which might have happened and put them off buying or made them reduce their offer.
IF
I'd not gone to look at the site of the new-build in my Son's village (which was my original idea) I wouldn't have known about the huge trees at the back and the shade over all the garden and I'd have still been renting somewhere anyway as those houses are still not finished. Plus I'm not sure I'd have enjoyed living on the edge of a new estate with all the traffic for 70+ houses going by everyday and a village that is increasing in size by the minute.
IF
I'd have known about the delays involved due to the Equity Release company's loan on the bungalow, I still would have gone ahead as the bungalow will suit me fine and other things that are for sale are either too big/small/expensive.
and of course IF Colin hadn't got ill and died we might still be at the smallholding!
Who knows?
That word IF is a funny ol' word.
and finally IF all goes to plan then bungalow purchase will complete next week. At last!
Thanks for comments about the second vaccination yesterday. The lady said a lot of people have had more side effects after the second. By chance DiL's appointment was cancelled so if I feel grotty today I can stay at "home" and if I don't I can go and visit them anyway.
************
I didn't know most of my clothes were going to be in store for 9+ weeks so didn't bring everything on my journeys around holiday lets.
Luckily the weather has been chilly most of the time so it's been OK for the few pairs of leggings I packed but wearing, washing, wearing, washing has made the elastic go a bit baggy(they were many years old already!)........and guess where my sewing box is? Yep in storage - all except this little sewing kit which happened to get chucked into a bag with lots of other things from my coffee table drawer.
I didn't want to pay full price for sewing things from the Sewing shop in town because I've got
enough already so I searched the charity shops and found a reel of black
cotton for 50p and the stall on the market had elastic by the metre so I
spent 32p there.
I'll turn the waistband over and thread new elastic through and mend some tiny holes that have appeared.
Saved me buying some new leggings. I like Make Do and Mend!
I got a text message calling me in for my second vaccination today........ 3 days earlier than originally planned. They are really getting them done quickly. Eldest daughter 41 in Surrey was called for her 1st but as she is pregnant it's been put on hold for a while.
Youngest daughter who is 33 and lives over by the Suffolk coast was given a date for her 1st. She uses Facebook quite a lot and said she would have to decide for or against now it's been offered. Several of her Facebook friends said "why wouldn't you?" - and her reply was she didn't want to become a zombie when the apocalypse comes!............I think she was joking!
I had absolutely no side effects with my first covid vac. so hoping the same with the second, especially as I'm doing a bit of Nanna duty tomorrow morning for my two littlest, nearest grandchildren.
11 books read already this month and there are still a few days left. Once I got to the caravan which didn't have a smart TV so I couldn't watch anymore of the Inspector Montalbano I seem to have whipped through books at a great rate.
All have been good because if they weren't I wouldn't finish them, most have been crime.
Here we go - copied from my Books Read 2021 page.
Nap Lombard - Murder's a Swine. Crime Fiction(British
Library Crime Classic 2021. Originally Published 1943). This is a witty,
lighthearted murder set in London in the early years of WWII before
bombing started. It reminded me of Agatha Christie's Tommy and Tuppence
mysteries. Nap Lombard was a pseudonym of Pamela Hansford Johnson and
her then husband Gorden Neil Stewart who both served as Air Raid Wardens
and this book starts with the discovery of a body behind sandbags in an
air raid shelter.
Chris Nickson - To The Dark. Crime
Fiction. (Published 2020)All of this authors books are set in Leeds but
in different periods. This is the 3rd featuring thief-taker Simon
Westlow during the 1820's. The city is in the grip of winter, but the
chill deepens for
Simon and his young assistant, Jane, when the body of Laurence
Poole, a petty local thief, emerges from the melting snow by the river
at Flay Cross Mill.
Julie Wassmer - Murder on
the Downs. Crime Fiction. (Published 2020). The 7th in the Whitstable
Pearl series. A controversial new property development is planned in
Whitstable which
will encroach upon the green open space of the downs. A campaign starts
to stop the development but soon one person is dead. A Very Quick Read!
Mike Hollow -
The Custom House Murder. Crime Fiction (Published 2017 and re-named and
re-published in 2020) September 1940 and a month into the London Blitz
this is the 3rd in a series featuring DI John Jago.
Robin Blake
- Secret Mischief. Crime Fiction (Published 2021). This is the 7th in a
series of historical crime fiction set in the early 18C in Lancashire
around the Preston area. It features the coroner for the area Titus
Cragg and his friend Dr. Luke Fidelis . This story centres around a
Tontine which is a way of leaving money to the "last man standing" from a
group of friends.
Anne Hart - Miss Marple; The Life and
Times of Miss Jane Marple. Fictional Biography. (Published 1986). Using
all the Agatha Christie short and longer stories featuring Miss Marple,
Anne Hart collects together all the pieces of information to provide a
'biography' of the crime solving sleuth. A small book - quickly read.
Barbara Whitton - Green
Hands. Fiction. (And IWM reprint 2020. Originally published 1943) This
fictional account of two Land Girls working hard on farms in 1943. The
author worked as a Land Girl in 1939.
Mike Hollow - The Stratford Murder. Crime Fiction (Published as Firing Line in 2018. Renamed and re-printed in 2020). The 4th in a series set in The London Blitz and featuring DI John Jago.
Elizabeth Fair -
Seaview House. Fiction. ( A Furrowed Middlebrow reprint 2017.
Originally Published 1955). Her books are always described as comedies of
domestic life. This one is set in a seaside boarding house. A gentle
easy read.
John Coates - Patience. Fiction. ( Persephone
reprint 2012. Originally published 1953). This book was banned in
Ireland when it was first published. It's the story of a Catholic girl married to a man 15 years her
senior who believes all there is to life is babies and being a good
wife who feeds her husband and submits to his attention. Then she meets
Phillip and suddenly she falls in love which is very complicated -
involving Sin. This is a lovely happy but sad story. Maureen Lipman
wrote a preface in 2012 and said she hoped Persephone would reprint more of
Coates writing but so far they haven't.
Jane Johnson - The Sea Gate. Fiction. (Published 2020) Mentioned
on a blog, this is one of those books that has past and present. In the
present Rebecca is recovering from cancer when her mother dies and on
clearing the house she finds some letters to her mother from Olivia, an
elderly cousin in Cornwall who needs help with house repairs to enable
her to be allowed home from hospital. In the past Olivia is 16 and
abandoned in Cornwall by her mother in the middle of WWII. A well
written book with an interesting story of family secrets kept for far
too long.
Thank goodness for birthday present books, library books and books found in charity shops! What would I have done for the last 7 weeks without them.
Now I'm back with a smart TV to watch I shall finish the rest of Inspector Montalbano and have a look at the early series of Silent Witness which I didn't watch first time round.
You know all those sayings about not doing a supermarket shop when you are hungry? Well perhaps it should be applied to me and car boot sales too. Although I always go early before breakfast, I'm not always living with just what will fit in my car.
After arriving last week at about 7.30 and finding it already very busy I made an effort to get up even earlier and strolled across the site to arrive well before 7.
Somehow all this lot was bought before breakfast and regretted afterwards!
A big fat Martha Stewart craft book, the bundle of peel-off labels and the picture of Stowmarket Market place were £1 each and the new tin of Derwent Inktense crayons were £2.
Actually only the picture was regretted, I thought it was an original water colour by someone I'd not heard of because it had a sticker on the back for Stowmarket Framing but it turns out to be a print by a now deceased artist called Martin Goode who has masses of prints for sale online, pictures of everywhere in the country.....extremely prolific..... and quite expensive. I think I'll take it out of its big frame and pop it in something smaller. I'd love to have a picture wall like John in Wales, small pictures gathered together rather than spread out around the walls.
When I get to my bungalow and get organised my office/crafting space will be at one end of my bedroom with a window looking out the front which, from previous experience, I'll feel more comfortable using. I've never enjoyed crafting when tucked away in a room upstairs. So maybe card-making will be a thing again - I didn't clear out everything.
I'm moving out of the caravan today and back to the bungalow I was in for 5 weeks before the 2 weeks here.
Before I leave someone said they wanted a picture of said caravan..........here it is. Access road and tall hedge in front, tall fence and more caravans behind, tall hedge and main access to the rest of the caravan site on the left and next caravan on the right so not a picturesque setting! But it's been warm and comfortable and not far from "home".
I'm glad the whole two weeks weren't as noisy as yesterday, because there was a 'custom' car show on the showground, huge souped-up engines revving and loud music! Every Thursday evening through the summer they have a Motorcycle Meet which involves 50 - 100 loud bikes running through the village onto the showground and out again later. One reason the local people aren't quite as fond of the expansion of the Leisure and Retail park as the owners and visitors!
£2 spent while I was in Stowmarket will fill up some more of my waiting hours and cheered me up considerably!
The East Anglian Daily Times had a stall on the market with their bargain offer of EADT and Ipswich Star Newspapers plus a bottle of water, bag of popcorn and packet of crisps for £1. Then the Barnardo's charity shop had these as-new Persephone books for 50p each.
The Thursday EADT has extra puzzle pages and would normally be 90p which means all the other things were 10p. The books are Greenbanks by Dorothy Whipple and Patience by John Coates. (one of their few books by male authors)Somewhere in the last couple of years I lost the little book I had in my bag with it's list of all the Persephone books read/owned so it was annoying to find when I got back to the caravan and looked in my book-of-books-read I'd read Greenbanks but no idea if it's in a box in store and I can't remember reading it anyway. I've not read the other one.
In 2019 I saw some Persephone books at the Stowmarket Oxfam shop(only
bought one), so there must be someone in Stowmarket who buys or gets
given these brand new. They even still have their bookmarks.
If you don't know about Persephone Books, HERE is a post I wrote a few years ago and THIS
is a link to their website. From which I see they are moving their shop from London down to Bath and not publishing any new books in April like they usually do.
There's a couple of photos of photos that have been on my camera for a year and as it's St George's Day today it's time to let them out into the daylight.
I'm going to share on the local Facebook page too.
The photos show Bacton Scouts and Cub Scouts starting to parade from Milton Road Car Park to Stowmarket church in ? (I'm not sure - possibly 1983?)We are the group wearing the half and half Emerald and Gold scarves.
Colin is one of the Scout leaders and two of the others are also deceased - older than Colin. I'm walking behind "my Cubs" - looks like it was a very poor turnout that Sunday in April all those years ago.
Although parading through the town was fun - with the streets lined with parents and a band playing at the front - the service in Church wasn't my favourite part of Scouting!
This is what I got from my solicitor yesterday, part of the email from the bungalow owner's solicitor
Dear Sue
Extract of email which I have received from the sellers’ conveyancers:-
Good morning
It
is very much down to the lenders solicitors giving final sign off – it
is taking a ridiculously long time for them to do so, I cannot disagree
with that, but I’m afraid we all have to wait for them to get the job
done.
My
client is calling me every few days, so please reassure your client
that the delay is not down to any reluctance to proceed on my clients
part.
Last week an email popped up to tell me about the first Rural and Domestic Bygones sale for this year. Brilliant - a chance to get out and look round at last.
The online catalogue listed over 1,000 lots, including many rusty farm type things but some more interesting items so I went to the preview to have a look, taking my camera of course. It was such a treat to have a reason to be driving through the Suffolk countryside after so long.
There were 4 huge dolls houses, which were described at "electrified" which amused me. I thought I'd taken pictures of all four but for some reason the camera didn't. They were estimated at £200 - £300 each - so not childrens toys. Along with the dolls houses were everything you could possible need for fitting them out, all divided into separate lots and estimated at £30 - £50 for each lot. So think £1,000 easily!
Who on earth had a huge collection of weighing scales? From kitchen to butchers and from postal to baby weighing, every sort of scales were here. Who will buy them all. I can see one or two sets might be interesting but 100?
This would look magnificent in a big garden and there is a smaller one too
I loved this toy theatre in a display case
No keen on stuffed birds but they sell well in good condition - the roof-lights are the reflection
And finally two handsome carts
Nothing I would want to buy this time.
They've got two more of these sales later in the year to look forward.
I strolled across the Stonham Barns Leisure and Retail Centre site from my temporary caravan home to the car boot sale and despite going straight there after getting up and dressed it was already really busy.......and very cold. Like last year the cars were spread out with a one-way walking round system.
There was tons of 'stuff' but all I found were 3 pretty birthday cards for £1.
Then I went back to the caravan for breakfast and as it was still only 9.15 decided to stroll back for another look round and by the time everywhere had been searched again the ice-cream van had arrived so I treated myself to the first of the year whippy 99. Felt a bit early in the day for an ice cream but it was very good.
..................... but not necessarily wiser and thankfully not deeper in debt as one old song says.
Thank you to everyone who wished me Happy Birthday yesterday. I was trying to keep it a secret!
As I share my birthday with my youngest granddaughter....she's 3........ I'm ancient.......yesterday morning we met up for cake and present opening.
By the time my next birthday comes round I will have gained another grandchild as Eldest Daughter in Surrey is due to produce a little brother or sister for 5 year old Jacob in September. Something else to look forward to. That will be five Grandchildren under 6 years old - what fun! I can imagine chaos when they are all between 6 and 12 and visit all at once.
With all those birthday and Christmas presents I'm glad I'm now old enough for my State Pension! According to the website everyone should get a letter but I didn't and with all the moving and address changes it didn't seem to worth chasing up beforehand so that will be on the job list if ever I get moved.
Talking of which, at one point during the week - Monday- I thought it was actually going to happen by the end of next week. Then on Tuesday I got a copy of the email from the sellers solicitor which said it would be at least 14 working days from this week - so not counting weekends that goes right into May! (7 days for the Equity Release company to stamp forms ? and 7 more days for money draw-down?). So guess what, I've booked another 2 weeks in limbo after the next week here in the caravan.....I'm going back to the bungalow where I was before - luckily it wasn't booked. (By the way, the sellers solicitors are going to be reported to someone(ombudsman/governing body?) for failing to respond properly to phone calls and messages).
Wish I'd have known how long it was going to take when I first thought about selling before the buying date was agreed - never dreamed it would be 9 weeks - with even that not being a definite.
Would you believe sometimes I feel I'm slowly losing the will to live!
But making an effort to look on the bright side.........................................
This week I have been grateful for
Somewhere to live until May 10th
2 swimming sessions - so good to get back in the pool.
Lovely birthday presents and cards from the family
Some fine weather even though it's been a tad chilly
As mentioned last week I'm now staying in a caravan on a Leisure and Retail Village Complex at Stonham Barns. The caravan is................just a caravan........very beige and plasticy. The double bed is squeezed into a Very Small bedroom which involves siddling in and out carefully to avoid stubbing toes on the frame but the heating is warm - thank goodness - as there have been some minus temperatures in the mornings and frost on the car windscreen.
I'm just across the road from the Suffolk Owl Sanctuary and Nature Centre............. do you know what some owls do at night?..they hoot............a lot!
Also on site are 2 fishing lakes, surrounded by wooden holiday lodges, a campsite, a children's indoor play centre (not allowed to open yet), A Wedding Barn (where they hold the Potato Day each February) a golf complex with everything except an 18 hole course, a showground (where we used to hold the Suffolk Smallholders Show) The Teapot Pottery, several shop units including the village Post Office, a small theatre, a garden centre, a hot tub show-room........brrrrr! and several other attractions including a hairdresser's where I shall get a much needed hair cut next week.
And all this above began way back in the very early 80s with a company who started to make and sell their own jams from fruit grown on the site........just a small farm shop then it has grown and grown. The orchards have long gone and all through the last 40 years the local people have moaned about how the place has grown and taken over so much land that was once farm land although everyone was glad when the Post Office moved there.
But the thing here that I like best of all is it's the site of the car-boot sale that I used to visit every Sunday from the cottage. Then I was 4 miles away, when I move to the bungalow it will be 4½ miles but when boot-sales start again this Sunday I shall be just a few minutes walk away....what a treat!.
Spotted this plaque when I walked round the old cemetery in Stowmarket , it's a fairly new addition so I looked on line and found it was placed herein 2013....142 years after the event.
Look at the ages of some of those killed, presumably young factory workers.
Googling further.......this good report was on a site called "Burials and Beyond" . I'm sure they won't mind me copying it here.
Seemingly every town has a public plaque or memorial to an old
industrial tragedy or huge loss of life, the likes of which would have
been prevented today. Large-scale industrial accidents were commonplace
in the 19thcentury. In an environment with few safety laws
(for protecting the workers, not the product), the use of child labour
and little understanding of long-term health effects, being
working-class was a deadly profession in itself.
In 1898, in the cotton textile industry alone, there were a recorded 7
explosions, 279 falls, 530 burns or injuries from hand tools and over
2,300 non-specified injuries from machines.[1]
In cotton factories, a humid atmosphere was necessary to make the
fibres pliable enough to twist into thread, but also resulted in clouds
of dust and airborne particles that seriously affected the lungs of
workers, but also proved to be dangerously flammable. In the
newly-industrialised cotton factories, the – primarily female –
workforce often lost fingers, broke bones and crushed limbs. Due to
low-hanging belts of machinery, many women had their hair pulled into
the mechanisms, scalping them instantly.
Image courtesy of the Stowmarket Local History Group
Guncotton is a mild explosive, used in a variety of ways, from usage
in rockets to leather finishing, ink bases and early plastics. To create
guncotton, clean cotton is broken down and mixed with nitric and
sulfuric acid. Understandably, Victorian guncotton factories were
accidents waiting to happen.
The Stowmarket Guncotton Explosion occurred on a Friday afternoon, on 11thAugust
1871. The explosion killed 28 and injured a further 70. Many of the
victims were young people and nine of the dead were children:
‘12-year-olds Alfred Bloom, Mary
Mount, Alice Mutimer and Susan Wilding; 13-year-olds Amy Hare and John
Girling; 14-year-olds Francis Mayhew and William Parker and 15-year-old
James Thomas.’[2]
At the time, the death toll was played down and the true cause
(whether accidental or intentional) of the explosion, has never been
established. The victims of the explosion and their families never
received the closure or acknowledgement they deserved. It took until
2013, 142 years later, for 23 of the deceased to be commemorated on a
cemetery plaque. The memorial only records the 23 people buried within
Stowmarket Old Cemetery, not the 5 other fatalities who were buried in
their respective parishes. While we can be appreciative of the
fundraising and efforts of Stowmarket History Group, to (presumably,
accidentally) exclude others on the basis of the location of their
remains seems a great shame and does a disservice to the suffering of so
many in the industrial workhouse. A problem facing such memorials could
be seen to apply to the Stowmarket tragedy – both Director Edward Henry
Prentice (33) and William Ridley Prentice (23) were killed in the
blast. Although no culpability was officially found in the Prentice
family, their status in relation to the workers, the working conditions
they provided and their family’s lack of recompense to the survivors and
victims’ families presents a moral quandary; especially in terms of
public memorialisation.
The ‘Stowmarket Guncotton Explosion’ was in fact two large
explosions, that ripped through the Prentice’s Guncotton Factory in
Stowmarket, Suffolk. The explosions were so incredibly loud that the
sound rattled the windows of houses thirty miles away. The nearby
railway line was completely ripped from the ground and over 188 cases of
deafness were reported.
The first explosion was recorded at 2.05pm when three magazines
containing 14 tonnes of guncotton exploded, killing twelve people.
Subverting the ‘heartless factory owner’ trope, Edward and William
rushed to rescue workers who were trapped in burning buildings but were
subsequently killed in the second explosion.
The cause of the explosions remains a point of contention. They may
have been sulphuric acid willingly added to the product, the combustion
of several tonnes of guncotton due to the summer heat or simply a tragic
result of poor health and safety. Whether it was a wilful or accidental
act was unclear at the time and suspicions were rife. The British
Government issued a reward for £100 for any information, yet no leads
came forwards and the reward is still unclaimed.
Suffolk chief constable Heigham issued a notice that:
“The reward (of £100) will be paid
by Her Majesty’s Government to any person who shall give such
information as shall lead to the Discovery and Conviction of the
Perpetrator or Perpetrators of this Outrage.
“A FREE PARDON will be granted to
any Accomplice, not being the actual Offender, who shall give such
information as shall lead to a like result.”[3]
Guncotton was intended as a safer and more efficiently-produced
alternative to gunpowder, yet its production methods proved to be far
more dangerous than its competitors. In October 1914, another Stowmarket
building (used for processing raw cotton) caught fire and illuminated
the town, yet thankfully there were no fatalities. The business of
guncotton proved lucrative well into the 20thcentury,
produced in Stowmarket alone well into 1942. Prentice’s Guncotton
Factory rebranded twice before landing on New Explosives Ltd and were
successful until the introduction of foreign imports forced them to
merge with other companies.
The inquest for the 1871 explosions lasted almost a month, with the jury verdict reading that.
“We find the explosion was produced
by some person or persons unknown adding sulphuric acid to the gun
cotton subsequent to its passing all tests required by Government.”
Although I knew about the tragedy, I didn't know about the memorial so it was good to discover it and find out more.
Also interesting to see that the surnames on the plaque are all names that are still common in the area now.
Filled an hour last week looking around the cemeteries in Stowmarket.
I decided go and have another search for my Grandad and Grandma's grave
(on Mum's side of family) . My Grandad died in around 1967 and Grandma in 1988 and I know I went to Grandmas burial. In 2017 Col and I went there when we first
moved back to Mid Suffolk to look for the grave but despite walking up and down then and
again last week I still couldn't find it but I do now have the phone number
of someone from the council who has records of where people are buried
so will try again sometime.
I had no trouble finding this little grave of the Uncle I never knew as he died in 1949 at aged just 4, six years before I was born. His name was also Colin and he had Leukemia, no treatments for that in those days. When I was little we often walked here from my Grandmas house to put flowers on the grave.
And at the same time we would put flowers on the grave of the Dad I never knew, killed in a motorcycle accident months before I was born.
Just a little way from my Dad's grave is the grave of his mother, my Gran who died in 1956 when I was only a few months old. So it really is a cemetery with many family graves. .
The old cemetery is across the road
from the part where my relatives are buried but we used to take a short cut through it on the way to the newer bit. This older part was opened in 1855 but abandoned and closed in 1901 and I'd not been for 60 years at a guess. It's now maintained by the town council as a urban wildlife area. There was no one about when I looked round except several robins and blackbirds
I knew there was one old chapel in the grounds but surprised to find there are two.... wonder why?
This plaque is on one of the chapels.
Virtually identical chapels
The biggest, most elaborate grave, now almost hidden under ivy. It's for members of the Prentice family, who get another mention in tomorrows post.
I'm blaming my new obsession with Inspector Montalabano and then his younger version. There's no way I can read a book and subtitles on the TV too.
These reservations were ready at Debenham library for me to pick up on Saturday.
Mike Hollow is an author I discovered at the end of last year when I read The Blitz Detective, the first in a series that were originally published in 2015/6 but then reprinted with new jackets in 2020. The two above are numbers 3 and 4 in the series as oddly the library don't have the 2nd. I don't think it will matter as they are individual stories. From Fantastic Fiction I found that he has two more being published this year.
The book by Julie Wassmer is the 7th in the Whitstable Pearl series set in that town on the north Kent coast. Pearl splits her time between her sea-food restaurant and being a private investigator.
At the bottom of the pile is another book about sustainability with ideas for ditching plastic etc, etc. I found I'd borrowed it before. It's quite basic, it will go straight back.
...................but two swimming sessions have been booked for next week.
I
must have had a premonition that I wouldn't be settled in the bungalow
by the time swimming pools re-opened because luckily I chucked my
swimming cossie in the bag to bring with me.
The
same protocols will be in place as when the pool was last open - which
means going in swimming costume and undressing top layers by pool
(thankfully we are allowed in the changing rooms to dry and dress!!),
lane swimming round and round and 50 minute sessions - although I'll
probably only manage about 20 minutes for the first time back.
As
there was still no news about exchange and completion by yesterday, I
booked a second week in the caravan. At least charity shops will have
re-opened so I can have some trips out to nearby towns for a bit of
treasure hunting to fill some waiting time. I walked by two charity
shops in Stowmarket last week. In the RSPCA shop there were staff in
getting ready to open on Monday. In the Oxfam shop next door they still
have all their Christmas decorations up and in the window. Surprising
that they hadn't organised someone to go and take them down to prepare
for re-opening at sometime over the last 3 months I thought to myself.
Sad
to hear about the death of Prince Phillip yesterday, but 99 is a good
age, more than a lot of other people are lucky to get!
It's
the Grand National on TV today, each year it brings back a tiny memory
of watching it once with my Grandad (Dad's side of family) and him drawing pictures of horses
for me. I don't know what else he could draw but he was very good at
houses and horses. We weren't a family who had close relationships with
Grandparents which is probably why I remember this. Hope no horses or
jockeys are injured or worse during the race, with a field of 40 horses
and all those jumps it's always a fear.
This week I am grateful for
Swimming sessions booked
Somewhere to live until the 26th April - just in case
Still plenty of books to read
Have a good weekend, I'll be back sometime next week.
Anyone who's lived in Suffolk for many years will recognise those initials straight away. Anyone who's lived in Norfolk for a long time will boo and hiss!
There has always been a rivalry between the Tractor Boys and the Canaries or Ipswich Town Football Club and Norwich City probably because they are the only professional football teams in each County. People who live in Suffolk "have" to support Ipswich even if they've never been to a match in their lives - like Col's Grandad who used to listen avidly to the radio for every match. Admittedly there are a few people who live in North Suffolk who blatantly cross the border and travel to Norwich matches at Carrow Road. Maybe there are people in Norfolk who come down to Portman Road although probably not at the moment as Norwich are about to be promoted from the Championship back to the Premiership (Top tier of English football) while Ipswich are struggling around the middle of League 1 (3rd tier) and nearly everyone has forgotten that once they won the FA Cup, the E.U.F.A Cup and were among the best in the country.
For the last 14 years Ipswich Town have been owned by a bloke who wouldn't even give an interview for TV or the press and they've struggled with umpteen managers and useless players. But they've now been bought by some Americans who own some Soccer clubs in the US.
There is great excitement in Suffolk! Hope they have plenty of money to buy some players who can actually score some goals.
Why am I bothered? Well once upon a time (Before Colin) I used to go to all the home matches and cheer and shout with 1000's of others and about 10 years before that I had a year or two of cutting all the match reports out of the paper to make a scrapbook after meeting the players one summer when they did a tour of villages.
And anyway I'm born and bred here so obliged to be a supporter!
I'm still waiting for a moving date. My next holiday let for the week beginning 12th is a caravan on a small Holiday and Leisure site in Mid Suffolk where I go for car boot sales.
It was a toss up between there and Felixstowe but I decided it would be better to stay close to everything rather than 25+ miles away, although being by the sea is more appealing.
Neither my solicitor or Mr and Mrs B (current owners of the bungalow) know what the hold-up is. I'm just hoping the chain hasn't been broken somewhere.
If things are still not sorted by the 19th then I shall be throwing myself off a cliff in despair!..........which will be difficult as we don't have many high cliffs in Suffolk. You have to laugh.
Yesterday was a Blogging Anniversary and this is a lazy way to fill a post!
4 April 2013 New blog on blogspot
Well, here I am on blogspot trying to write a new blog about a frugal
and simple life in Suffolk and getting very annoyed when I can't work
out how to do things right.
I obviously got the hang of it because a year later......2014..... I was
writing about the smallholding and the things I wanted to look out for
at car-boot salesHERE
Then on the 4th of April 2015, my post was about seedlings, Easter baking and opening the campsiteHERE
I didn't do a post on the 4/4/16 but on the 6th HERE I wrote about being home alone in the small bungalow and going with youngest for her scan......the first sight of Florence!
In 2017 we were at the cottage and the post was all about BOXES OF BOOKS. 25 boxes of books stacked in the corner
of the living room for several months while I dithered over spending
hard-earned savings on bookshelves.
This is my post from 4th April 2018
Because yesterday we had a rare occurrence..........no rain, a bit of
sun and not too much wind so for 15 minutes I opened the doors wide to
let the fresh air blow through. It felt lovely.
Then Col came in from outside and said "why are you letting all the heat out?" and shut them!
On the 4th April 2019 my post was one of the Suffolk Church visits HERE
It was Strange Times Week 3 for my 2020 Post See it Here
That's it for looking back .......................now onto my 9th year of blogging.
I'll be back when I have some news - not this week for sure.
(Editing in to say........ I have no idea why this post looks strange. It didn't in drafts)
Running out of days to stay at the holiday let and still no definite news of a completion on my purchase. Ho Hum.
It was a wasted journey to The Range on Thursday, hardly any curtains at all and what they did have were nearly all eye-let ones, made for going on a curtain pole. Isn't it funny how there are fashions in the way curtains are hung up. I remember something called Tab-Top...........not that I had any, but they don't exist at all now. I'll either have to order something online, wait until other shops open or maybe end up with several nights with no curtains at my bedroom windows, depending if I get in before or after April 12th.
I didn't bother to look around the whole shop so ended up being too early for a KFC.
The names that went in the 'hat' for the Richard Osman book were
Betty
Heather
Mrs G
Bovey Belle
potty
Victoria
Happy Hooker
Jo
Kathleen W
Julie King
Hazel C
JC
Apologies to Barbara Woods who asked to go in the draw but lives in the US and I had said UK only.
I wrote the names on slips of paper, shut my eyes and out came...............potty!
I've switched comments to hidden so you can send your address
This week I'm grateful for
One hot day to enjoy the sunshine
Puzzle pages from the local paper to keep my brain busy
Time with grandchildren
Have a good time over the rest of the Easter Weekend
I'll be back on Monday if there is something to write about
With not a lot to do here this blog is threatening to turn into a book blog. Books and TV are my time fillers at the moment and it's very frustrating!
But it is what it is and won't be forever.
Anyway back to Debenham library last Saturday to pick up some more requested books.
I shall take the cookery book back fairly quickly - because each recipe has about 15 ingredients and feeds 4+!
The other 3 all look good - crime fiction of course!
From those picked up the week before - pictured below. 'Solo' was another cookery book that's gone back already. But my favourite read out of the rest was V2 by Robert Harris.
The story covers just five days at the end of November 1944 and as Harris says " the framework is factual" although the main characters are fictional.
The
book begins on the Dutch coast, in an area still held by the Germans.
It's from this spot in the forest that they have been firing the lethal
V2 rockets to destroy London. The story is mainly about Rudi Graf a
young German scientist whose interests in rockets for space travel
means he is soon involved in the building, testing and firing of the V2
rockets.
In London an officer in the
WAAF - Kay Caton-Walsh - finds herself surviving one of the rocket
attacks while in the home of her lover. Almost immediately she joins a
small team of WAAFs sent out to Belgium to help work out from where the
V2 rockets are being fired.
The last part of the jacket blurb says "But
for every action on one side there is an equal and opposite reaction on
the other. As the death toll soars, the separate stories of Graf and
Kay ricochet off one another until,in a final explosion of violence,
their destinies are forced together"
Both find they have been lied too by those in charge.
There are some awful facts in the acknowledgements ....20,000 slave labourers died building the V2 rockets and manufacturing sites. While about 2,700 people died in London, 1,700 in Antwerp and around 600,000 homes were destroyed or damaged.
The V-weapons programme has been described as 'by a distance the greatest waste of resources by any combatant country'
Such a good writer - this is the third of his books I've read.
One book I have says that perhaps 1st April became April Fool's Day because it was the last day of the festivities when the New Year began on 25th March or maybe it was a protest from moving the New Year.
(and some might say I was a fool even thinking about moving during a pandemic - they might be right!)
The Romans called this month Aprilis from the verb aperire (to open). The Anglo-Saxons named this month after a goddess - Eosturmonath, the month of Eostre, goddess of the dawn.
One of the April pages from The Diary of an Edwardian Lady
I've got the measurements for the two front bedroom windows which have curtain rails at the bungalow (My old ones had the rings in for poles and one set wasn't deep enough anyway so I left poles and curtains behind) so I'm going on an adventure to The Range today to see what I can find - They've been open compared to Dunelm who've had to stay closed.
While I'm out might as well go in the nearby Asda and get some bits for Easter - not that there is much planned but I should get to see the 3 Suffolk grandchildren at sometime........ not buying chocolate eggs though. They always get loads.
Perhaps then a KFC (which will send a shiver of horror through some people!) but at one a year I'm sure I'll survive.
(Still time to leave a comment for the Richard Osman Book giveaway. I'll sort it over the weekend)
