October in My Bit of Suffolk

The bedroom/shower room were sorted just in time for me to unseal the cupboard and find the Halloween bits to add to the October display shelf.

The cats come out

The bats come out

The pumpkins come out, too

The treats come out

The ghosts come out

It's Halloween.........BOO!

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New heating oil tank, new en-suite, new flooring for en-suite and bedroom...........That's a chunk of my down-sizing savings gone in one month.

There will be another bill later when they put the outside door into the old en-suite to turn it into a freezer/store room next month and when I buy 800 litres of heating oil. Although the extra government 'help with heating costs' payment will help towards that.

I ought to do No Spend November...................but I try it every year (it's even there in the Labels) - and never succeed. It isn't meant to be absolutely NO spend - food needs buying, bills need paying and direct debits happen - but spending on as few days as possible and no extras. Although my 'rules' say spending on Christmas is allowed so as not to leave all the Christmas present shopping worries until December. Maybe I won't even bother to try this year.

But away from big expenses it's been a lovely month with mild and mostly fine weather and I've done all sorts of things including 

• Going to Eldest Granddaughter's 6th birthday party. Visited her again in half term and seen the nearest two grandchildren a couple of times. 
• I started cutting the horrible Yew hedge out the front until the wire pulled out of the connection on the hedge cutter so it's now at Brother-in-Laws house awaiting a bit of re-wiring.  
• Joined a new free course of exercise and wellbeing for over 60's. 
• Helped in the kitchen with the Soup and Puds fundraiser at WI.(61 people booked in, they get a soft drink,  a choice of 3 home made soups with a bread roll, followed by a choice of 9 home made deserts followed by tea/coffee all for £8. Thank heavens Bacton village hall has a high speed hot steam dishwasher!)
• 
  

• 

  Right ready for 61 visitors

  
  
• Drove down the A12 to the Big charity book sale
• Been to several car-boot sales
• Re-organised some furniture and cleared out a bag of things for the charity shop

All was going well until the boiler refused to switch on at the weekend -  Heating engineer needed AGAIN.  Think this boiler is rubbish, and it's not even very old, because in the 18 months I've been here it's had problems 5 times.

November looks to be a good month, plenty to keep me occupied - Books to read, more NCIS to watch, Firework night, more of the exercise/wellbeing  group, 2 WI meetings, there's a couple of coffee mornings and craft sales to visit and then Christmas Fayres start at the end of the month.......................and I've found two events with free coffee and cake..........I'll be there!

Back Soon

Sue

Saturday 29th October

I've found two more photos from way back in September or early October ..............small finds from weekend boot-sales. 

A digger on tracks for the car box, a Christmas card for daughter and a pad of cards to colour which will be something for the grandchildren to colour and make sometime. (Annoyingly had to pay £1 each for these!)

And below 3 cards for the card box, an ice-cream van for the car box and a book that I'd not come across before. The book is aimed at teachers or parents who have more time than many do now and is filled with poems, songs, craft ideas and recipes for each season and the special days of the year. (50p each ......much better)

Middle Grandson has already visited and found the new vehicles. Every time he visits he takes them out of the box one by one, examines them closely and tells me what they are. Then he does the same with the tub of zoo animals. I love being able to add one he's not seen before as he is so surprised to find them.

I made the Wartime Christmas Cake this week , which tastes OK for a frugal cake but is a bit dry and crumbly.

This is the recipe if you want to try it. 

4oz grated carrot

2 tablespoons golden syrup

3oz sugar

4oz marge (or modern equivalent)

1tsp bicarb

½ tsp almond essence

½ tsp vanilla essence

4oz dried fruit

12oz Self Raising Flour

1 tsp cinnamon

small teacup of slightly warm milk

Cook grated carrot and syrup over low heat for a few minutes

Cream sugar and marge until fluffy

Add bicarb to the carrot mix

Add wet ingredients to sugar/marge a little at a time as if it was egg

Stir in flavourings and fruit

Fold in flour and cinnamon

Add enough milk to make moist mix

Pour into tin, level top and put into hot oven then reduce temperature to very low and bake for 3 hours.

There's no temperatures given - maybe ovens varied a lot back then - so it means watching and testing with a skewer and covering if the top starts to burn.

I think I'll stick to making a smaller version of my usual Victorian Christmas Cake for this year.

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Clocks back tonight - for some reason this year I'm not hating the idea as much as usual.

Hope you have a good weekend. I came across details of another charity book sale - so guess where I'll be going.

Back Monday

Sue

(Thank you to everyone for comments yesterday and sorry I ran out of time to reply to all)

A 50p Lampshade

The changes in my bedroom meant getting rid of the horrible light fittings (5 bulbs on each of two fittings but all on one switch ) and replacing with just two simple pendant bulbs -  very old fashioned now apparently. Not that I care.

So I needed 2 lampshades and I found one at the boot sale at the beginning of October for 50p and at the same sale I bought the 2 packs of the 'sticky clicky' picture fixings also for 50p which is at least £2 cheaper than their real price..

Only one problem................the fixing in the middle of the lampshade is too big for the hanging pendant so I wasted 50p. 

It's gone to a charity shop.

Back Soon

Sue

The 6 Week Exercise Course

Last week the weather was good - the building work was going well and I could ignore what was happening on the news - making for a Good Life

 So when this form arrived from the people who are organising the free 6 week exercise and wellbeing course for over 60s that I've just started,  I had no idea how to fill it in.

Am I unhappy doing things alone? No, I've got used to it. 

Have I no one to talk to? ..........I never have had often, spent most of my life home alone (Col was always Him Outside!)........nattering away on here is the remedy.

Does any one know me well? I'm sure my children do and other than them I'm not bothered!

I won't go on  but  couldn't tick the 3 box for any of the questions - but how weird would I be to tick the 0 box  for all the questions?

I was surprised at how few people had taken up this opportunity of a free course - about a dozen all together. It's free as it's sponsored by the District Council and it was............OK. The exercises were straightforward and basic - thank goodness, but there was a weird bit of mindfulness when a young lady read out all these things we were supposed to concentrate on with our eyes shut - my mind went off somewhere else - so I couldn't "feel each part of you". 

Then we had coffee - there was fruit and biscuits but I've managed to stop eating between breakfast and lunch so didn't partake.😇

Annoyingly there were a couple of Old Men there who, just like the Old Men who attend the village Over 60's, kept interrupting or saying things they thought were funny. (they weren't!) (and that's why I don't go to Over 60's group anymore).

Eldest Daughter has a friend who is a physio and H told me ages ago that her friend always concentrates on getting older people to walk with out shuffling and always walk heel first to avoid falls. Falling is one of the biggest causes of older people being in hospital and there's one meeting out of the six that has that as it's main topic. 

Apparently there's funding for 12 more weeks of exercise after the 6 week course but with  different people running it.

Just thing how fit I will be in 18 weeks time! (Ha!)

Back Soon

Sue 

St Mary's Church, Buxhall

 A very typical Suffolk Church in a small Suffolk village not far out of Stowmarket.

The view down the nave is light and bright 

The first thing I noticed were the lovely stitched kneelers and I thought of the churches I'd visited after lockdown finished when all the kneelers were locked away in a taped off pew as if you could catch covid through your knees from something used once a week at most.

Both doorways at the top and bottom of a tiny stairway that would have lead up to the Rood Loft

Very little stained glass remains

Wonder why there seems to be 2 Piscinas?

Like it's neighbour at Gt Finborough which I wrote about last week Buxhall church is very close to the Big House and almost sits of the Hall's front lawn

There's a memorial to the Hill/Copinger family who lived in the Hall for centuries. 3 very small children included here the mid 1700's couldn't have been a good time for children's health.

This looks to be small broken pieces of old glass that have been saved and re-used.

The ropes in the belfry are ready for the bell-ringers. Quite unusual to be able to see the ringers from the church.

For some reason I'd been thinking that this was the church where I was a Bridesmaid for  a wedding, way back in 1962.

But the more I think about it the less sure I am - it might have been  Battisford, a church  I visited in 2018 but on that post I said I didn't think it was. I need my cousin  A to read this - she might know! (I was bridesmaid for "Aunty" Primrose who was her Mum's and my Dad's cousin. Everyone was an Aunty back then - even people who were no relation!)

Back Soon

Sue

Looking For a Recipe and Found an Illustration

 Going back to the posts about the things we were dosed with as children.

I found this illustration below in the book "The Wartime Kitchen and Garden" by Jennifer Davies which is a book published by the BBC in 1993 to go with  a TV series of the same name.

This is exactly how I remember the government issued bottles of Cod Liver Oil and Concentrated Orange Juice. Even though I wasn't born until 1955 - ten years after the war ended, these must have still been available for children. Rationing had only just finished, the NHS had started and the health of children was still important. I liked my third of a pint of milk at primary school too.

This photo is also from the book

Girls milling rose hips in a machine specially invented for the purpose. September 1943

I was looking through this book while tracking down a recipe for a frugal wartime Christmas Cake. (I can't remember why) I knew I'd seen one somewhere and went through all my wartime home-front books before finding it .

It's a recipe using carrot but no eggs......which might be a plan after the way bird-flu is threatening the poultry industry this year.......... and also not a lot of fruit, so possibly a bit plain.

As it's cheap to make I'll try it out before Christmas and share the recipe if it turns out OK. Not sure if it keeps well, although as we're not rationed a tot of brandy would help that, I'm sure there's some left from previous years Christmas cake making.

My usual Christmas cake recipe is a Mary Berry recipe from the days before she was a British Icon. The full recipe uses 1½ pounds of various fruits and 3 eggs and is very  rich and delicious. If the wartime one is too dry I'll do a half size recipe later this year. (It's on the Recipe page - Victorian Christmas Cake). 

Last year I made a cake from Delia Smith's Christmas book called Light Glaze Christmas Cake which had all sorts of multi-coloured fruits - and it was even more expensive and no better than my usual, so I'll not be bothering with that again. I'd bought all the fruit from The Grape Tree - whose fruit is always good quality but now way more expensive than elsewhere. Watching the spending this year so it's back to value brand sultanas and checking out the cheapest marzipan.

Back Soon

Sue

Oil Tanks, Electric Bills, Wood-Burning Stoves and a Journey

On Saturday the usual text message arrived to remind me to read the electric meter and send the readings. I do it all on the phone and found that the governments £66 had gone into my account and my new bill was a wee bit less, so I'm £1 and a few pence in credit.

It all sounds very good doesn't it?  In reality it's not really good at all because it means my bill for October was £64 ...........double that of the same month last year, even though I'd used less electric. Thank goodness it's been such a mild month the oil central heating has hardly been needed at all, and as there was more oil left when they transferred it to the new tank than I thought, I'm ordering 800 litres rather than 1,000. It should last me ages because this year as soon as it gets colder for longer during the day, I'll be lighting the wood-burner instead of clicking up the target temperature.

Brother-in-Law Andrew came to help me move mattresses - mine back into my 'new' room and the spare back into the spare bedroom. I got him to help me shift two cupboards while he was here too. He also cleared away the 3 posts and broken trellis that had been around the old heating oil tank and then tackled some large lumps of concrete and bricks that were under the sand that had been under the old tank. Presumably they were left over from the 1980s when there would have been a metal heating oil tank standing on brick piers. Best of all he brought me a bag of  logs  split small to use on top of the kindling in my stove. With nothing to use between small kindling and large logs getting the fire going was taking an age.( The wood he'd split for me was a little of what he'd cleared out of Clay Cottage wood shed nearly two years ago - he'd not used it because it's willow which he reckons is pretty useless!)

I then spent the rest of Saturday starting to put everything indoors back in it's rightful place - so good to get back to normal and tidy.

It was decision time on Sunday morning - should I go down to the second day of the Big NSPCC second-hand book sale in Colchester or not? Actually it wasn't a hard decision........ Of course I went!

It was a very wet journey down - absolutely pouring - but it only takes 40 minutes so not too bad. I'd never been to the second day, always queued for ages with the crowds to get in early on the Saturday so it was strange to find how quiet it was and of course many of the boxes of books were half empty, I found a few  - but it's more about the looking and searching than the finding (that's my story anyway!) and  there's nowhere else with such a huge collection of old books to look through.

I used to own the Self Reliance book but so many years ago I'd forgotten what's in it and the same with the John Seymour. The one by Margery Allingham is a book I've heard of but never owned or read and Scenes from a Provincial Life by William Cooper and the book of Christmas Card Poems are both books I've never seen before.

Got home in plenty of time to do more shifting, clearing, cleaning and tidying. Almost everything is where it should be again.

 

Apologies to everyone whose comments had gone into spam as Yet Again I'd forgotten to look. Weirdly some of my replies to comments were also in there.

And also big thank you for all the comments about NCIS - seems I really am late to the party with watching Mark Harmon  such a good series!

Back Soon

Sue

Another Good Week In Suffolk

I have a  new TV addiction - it's been going on for a few weeks - It's a series called NCIS and has been on TV in the  US forever (well, since 2003) - there are at least 440 episodes over 20 series but I only came across it one evening when I looking for more crime things to watch. I discovered that Mark Harmon (who plays the lead character from series 1 to 19)  was once voted the sexiest man on US TV and I can quite see why!

 

 

They've been showing all series in order on the 5USA channel and have got to Series 11 dating from 2013 so I've plenty still to watch.

Over here when a new crime series is made they only do about 6 programmes at the most. NCIS often has 24 programmes in a series.

Also on the show is David McCallum once the mysterious Illya Kuryakin in The Man from Uncle in the 60's. Amazingly still acting aged over 80. 

And still on the subject of TV .............I've started watching Countdown again since they got rid of   Ann Robinson as the host. One day this week I surprised myself by getting two of the numbers games and the contestants didn't.............. not so good at the words.

There's a Countdown numbers game in the Radio Times each week - sometimes easy -like last week.

Although the answer on the previously page was done differently - 9+4 =13, 13 x 2=26, 26 x 9 =234 so I had to treble check my way was also right!

And next weeks is easy too and I found the answer had been made the same way as I did it. I've not written the answer on here so you can have a go! Sometimes they are harder and I have to cheat.

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The bedroom/en-suite  rebuilding is finished with the carpet done yesterday (all bar a wobbly loo flush handle- which is on order for replacing.)

 Brother in Law should be over today  to give me a hand shifting mattresses. I've started putting other things back but moving mattresses alone is a bit beyond me. 

I would have been heading down to Colchester for the BIG  second-hand book sale but when Andrew volunteered Saturday morning as the time he could come and help I didn't dare say it was the only day I couldn't do! He's always so busy that I'm lucky and grateful to get him here to help at all.

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Something happened this week that's never happened before.................I forgot to go to WI! 

One minute it was 6pm and I was fiddling about with books, searching for something and then it was 7.20 and too late. I wasn't too bothered about missing it as the speaker had cancelled and it was going to be an evening chatting to other members about ourselves - this was done once before this year and is not what I joined for. Plus there's the lady going on and on about planting daffodil bulbs again - just like last year. No one seems able to stop her taking over the any other business and rattling on for far too long. So perhaps there was a subliminal reason for me forgetting!

As always I have lots of things to be grateful for.

• Good weather for getting the grass cut - last time this year I hope
• Building work all going to plan
• Help with shifting stuff
• Good heap of library books

Have a good weekend, I'll be back Monday.

Sue

October Library Books

After a very wet morning I thought it had stopped raining in time for me to stay dry to go up the road to collect my reservations from the library van, but then it started raining again. Had to fish my brolly out of the car.

 16 books, a lovely collection of mainly crime fiction this month, with some very interesting non-fiction. I suggested that they buy the 3 recent British Library Crime Classics, at the top of the heap,  just a few weeks ago and they've come into stock very quickly which is good, and straight to me first - Big ✔ for Suffolk Libraries. 😀

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The non-fiction are the two at the front and I'm very keen to read The Great Plant Based Con which asks if eating a plants-only diet is actually bad for us humans who were built to eat meat and have been doing so for 1000's of years. 

There is the new one by Raynor Winn following on from The Salt Path and The Wild Silence

also in the heap are two books about homelessness....... . The Wild Year by Jen Benson and Thunderstone by Nancy Campbell and a book called "No Matter How Many Skies Have Fallen" which is about farming in WWII on a community farm in Essex. 

The rest are crime fiction with three by Judi Daykin that have all turned up at once. They follow on from the first in a series read earlier this year. There's a very large book by Kate Quinn, a new-to-me author, which is about three women who worked at Bletchley Park in WWII. The other crime are by Mel Starr and Alexander McCall Smith - both the latest in long series and also Anthony Horowitz.

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Oh Goody.................. we have no Prime Minister again. Good Grief what the hell are they doing? 

I shall hibernate with my pile of reading and hope they can sort themselves out.

(Just thinking this will be such a good quiz question in the future - How many days did Ms Truss serve as PM? or Which year had 3 PM's?)

Back Tomorrow

Sue 

At Least 1,000 Recipes.

This is my shelf of recipe books.........

And this is my very old huge tatty folder of recipe cuttings and photo copies dating back to to 1975, when I first married and started cooking.

but I only make about 14 different meals............... and don't need a recipe for most of them!

These are the main meals that I rustle up for myself because they don't take much time or much thinking.

Warm pasta salad with either feta, tuna or a tin of sardines, plus tomatoes, cucumber and olives and mayo

Pasta with home made aubergine and tomato sauce (batch made and frozen)

Pasta, tuna and broccoli bake (batch made and frozen)

Veggie Burger in a bread bap with tomatoes, cucumber and lettuce

Home made vegetable curry with rice and mini samosas and bhajis (batch made curry, frozen)

Home made quiche using bacon, onion and cheese - or just a vegetable mix.

Co-op Goats Cheese and Vegetable lattice bake

Stir-fry chicken and veg - usually peppers, onion and carrot. With noodles and chilli sauce.

Chicken, onions, peppers and tomatoes with Fajita seasoning in a tortilla wrap

A two egg omelette with tomatoes

Home made Spinach and Ricotta Lasagne (batch made and frozen)

Mini Pizza with added home made topping (batch made topping, frozen)and salad

Fritters (courgette, sweetcorn or leek) with bacon.

Cauliflower cheese 

And shop bought fish and chips once a month.

What I can see from this is 

• that I eat very little meat, 
• probably too many carbs and 
• after nearly 40 years of thinking and cooking for up to five people - I'm a very lazy cook.
• And the only things from my Vegetarian Taste Tests  that have become regular purchases are the Co-op Lattice bakes and the Linda McCartney burgers

( I do add  vegetables or salad stuff to most of these meals and usually eat 3 portions of fruit a day so it's not all bad!)

My folder is also full of all my cake recipes, preserve recipes and dozens of other things I used to make, but many of the recipe books haven't been opened for years, and ought to be passed on to a charity shop although some are so old and rough they are only fit for the recycling bin and I just know that if any of them leave the house they are sure to be the ones I need for some reason  a week later.

Back Soon

Sue

St Andrew's Church, Great Finborough

We don't have many churches with spires in Suffolk, but this must be one of the tallest.

Apart from the C15 porch the church was completely rebuilt by Richard Phipson in the 1870's and he also did spires at Woolpit and in Ipswich. Apart from those there are only a dozen or so other churches with spires in Suffolk.

It was pointing the way to a beautiful blue sky when I visited

View down the Nave, it's not a wide church.  

The rood screen is still in place

Lots of stained glass

in most windows

Two seats for priests  and the piscina in the sanctuary with carved stone surrounds

The altar

The family in the Hall House which is just beside the church through several 100 years were the Woolastons who became the Pettiwards and seem to have been a well liked family in The Big House.

There are many memorials to various family members in the church

The font is unusual with it's marble legs around the older stone.

This is something I always love to see in churches - a painting or drawings of the church. This is by a local artist - Brian Lilley and quite recently painted in 1984. (I've got one of his small paintings of Kersey village which I found at a car boot sale). He died just a couple of years ago.

As well as having a tall spire, the church sits on a high spot looking out over the valley

What I completely forgot to do was to look for the gravestone of John Ravenscroft better known as John Peel a very well known radio presenter and DJ back in the 70s when he promoted many new bands. He lived in the village for much of his life.

Thank you to everyone for comments on yesterdays post. We had a St Luke's Little Summer yesterday and the day before and the day before that too - in fact we've been so lucky and had no sign of really chilly at all...........yet.

Back Soon

Sue

St. Luke's Day

 It's been an age since I wrote a post about a Saint from my book of Saints Days.

October the 18th is St Luke's Day and in the books of weather sayings they always mention St. Luke's Little Summer. This is a spell of warmer, dry days that often occur around this time.

I found the picture below on Wiki, it is from a stained glass window at St Mary and St Lambert, Stonham Aspal and added to wiki by Kevin Wailes (who lived in the village)  

Below is the illustration from the  October 18th page of the Calendar Of Saints book. The description says mosaic in S.Vitale, Ravenna.

St Luke is the patron saint of physicians and artists and wrote his own gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. He is thought to have been a doctor and went with St Paul on one of his missionary journeys.

He might have been a Greek Doctor from Antioch or an Hellenic Jew (combining Judaism with Greek Culture).

Luke's gospel has some stories from the life of Jesus that don't appear in the other gospels even though it's known that he didn't witness the work of Jesus himself. In modern times Luke's skill as an historian is questioned.

It's thought he lived until aged 80+ before dying in Greece.

Back Soon

Sue

Work In Progress

 Here's the new en-suite after 11 days work over 2 and a bit weeks by various tradesmen. I've been pleased with the company who've either done the work or organised other people to do it - I know it's cost me a bit more, but to have everything done in order without hassles or hold ups has been a godsend. After years of doing up houses by ourselves without "having the builders in", (and after my experience with the weird kitchen man at Clay Cottage) I was concerned about my mental state! but it's been fine.....I'm still sane.

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Apart from painting and carpet ......and the painter should be here tomorrow......there's a bit of snagging to be done. The door needs a bit shaving off the bottom, before it's re-hung, they've got to get some plastic for the up-stand edging under the shower base and tiles over the basin to be sorted, the roller blind to be put back.

The bedroom carpet is booked for Friday.........hope the paint's dry by then. 

Then it will just be asking Brother-in-Law to help me get the mattresses shifted about again. Curtains, chests of drawers and the craft stuff shelves I can manage myself.

At sometime over the next few weeks the builders will be back to put a door in the back wall of the old en-suite and finish off the walls inside. Then the chest freezer can be moved from the garage to this new store room and, knowing how cold it was as an en-suite, it should be just right for the freezer.

All I will have to do then is pay up! ........................and enjoy the warmth in the new en-suite when the weather gets colder.

Back Soon

Sue

Half Way Through October

 Isn't it nice to be given money from the "government". (Government in inverted commas as they don't seem to be doing much governing, just getting themselves and the country into one hell of a mess)

Anyway, Scottish power sent me a text message to tell me that they would be giving me £66 worth of free electric for October - part 1 of £400 that everyone is getting to help with the frightening cost of living crisis. I read my meter and pay the bill toward the end of each month so will find out what it's crept up to then. 

'They' keep talking about the few people who are not supplied by the national gas grid but of course it's the majority in many rural villages and this week a local oil tank change company have been sorting out a new heating oil tank for me, in a place that conforms with new regulations and so I can have a door from the back garden into the old en-suite, to turn it into an easily accessed freezer room and store.

Old small 1,000 litre oil tank - too close to the house and on a base that isn't level with a built in lock that didn't lock.

(And actually it wasn't even very old but hadn't been installed to regulations and the slabs it was sitting on were just on a sand base)

New 1,400 litre oil tank, now level, more than 1.8 metres from walls, eaves and the soon-to-be door and on a level base. Just need to find the padlock that I know is here somewhere.

They changed over the remaining oil and there was more left than I thought so I'll wait a few weeks and then order 1,000 litres of heating oil - that will shock the bank balance as oil prices haven't been capped like unit prices of electric and gas. Although it should last me ages now that I have the wood-burner to back it up. I understand that us oil or LPG users are to be handed another £100 from the government to help with rising prices - but no one has worked out how to give it out yet.

In between making coffees and teas for whichever guys were working here I made a start on cutting the horrible Yew hedge out the front. I'm doing it a bit at a time as the portaloo is parked in the way and  need to do next-doors side when T is at home as he'll help clear up.

I managed a swim this week, haven't been for 3 weeks for various reasons including  the schools being back using the pool so there are fewer lane swimming sessions. It was surprisingly quiet with only 2 people in the slow half. I was able to do lots of lengths although I lost count after about 22- as I always do. It's only 20 metres long so nowhere near the 32 x 25m I used to do in the 90's when I was much younger and fitter. And talking about fitter I came across details of a 6 week basic exercise class for over 50's being held for free in the next village, so I've signed up.....there's free refreshments at the end of each session!

Thank you for the suggestions of making my own envelopes to fit cards - I do actually have envelopes for the big cards - although they are business sort and if I remembered I could save the wrapper from the RT and turn it inside out to use. I'm slowly using up my card making stash, trying not to buy more.

This week I'm grateful for 

• A good swimming session
• Building work progressing well
• Fine weather for garden clearing

Hope you have a good weekend.

 I'm looking forward to seeing the two nearest Grandchildren this weekend, as I've not seen them for a few weeks.

Back Monday

Sue

Hey Big Spender? No. Just 30p

 If I'm to discover any more really good finds as the car-boot season draws to a close I think I'll need to get up earlier but as that doesn't appeal at all it seems I'm destined to find not a lot.

This was all I bought on a recent Saturday - 3 books for just 10p each.

 I'm specially pleased with the Donna Leon which is an older one the library don't have.

I read the British Library Crime Classic when it was first published a few years ago but will read again and then start a collection to go off to Ziffit sometime. (It's worth 49p at the moment -  a 39p profit- not to be sniffed at in these hard times!)

While I was out last Saturday I took lots of the September library books back to Stowmarket Library, as on closer inspection they just didn't appeal, I wasn't in the mood for non-fiction at all. So I've already started the Donna Leon.

October's library van is due next week and thankfully there will be several crime fiction for me to collect as well as some non-fiction that I've been looking forward to, so I hope they live up to expectations.

Back Soon

Sue

A Redundant Church

 St Mary's Church in Stonham Parva is different to others I've visited as it's not cared for by the Diocese  but is one of 20 churches in Suffolk that have been put in the care of The Churches Conservation Trust after being made redundant in 1990 when serious structural faults were found. 

The church is tucked away at the end of a lane off the main A140 road. The tower is quite special with patterned flint work.

The church had to be closed for several years but is now open every day

The organ gallery dates from the C18 and is quite a rare survival

Also unusual is the little vestry tucked into a corner, with it's old glass panes it also dates from the C18

We always think that people died young 200 years ago but in many churches there are reminders that many people lived to their 3 score plus 10 years

According to the Churches Conservation Trust page about this church and the Suffolk Churches website this church had old box pews right up to the C18 when they were replaced by pews.

Very plain inside, no stained glass, but light and bright due to the clerestory windows. There's a very large crack running down from the window over the altar, which looks a bit worrying

As the church isn't used for services it was a bit dusty. These tiles in the chancel needed a bit of a clean to show off their colours

From the website................

 In the south chapel is the 17th-century communion table. On the chapel wall are the painted initials ‘J.G.’ and the date 1703. These probably refer to James Gibson, a benefactor to the church and parish, who may well have paid for the restoration of this chapel and its roof.

This stone is all in Latin and dating back to the 1600's

The carvings of figures under the hammer-beam roof  have all had their faces cut away, this would have been done by the puritans around 1643

Quite a gruesome memorial with skull and crossbones is for Gilbert Mouse who was a servant for two Lord Chancellors and died in 1622, he is buried in St Margaret's Westminster but left money for the needy of the village.

Some  carvings are beautiful and missed being destroyed

This Churchyard survey of 2008 lists all the trees, climbers and wild flowers found growing around the church

Lots more information HERE with a link to the brochure containing the complete history of the church.

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Sue