Another Library Book Photo in June

 The mobile library calls at villages every 4 weeks so this was the 2nd visit here this month and lots of crime fiction that I'd ordered had arrived this time including two new-to-me authors.

From Left to right - new crime by Alys Clare and the Rev Richard Coles. Death at the Dolphin by Gretta Mulrooney is an author I don't know.. 2 books containing three stories of older crime by Simon Brett - hope these are his Charles Parris series. The most recent book by Peter May - some of his I like and some I don't - we will see. 'Think of Me' by Frances Liardet might be too much of a romance - also not an author I know and lastly a book I'd missed by Cora Harrison from 2022. On the top is a little book called 'The Year I stopped to Notice'  which seems to be just a whole load of notes about things and people noticed in the street, beach, buses and tube by a lady in Brighton, Durham and London! It will take 10 minutes to read and at the end I will say - glad I didn't pay £14.99 for that!!

4 weeks ago I brought home these below and only read three as I wasn't in the mood for Rhythms of Nature, couldn't get on with Hamnet and the book by Alexander McCall Smith at all. I'm hanging onto the old Dorothy Hartley English Food book.

Luckily I had plenty to read from my shelves. Everything I read get's a mention on the Books Read 2023 Page. 

Back Tomorrow

Sue

All Saints Church Great Ashfield

 This church was very special to the US Airmen who were stationed on the nearby USAAF base during WWII.

The red brick porch has dressed flint panels and dates from the C16. The board on the left of the door says CHURCH OPEN which is a sign I am always pleased to see.

The ancient door into the church which is older than the porch- notice the step is worn away under the door from all the centuries of being stepped on

I liked this notice just inside the church - it does look a bit messy inside but it will look good when the work is finished. The notice says the work should be finished by the end of March but has obviously been held up - I'm guessing the cost of the work has increased so more funds will be needed.

This corner is why many people visit the church. It has the memorials for the 385th Bomb Group who were stationed here and flew B17s from here from June 1943 to August 1945.

There are folders full of information for visitors to find out more about their relatives.

(As the crow flies this base was just 5 miles from where my Late Father in Law grew up and he was able to tell Son about the noise and planes overhead when Son was working for the 8th in the East Archaeology project between 2013-16)

The window is more recent and was made by Suffolk stained glass artist Surinder Warboys.

Around the rest of this small church are all the things often found in village churches - The Coat of Arms that churches had to have for Kings in the C17

The very large and ornate pulpit with a cover or sounding board dated 1619 that made sure that the congregation could hear the preachers voice and it wasn't lost to the space above.

View down the nave to the chancel where the organ is still wrapped in plastic to protect it while the work to clear and repair this area is underway.

There was no access to the chancel to take a better photo of the main stained glass window, had to zoom in from the nave.

One memorial to a Suffolk man who saw action in so many places before his life ended aged just 29

So many churches still have their huge very old chests

Five bells in this church. The door underneath leads to a new kitchen area and toilet and there are signs saying please help yourself to tea and coffee - must be specially welcome if you are visiting from afar and staying a while to find out about the 385th

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Sue

More Crackers? More Cards?

 Yep, a few weeks ago another half-box of posh Christmas Crackers was added to the cupboard and 2 more pretty cards added to the card box.

I've been looking for a cheap but decent lampshade for the dressing area of the bedroom ever since the en-suite was altered last year and the little wooden pot is hand-turned sycamore (there's a label on the base) and just appealed.

Total spend £2.70 - and then I went home for breakfast.

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Sue

Wanderers In The New Forest

 Wanderers in the New Forest by Juliette De Baïracli Levy was originally published in 1958. This new edition is published by Little Toller Books in their Nature Classics series.

She was born in Manchester in 1912 and went on to become one of the first herbalists to promote holistic veterinary medicine. After studying at universities in Manchester and Liverpool she left England to study herbal medicine in Europe, Turkey, North Africa, Palestine and Greece. Living with farmers and livestock breeders to study the animals, she was specially keen to learn Romani ways of natural animal medicines in all these countries.

Wanderers in The New Forest is one of several books she published and this tells the story of her three years living with her two small children in a small basic cottage in the New Forest in Hampshire.

They lived a very simple life, swimming regularly in a forest pool, drawing water from the Abbots Well and foraging for fruit and fungi. She made a garden and grew much of her own fruit and vegetables which they ate raw most of the time. Her friends were the Romany people and the locals who ran their ponies in the forest and kept their animals in the old ways.

Her book 'Herbal Handbook for Farm and Stable' was reprinted many times but her other books about her life in Spain, New York and Galilee and of travelling with the Gypsies were only reprinted in the US.

She died in Switzerland in 2009.

Coincidentally I discovered that this week on the Greek Island where she lived there are people taking part in a 'Herbal Medicine Tour' in her honour run by a Greek Herbalist. Details HERE.

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Sue

Bags for Christmas

Apologies for mentioning the Christmas word in June but  I saw these jute shopping bags at a boot-sale at 3 for £5 and had a brainwave...........

This Christmas, to make a change from the usual hampers that I do for my sister and for Col's sister, I'm going to fill these bags with some home made chutneys - if I get round to making any -  plus some eco-friendly products.

Good to have a plan!

And as an antidote to mentioning Christmas it was good to watch the tennis tournament from Queens Club in the heat of last week. Because we don't get to hear about tennis so often in this country (unless you have a paid-for TV channel) we don't know about new up-coming players until they arrive here to play on grass in the summer. At last there are youngsters who can take over from the always injured Rafa and the misery of Djokovic.

One week until we see how they get on at Wimbledon........exciting!

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Sue

My Quiet Week in Suffolk

The sun has shone and I have books to read and tennis on TV and I did  the Wordle in less than 6 goes all week and in just two tries on Wednesday - a good fluke!

So I'm one of the lucky people with nothing to moan about! 

My Quiet Life in Suffolk this week has involved the Keep Moving Group, swimming and a trip to Morrisons in Ipswich after a very quick stop at  the  Wednesday boot sale (where I bought nothing). At Morrisons I bought a new pair of shorts having abandoned 3 very old pairs last week - all three were really too big and two were chucked due to falling to bits and one pair still OK have gone into the charity shop bag. Too old for shorts I may be but I shall keep wearing them!

Below are the small courgettes that were my 3rd  harvest from the garden, the first small harvest  was a cucumber from the greenhouse and the second was a handful of raspberries from the canes that were here when I came. I cut all the courgettes that were there to encourage more to grow. 

These are all from 2 plants, the third is really slow growing and one I put in a pot in the greenhouse because of being short of space outside is even further behind which is odd. If all 4 plants were to really get going there will be far too many courgettes. But I want to leave one or two to get to marrow size so I can do the Marrow and Apricot Jam (This link is so I know where to find the recipe in July!)

This weekend there's some repair work to do on a piece of trellis that's against the fence which has a yellow climbing rose on it. I hadn't really thought about how the trellis was fixed but, like so many things here, it wasn't really fixed at all. I noticed it had collapsed almost on top of the climbing beans after we had a sudden mini storm on Thursday afternoon and in the rain I went out to try and prop it up - getting nicely scratched in the process! I managed a temporary fix but it needs something more permanent  and I reckon putting a couple of screws into the fence panel and wiring the trellis to the screws should do it - if there is some wire left from what I used for keeping the raspberry canes upright, if not it will be tied with my ever faithful baler twine.

Not sure what else is happening this weekend although I'd like to go to a farmers market so I can get another 'artisan' cheese to try. And I might raid Brother-in-Law's strawberry patch again!

Have a lovely weekend wherever you are and whatever you're doing.

I shall be back Monday

Sue

Holy Trinity Church Stowupland

 This small church is very unusual for a Suffolk village church as it's less than 200 years old. In northern cities many churches were built in the first half of the C19 to cater for the growing population of the Industrial Revolution, but we didn't have so much of an industrial revolution in Suffolk so only two were built here at that time. This one which is  just a few miles from Stowmarket and another one in Ipswich. 

It's built of local Woolpit white bricks and cost just £1,500 in 1843. Before this people would have gone down into the town of Stowmarket to worship where once two churches were on the same site one for the town and the other for the villages of Stowupland, Gipping, Old Newton and Dagworth (collectively known in the Doomsday book as Thorney). One was demolished in the C16 leaving just Stowmarket Parish church.

Eventually Rev Hollingsworth - the vicar of Stowmarket at the time - pushed for a church in Stowupland and funding came from several people.

Just inside is a board telling the story of the church and the font (which I forgot to photograph).

A plain church, no stained glass and all white painted inside with a simple arch and a small chancel 

The gallery and organ at the west end

Below is the board listing the vicars for Stowupland which is now in a benefice sharing a vicar with Haughley and Wetherden (which is odd as they are not the closest churches to Stowupland). They are waiting for the new vicar to be licenced at the end of this month.

A new extension was added in 1984 to make a useful church hall.

Unlike it's neighbour in Stowmarket with it's new 10 bells, Stowupland has just one for calling people to worship.

There is a really good description of how the church building came about HERE ,written by the local history group.

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Sue

A Flower Festival

 This flower festival was in a church that I'd tried to visit before but found it locked so it was a good chance to see inside and I'll write a post about that for tomorrow.

The theme was Poems and this first one depicts Tiger,Tiger Burning Bright.................

The Hymn 'Angels Singing' on the Altar

Warning, When I'm old I shall wear purple.....................

Mary, Mary  Quite Contrary

'The Light of Stars' by Longfellow

'A Wise Old Owl Sat in an Oak'

Just a few of the colourful arrangements by people much more talented than me! The church was quite busy with people looking round so I didn't take many photos and some of the arrangements on the hot sunny window sills were looking a bit sad on the second day.

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Sue

Another Art Exhibition

 This is an Annual Exhibition but I'd not been before. Although Debenham church is in the 100 churches book and I visited way back in 2018 . This art exhibition is huge with over 500 exhibits including a few bits of pottery and photographs - apparently it was the first time they had allowed photos to be exhibited.

Some of my favourite local artists had their work here again - several I'd seen this year already at Old Newton or Needham Market, but I've  tried to take a bit more of a variety of photos this time  rather than my usual villages, landscapes, birds and wildlife. It wasn't easy to get good photos because of all the reflections from the windows.

These two below are specially for Rachel in Norfolk , they are paintings done over a collage of torn pieces of paper

The next two I would have loved to buy - either or both. They are very large and were £375 each and probably worth every penny. (Very bad window reflections I'm afraid)

Something a bit different again. This is a very low and narrow arch under the railway very close to Needham Market boot sale. It wasn't made for the amount of traffic that goes under it now.

The print below looked much better in real life than my photo of it!

Almost abstract but glorious colours

Reflections were hopeless for this ginger cat photo but there were cards produced from it  so I bought one to use for a birthday card

Loved the colours and textures on this

More typical of the art I usually photograph

I liked this Church in the Snow below but forgot to check in the brochure as to where it was.

More prints of rural scenes

Below are a series of paintings on glass 

Back Tomorrow

Sue