October Days

 OCTOBER

I'm not sure where September went but it's gone.

 October was originally the eighth month of the Roman calendar. The Anglo Saxons called it Wynmonath - the wine making month or Winterfylleth meaning the the month with the full moon (7th) heralding winter. This year the October full moon will be a super moon and is also the latest date possible for a Harvest moon.

I've probably mentioned all the bits of weather folklore for October in previous years but here are three good ones. 

Dry your barley in October,

Or you'll always be sober.

(Malted barley is the main ingredient of beer, which was drunk by everyone when water wasn't safe)

A good October and a good blast,

To blow the hog acorn and mast.

(Dating from the time when villagers were allowed to turn their pigs into the woods to feed on acorns and Beech mast - called pannage

In October manure your field

And your land it's wealth  shall yield

(Best time for muck spreading, before the fields get too wet,  ready to sow crops in the spring)

A page from the Brambly Hedge Autumn Story by Jill Barklem

A  poem from the book " A Child's Garden of Verses" by Robert Louis Stevenson 

AUTUMN FIRES

In the other gardens

And all up the vale

From the Autumn bonfires

See the smoke trail!

 

Pleasant summer over

And all the summer flowers,

The red fire blazes

The grey smoke towers

 

Sing a song of seasons

Something bright in all

Flowers in the summer

Fires in the fall.

 

 

I like the line "Sing a song of seasons" and as I get older it seems to be easier to appreciate each season as it arrives - after all if I'm still around to see a new season then that has to be a good thing!

And Thank you to everyone for comments yesterday about the unusual crop growing in the fields around here. The conclusion was reached that it's definitely Quinoa ........probably!

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Fields Full of ?

 There are several fields not far from home growing a mystery crop this year.

It's very colourful with seed heads of red/purple, yellow and green.

 Is it a crop grown for Caribbean cookery? Seem to remember seeing crops like this on programmes about city allotments where people of all nationalities grow crops we don't often use here.

Must be grown for the seeds, there are plenty on each plant

Maybe it's Amaranth? or Quinoa?

The leaves are a bit like Fat Hen - a common weed here that was once eaten, so it's from that family.

Someone will know, but whatever it is, it's definitely not been grown around here before.

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Storm Names

 I heard  Storm Amy being mentioned about three weeks ago. I googled to find out why it began with A - because I thought it would only begin with A in 2026.

This is what I found...............

But it turns out they start with A in September which is the start of storm season. The names are chosen by The Met Office, Met Eireann (Irish Meteorological Service) and KMNI which is the Netherlands Meteorological Institute. These storms are the ones likely to have medium to high impact on the three countries. Seven choices for names from each country by public suggestion. 

Apparently Storm Amy was forecast a few weeks ago but wasn't actually named by the Met Office. It brought strong winds on 14th September to Scotland and the local newspapers called it Storm Amy - but it seems it wasn't strong enough to be officially named.

Here's a link for next year when names for 2026 -27 can be submitted 

Meanwhile today is the  29th of the month, St Michael's Day or Michaelmas........ the day with many weather sayings attached.

If St Michael brings many acorns down Christmas will cover the fields with snow. 

As many days old as the moon is on Michaelmas Day, so many floods 

shall we have after. 

If there is snow at Christmas that will be a big surprise, but there certainly is a huge crop of acorns this year to fall if it's windy today. The new moon was on the 21st so we should expect eight floods before the end of the winter - oh dear.

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This Week

 Well,  I didn't get the shingles vaccination in the week , the nurse took my blood pressure as she said it hadn't been done for a while, which as usual was way too high and of course it says in my notes that I should be on tablets for it  - and I'm not, I didn't like the side effects. She made me sit in the waiting room for 15 minutes and then took it again - it had gone down a bit but still way too high. So she wouldn't do the jab and instead I came home with a BP monitor again and an appointment to see a doctor after a week of monitoring at home. I explained that I didn't want to take any other medications but they don't like to let you out without being seen to do something if BP is high. At least the monitors have been updated,  no longer do the give out the 24 hour ones that wake you up in the night - adding stress. And previously I've had to wait to collect one on another day but they must have bought more as I was given one straight away. I go back next week for an appointment I don't want and then hopefully the vaccination afterwards.

More garden clearing got done once the bin was emptied on Monday. Just the grass cuttings some Buddleia branches and one huge courgette plant and the bin was practically full again. I'll have to wait for it to settle a bit before I can get anything else in and there is still so much to clear.

Snooker on TV has been keeping me company during the week, it's on ITV4 so plenty of ads between the frames and I noticed how many charity ads there are at the moment - there are always lots but seemed even more than usual. Obviously they think people who watch snooker are easy targets or wealthy. I wonder how much these ads cost to produce and screen.

There was RSPCA, Sightsavers, Save the Children, Donkey Sanctuary, Guide Dogs, Cat's Protection and several others that I can't remember. They would all like you to give 'just' £2 a month which to me doesn't sound enough to cover the administration costs. I prefer to give more each month but to just one charity so there is some actually left after they've taken their costs.

And as I watch them all I remember how many direct debits to charities Col's Dad had been persuaded to set up as he struggled with the brain tumour and confusion at the end of his life. No one knew until after he died just how many and for some very odd charities too.

I raced through one of my library books, tried two others and didn't like the way they were written, so I'm definitely going to be short of library book reading. Then I read this which was in the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing Short List - which I'd totally forgotten about this year. I usually give it a mention and a link - HERE is the long list and prize winners - nearly two months after the prizes were awarded.

I enjoyed this book and the lovely descriptions of a remarkable place.

The amazon info says.........................

Reeling from the pain of devastating miscarriages and suffering from PTSD after military adventures in Afghanistan, Merlin and his wife Lizzie decide to leave the bustle of London and return to Merlin’s childhood home, a Cornish hill farm called Cabilla in the heart of Bodmin Moor.

There, they are met by unexpected challenges: a farm slipping ever further into debt, the discovery that the overgrazed and damaged woods running throughout the valley are in fact one of the UK’s last remaining fragments of Atlantic temperate rainforest, and the sudden and near catastrophic strickening by Covid of Merlin’s father, the explorer Robin. As they fall more in love with the rainforest that Merlin had adventured in as a child, so begins a fight to save not only themselves and their farm, but also one of the world’s most endangered habitats.

Our Oaken Bones is an honest and intimate true story about renewal, the astonishing healing power of nature, and our duty to heal it in return.

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

Autumn Poetry and Painting

Firstly must say thank you to everyone for comments about village names yesterday and apologies for not replying and also for not commenting on any blogs. The day just went somewhere in a flash!

Had a blank for ideas for todays post so I cheated and looked back at some of the autumn poetry that's been on the blog...................

Autumn Leaves
Artist	John Everett Millais
Year	1856

                           

                                                                     Autumn Birds

The wild duck startles like a sudden thought,

And heron slow as if it might be caught.

the flopping crows on weary wings go by

And grey beard jackdaws noising as they fly.

The crowds of starnels whizz and hurry by,

And darken like a cloud the evening sky.

The larks like thunder rise and suthy round,

Then drop and nestle in the stubble ground.

The wild swan hurries high and noises loud

With white necks peering to the evening cloud

The weary rooks to distant woods are gone 

With length of tail the magpie winnows on

To neighbouring tree and leaves the distant crow

While small birds nestle in the hedge below

John Clare (1793-1864)

The Golden Rod is yellow

The Corn is turning brown

The trees in apple orchards

With fruit are bending down

The gentian's bluest fringes

Are curling in the sun

In dusty pods the milkweed

It's hidden silk has spun

The sedges flaunt their harvest

In every meadow nook

And asters by the brook-side

Make asters in the brook

From dewy lanes at morning

The grapes sweet odours rise

At noon the roads all flutter 

With yellow butterflies

By all these lovely tokens

September days are here

With summer's best of weather

And autumns best of cheer

But none of all this beauty

Which floods the earth and air

Is unto me the secret

Which makes September fair.

T'is a thing which I remember

To name it thrills me yet

One day of one September

I never can forget.

Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)

The verse of a poem by Alex Smith ,that's in the Diary of an Edwardian Country Lady book, possibly a Victorian Scottish poet.

Best I love September's yellow,

Morns of dew-strung gossamer,

Thoughtful days without a stir,

Rooky clamours, brazen leaves,

Stubble dotted o'er with sheaves-

More than Spring's bright uncontrol

Suit the Autumn of my soul

 SEPTEMBER

Now everyday the bracken browner grows,

Even the purple stars

Of clematis,that shone about the bars,

Grow browner; and the little autumn rose

Dons, for her rosy gown,

Sad weeds of brown.

 

Now falls the eve; and ere the morning sun,

Many a flower her sweet life will have lost,

Slain by the bitter frost,

Who slays the butterflies also, one by one,

The tiny beasts

That go about their business and their feasts.

                         Mary Coleridge ( 1861-1907)

 

SEPTEMBER

Golden in the garden,
Golden in the glen,
Golden, golden, golden
September's here again!
Golden in the tree tops,
Golden in the sky—
Golden, golden, golden
September's going by!

                                                         

                                                                   Annette Wynne (writing between 1919 and 1922)

Autumn Leaves by Paul Kenton

Suffolk Place Names

A couple of months ago someone asked about the meaning of a village name so I reserved the library book  'The Dictionary of Suffolk Place-Names". I've finally got around to writing a post .

So many of our village names in Suffolk date back to Old English - that is mid 5th to mid 12th Centuries. They often feature the name of  Anglo Saxon settlers who came here after the collapse of the Roman Empire from areas in and around what is now Germany. 

If not named from the landowner then the name often derives from the landscape where the village began.

The Doomsday Book from 1086 has the first references to almost every parish, later mentions are on  estate maps for villages belonging to the Lord of the Manor or belonging to religious Abbeys and Priories.

The names have changed bit by bit over the years until the time most people could read and write and then the spelling became more fixed, this usually happened around the mid 1700s.

These are the meanings  of  a few of the villages  in Mid Suffolk.............

Haughley = Hawthorn wood or clearing. Earlier recorded names were Hagenet,Haugle,Hawleigh

Mendlesham = Myndel's Homestead. Earlier recorded names  Melnesham, Meldeham

Wetherden = Wether Valley. (Wether is a castrated ram) Earlier names were  Wederdena, Wethirden

Bacton = Bacca's estate, farmstead. Earlier names were Bachetuna, Baketuna.

Cotton = Codda's estate farmstead. Earlier names were Codetuna, Cottuna

Stowmarket = Meeting place with a market. Earlier names were Stou, Stowe Sancte marie and but more mentions of Tornai or Tonei which became Thorney Green an area of open land on the edge of Stowmarket.

Ipswich (County Town) =. Probably from Gip or Gippis trading port/ harbour. Or an old English noun gip meaning gap or opening referring to the estuary. Earlier names were Gypeswich, Gippewici,Ipswyche. 

Something I didn't know was that while we think some village names come from the rivers that run through them it's actually the other way round. Rivers were not named until maps were needed and in common use - and the map makers would name the river from the village  sometime making up names that sounded right. 

For instance the River Lark  that runs through Bury St Edmunds, is a back formation from Lackford and has tributaries called 'The Linnet' and 'The Dove' -  names unknown until they were labelled on an early map.

Thank you to whoever asked about a village name meaning and I can't remember which name they asked about - but looking through this book has been interesting.

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More Holly and Ivy Ware

 I wonder how long car boot sales will continue this year. As the weather gets cooler with darker and damper mornings there are noticeably fewer people selling. In theory the big Saturday boot-sale should carry on until 25th October  with their one-off Christmas boot sale on the 13th December and the smaller Sunday one will carry on until the ground gets too soggy. It's all weather dependent of course.

At the Saturday boot sale the  weekend before last I noticed lots of people had already started to bring along  Christmas decorations. One man had a small trailer full of new boxes of huge baubles - which would have needed a huge tree -in a huge room!

A few bits of Halloween stuff too. There's no need to buy new when you have a boot sale to visit.

I spent just £2 that morning with £1 being for a really big cauliflower and the other £1 for these two coasters- yes, more Portmeirion Holly and Ivy Ware! 50p each - what a bargain. 

It's been 16 months since I last found something (a bell tree decoration) for my 'Not a Collection' which obviously now IS a collection. 

I've been really lucky finding so many pieces second-hand, some are still available new at crazy prices, although they don't seem to make these coasters any more. There's lots available on ebay but I'm sticking to car boot sales and charity shops.

It was a good find which I'll  enjoy using through December . 

Here's what Debby said last December when I posted about the bell decoration. Love it!

Debby12 December 2024 at 11:19

If you put them together, they become a collection. If you scatter them artfully around the house, they are merely decorations.

You're welcome.

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Wenhaston St Peter

 This is one of the churches that's featured in the '100 Treasures in 100 Suffolk Churches' book that started this whole church visiting thing.

It's the Doom painting that is the quite spectacular treasure here.

Doom paintings were once common, and would have been over or under the Chancel Arch showing the Judgement Day for all the congregation to see.

This is thought to have been painted around 1500 by a monk from Blythburgh Priory - just a few miles away.

There is lots of information about the Doom in the church but I found this youtube video which describes it better than I can.

Information about the finding of the doom from a history feature the local newspaper

More information about the Doom painting.

View down the Nave to East window and altar showing where the doom painting would have been situated under the chancel arch.

Stained glass in the East window

There are a couple of large memorials each side of the altar for the Leman family in the C18

Coat of Arms for the King of the time would have replaced the doom over the chancel arch. This is for George III from the C18 

The font would have been carved and painted on each side, just a little colour remains at the foot of the pedestal

This stoup or stone bowl that would have held holy water for the congregation to use on the way into church.

I had to take a photo of this huge Holly tree on my way out as it was absolutely covered with berries.

Here is the link to Simon Knotts Suffolk Churches website for more photos and information.

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Library Book Photo for September

Firstly must say thank you to everyone for comments about the shingles vaccination. I've known  people who have had very painful episodes of shingles and suffered with it coming back again and again. So would like to avoid it if possible. 

 Just eight library books collected last week. Mostly crime fiction as usual. 'The Water Clock' by Jim Kelly is the first of a series of his that I've not read any of yet. Patricia Hall is a crime author I read 30 years ago, this is a more recent one that the library still had in stock. I've read one by Alis Hawkins before and tried and failed with another, but this is a different series to try. Best of all is the new one by Rory Clements - that is sure to be a good read. Two books of short crime stories and finally two non fiction to try.

I'm sure I'll have run out well before the four weeks until the van is round again. So I'll be reading from my shelves for sure. There are already 3 books on the way for me to collect in October so I'm hoping for a good selection then.

Looking back to August when I collected this big haul of 14 books. I read six out of the nine crime fiction and

 three out of the others that aren't crime. I've still got the Suffolk Place Names Book here waiting to be used for a blog post.

As always information on those read are added to the Books Read 2025 page.

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Notes From The Middle of September

• Thank you to everyone who commented on the holiday photo posts. It's lovely to see that they brought back memories to folk who had visited or lived here in the past .

• Decided the large fir cone definitely had to go from the Autumn display so I pulled out the coloured artificial fabric/paper leaves that have been used every year for around 8 years. I gave them a bit of a wipe with a damp cloth to refresh and it now looks much better.  In October I'll add in the few Halloween bits.





• The British Heart Foundation charity shop  in Stowmarket, which has been there for years, closed down with no notice. The volunteers were just told 'This shop is now closed'. I believe they did the same thing in Diss a few years ago. Very odd. The shop is still full of stuff.

• Very mixed Autumn weather this week, very windy on Monday and Tuesday and wet and nasty on Wednesday and really chilly. Then milder on Thursday and positively Hot on Friday. Difficult to know exactly what to wear everyday. 

• I've spent some time this week feeling ugh!  Have I become intolerant  to something I eat that previously hasn't affected me? Didn't have much energy in between jobs, so plenty of reading time. I read two of my own books while waiting for the mobile library to bring my reservations. Also watched the World Athletics Championships from Japan. How they run in that heat I've no idea.

• Because of the weird stats numbers I've been looking more often and  last Saturdays post had a crazy number of page views...........over 7,000 by the time I wrote this post. I hope AI is enjoying my ramblings and adding them to their knowledge of how to speak Suffolk!

• Ed Sheran and his family are deserting Suffolk to go and live in the US - he's the main sponsor for Ipswich Town FC - hope he doesn't abandon them. He says it's while he's touring and writing Country music - so maybe he will be back eventually.

• Now I've reached the right age I've made an appointment for shingles vaccination next week, are there any side effects that I should know about?

• We need some more people for the Keep Moving exercise group, people are not coming as regularly as they once did, some weeks recently we've been down to just 7 or 8 of us. Three ladies are poorly, two more came once and then never again. Perhaps I will put a message on the local face book or next door website pages again, it worked at the beginning of the year. 

• I managed to get through the whole week without seeing any TV coverage of the State visit here from a certain person. That's a win in my opinion.

• Quite a lot of garden clearing done this week, cutting back one of the buddleias and a lot of other bits until the garden bin was full again. Then I got the grass cut on Thursday, it was getting long due to me being away and it mustn't get too long or the battery mower struggles and I have to get BiL to cut it - try not to let that happen as he is always so busy.

And here we are at another weekend, decent weather is forecast - best to make the most of it with the equinox on Monday there's no getting away from the fact that Autumn is really here.

Back Monday

RSPB Minsmere

 I'd not been to Minsmere the RSPB reserve on the coast here for a very long time. It's completely changed with new visitor centre, cafe and shop.

Unfortunately it wasn't a good day for spotting birds - for me anyway- I'm sure others did better. The dry weather had dried up the 'scrape' which is the usually huge area of shallow water over mud that wading birds enjoy. The reeds are so tall that I couldn't see over them from one of the hides and the morning sun reflecting on the water didn't help and I just didn't have the energy for walking too far for some reason.

Even walking through the woodland it was really quiet , the only birds I heard were a robin and a wren and elsewhere I only saw a moorhen, mallard ducks, magpies and crows and one solitary goose.

Oh well.

A few photos.

That's Sizewell Power Station in the Distance. The distant sound of pile-driving for the new Sizewell C could be heard from Minsmere and from the my holiday lodge site. Luckily only in daytime!

I went in the cafe for a warming cup of coffee and a ginormous sausage roll - I cut in half and took away for later. 

On the wall  there are some very unsettling pictures that tell part of the history of the RSPB.. Originally set up to stop the use of feathers in hats and other fashion items.

  

The one above says between 1870 and 1920 64,000 tons of dead birds were imported into London alone.

The Society for the Protection of Birds, triumphed with the Plumage Act of 1921. Making it illegal to import dead birds into Britain.

The dry weather this summer hasn't helped the waders and other birds that usually breed in this country.

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Dunwich Heath

 National Trust land - saved for the Nation, but £6 to park as I'm no longer a member.

This is an area all along this part of the coast which is protected heathland. I don't think I've ever seen the heather so colourful before

The view north to Dunwich village, Southwold in the distance and the cliffs that fall into the sea every winter.

The heathland was beautiful in the sunshine

This collection of buildings were once cottages for the coastguards. Now they are holiday lets and tearooms and shop all belonging to the National Trust

National Trust info HERE

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Southwold Pier

 Last time I went to Southwold in January 2023 it was to visit the church in town and I had problems with the car tyre pressure warning coming on and didn't dare stay too long so  it's years since I'd been down to the pier end of the town and hadn't actually been on the pier since it was restored and that was in 2001.

So that's where I went one morning. I'd picked the windiest day and the sea was really rough. The pier has got a couple of shops, the 'Under the Pier ' collection of strange machines, a slot machine arcade, fish and chip shop and a good restaurant..

Southwold sea front and lighthouse from the pier.

A couple of the crazy machines , some are very old and others are more recent made by a local Suffolk man.

The water clock that 'performs' every half hour but it was way too windy to stand and watch

It was a very high tide and the waves were crashing on the sea wall by the beach huts. These beach huts, day use only, sell for crazy prices, the equivalent of buying a small house or a flat in other parts of the county. No one using them on a rough September day.

I had a crab salad meal in the restaurant - it was delicious.

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Walberswick

 In the 1960s this place was THE village for artists and poets etc. My Grammar school friend Ally, whose father was Lawrence Self, a well known artist of the time, used to holiday here every summer, which I thought odd then as it was only an hour from home - that was before I knew  about it's arty/hippy  reputation. (Laurence Self eventually split with my friends Mum and re-married and nowhere on line is there any mention of the 4 children he had with his first wife!)

Now it gets crammed full with visitors in summer. In the early 90's when the children were still small enough for beach days it's where we went from the smallholding - being the nearest sandy place. 

Later they used to put up signs on Summer weekends (there's only one road in and out of the village) to say 'The Village is Full!" . Now they put people off visiting by turning all the car parks to ones where you need a phone app to pay and stay. I didn't!

The bridge I'm standing on to take the photo is one where people go crabbing. The World Crabbing Championships were held here for many years until they became so popular the village was overwhelmed and they finished in 2010.

 Colin had to come here with a boat and other members of the Bridge Department to check the bridges every other year. The water was too high for crabbing when I was there and for getting a boat under the bridge.

These buildings by the harbour were once for fishermen , now they are mainly expensive holiday lets.

I went back and parked in the village itself. It has tea shops and a couple of gift shops

I walked down to the beach and passed a man standing by his car - we said 'morning' as you do and then I did a double take and said ' oh hello I recognise you' .It was TV/radio broadcaster and author Paul Heiney who lives in this part of Suffolk with his wife, radio broadcaster and author Libby Purves. On my way back I just had to tell him that we had moved into Grove Road in Knodishall not long after they had moved away from the other end of the road.  Don't know what he thought of this strange woman speaking to him!

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St Andrew's Church, Walberswick

 Now this is a strange one! All the history is HERE on the Suffolk Churches website

The church as it is now, is the third church in Walberswick and was built in the ruins of the second huge Catholic church that became much too big for the congregation after Henry VIII changed the country's religion. The tower remains from the original church which was one of the biggest in the country when it was finished in the 1490's. But just 200 years later the congregation asked for permission to rebuild the smaller church.

The altar has something I'd never heard of before .......... a Supermensa -  which is a consecrated stone slab from medieval times, rescued from the ruined church.

Remnants of stained glass from the large church have been used in this window.

In among the ruins you can see just how big the church was originally.

It's always interesting to see how far back the names of the Vicars were known. The current Team Rector - Russell Gant was at primary school at the same time as eldest daughter and was one of my Cub Scouts. I had no idea he was a vicar but looked him up online and yes he is the Russell Gant from all those years ago.

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