St Peter's Church, Felsham

After finding Rattlesden church open a couple of weeks ago I went a couple of miles further to Felsham

The church is quite plain and simple inside.

I'm puzzled about the traffic cone - I didn't notice it until it appeared on this photo!

There were lots of spring flowers to cheer things up

Two lovely embroideries 

All the windows except the east widow have these squares of pale stained glass, quite unusual.

East window

A memorial from WWI

The font dates from C15 but is standing on the remains of an older font.

HERE is the link to the Suffolk Churches website for more history of this small village church.

Back Soon

Sue

 

The First Few Finds

 The weather was fine and the temperature just below freezing when I went to the first car-boot sale of the season on Saturday morning. There were lots of people selling and shivering and even more folk walking round - not quite as cold as those standing still but blimey it was cold.

My spend total was £1.50

More pegs, after finding the ones in a charity shop I've now plenty to last me years, a new pad of paper for the grandchildren and an almost full roll of greaseproof paper.

I use the cheap greaseproof to line tins when cooking things that don't need baking parchment, saves some dishwashing.

At the boot-sale I looked through lots of boxes of crockery for a spring plate for the Seasonal Display - no luck. A couple of years ago I had a plate with spring flowers but it's vanished. Did I give it away? If so I'm a idiot!

So it's the Country Diary March plate on top of the bookshelves -it's third outing I think, the Beswick wren and blue-tit are there again and the Hare moves here from the big bookshelves for March. The flowers came from the boot-sale too, they should have cost me £2 but a lady was buying up loads of bunches and gathering them all into a bucket and I jokingly said can you save some for me? and she paid for her 10 bunches and then paid for my two bunches which was such a surprise that I think I forgot to say 'Thankyou'!

Back Soon

Sue

Morning Adventures Last Week ....No Photos

 If only I'd thought about photos on Monday of last week you would have seen how my morning in the kitchen made me ......

2 Pizza Bases to put in the freezer

1 loaf of 50/50 Wholemeal/white bread

2 pastry cases also for the freezer

Toad-in-the-hole to feed me two days

Roast veg ditto

Sausage rolls for another day last week

And a  left over piece of rolled out pastry to pop in the freezer ready for sausage rolls again sometime

Very glad of the dishwasher!

Always useful to put a few things in the freezer and I soon need to think about re-stocking the batch meals as I'm down to not many left, but I need to do a defrost first. And there's still another pack of 2 Aldi veggie things I got in before Christmas to try. 

Next morning was Keep Moving Group and the guy from Spot Wellbeing, the organisation that started our group over 2 years ago, came to lead us through our half hour of exercises. He worked us harder than we normally do I think. We need to up our game. Although it's still aimed at 65+ so not overly difficult.

On another morning I went to try out another 'old people' exercise group that was also started by Spot Wellbeing just this year( a few miles in the other direction from home). They are now going it alone and are trying out various sequences of exercises and this week they were mainly seated and based on yoga. 

Then there was the usual shopping morning - no coffee out last week. Just Aldi and Asda.

Finally I went swimming - hadn't been for several weeks - it was hard work.

Not sure I can keep up that level of morning adventures! 

Back Soon

Sue

March 1st

 In the Roman calendar March, or Martius, was the first month of the new year. The month was named after Mars, the god of war and the guardian of agriculture. March was the month when both farming and warfare could begin again after winter.

1st March, St David's Day, The Patron St of Wales. The start of meteorological spring.

Upon St David's Day

Put oats and barley in the clay

2nd March, St Chad's Day(Bishop of Northumbria in the 7th Century)

Saint's David and Chad

Sow peas, good or bad.

Stained Glass from Holy Cross Monastery New York

4th March, Shrove Tuesday - Pancakes!

5th March, St Pirans Day and Ash Wednesday

Sprinkling of Ashes from a Polish Painting C19

6th March, World Book Day

14th March, Full Moon - The Lenten Moon or Plough Moon

 

17th March,  St Patrick's Day. Patron Saint of Ireland  and St Joseph of Arimathea.

If St Joseph's Day is clear

We shall have a fertile year.

 

20th March,  Vernal Equinox, the start of Astronomical spring and Ostara, The Pagan festival celebrating Eostre, Goddess of Spring. 

 21st  March, St Benedict's Day (also July 21st)

Whatever the weather on 21st, that weather will stay until 21st June

 

25th March, Lady Day. The feast of the Annunciation and 1st Quarter day

An east wind on Lady Day

Will keep on 'til the end of May

29th March, Super New Moon and Clocks go Forward Overnight

 

30th March, Mothering Sunday 

It is the first mild day of March:

Each minute sweeter than before,

The redbreast sings from the tall larch

That stands beside our door.

There is a blessing in the air,

Which seems a sense of joy to yield

To the bare trees, and mountains bare,

And grass in the green field.

From ' To My Sister' by William Wordsworth

Back Soon

Sue

Whoopee! Car Boot Season is About to Start...............

...................weather permitting.....tomorrow..............and the forecast is looking OK.

 I started a list  of what to look for this year

• Clothes Pegs. Just ordinary wooden ones with a spring. I tend to use these for pegging all sorts of things in the garden and bags in the freezer and then the number I have to actually peg out clothes gets less until there are hardly any in the peg bag.
• Small ceramic oblong pie dishes. Had to chuck out two small ones last year - both really badly crackled glaze.
• A new sieve - one of mine has a crack in the rim
• Interesting looking books
• Christmas Crackers
• Birthday cards - especially for men
• Useful things from house clearance people - like half used packs of baking parchment, foil, cling film etc
• A Pretty plate for Spring display - cheap
• Jigsaws for next autumn/winter

Then I was in Stowmarket a couple of weeks ago and went in the Barnardo's Charity shop where I saw a pack of pegs for £1.50 - plus the Grandson card for 50p.

So one thing crossed off before the first boot-sale even happens.

Probably far too wet underfoot for the Sunday boot-sale to start although their website says they will try, but I don't fancy getting stuck on their soggy car park.

Back Soon

Sue

The Church of St Nicholas, Rattlesden

 I don't know why I'd not been to this church before now as it's not really far from home, just a few miles through lanes on the other side of the A14.

The small spire on top of the tower is quite unusual.              

The first thing you notice when walking in is the Rood Screen and Loft with the crucifixion. It was constructed between 1909 and 1916 and is based on a small piece of the medieval one that remained.

The lower part of the screen has heavy doors between Nave and Chancel

What is unusual is this locked gate over in the south aisle with a small stairway up to a part of the loft

And a small stairway from this part of the loft to the main part across the Nave.This is what Simon Knott says about it on the Suffolk Churches website.

 But what makes St Nicholas remarkable is that it has one of the most complete and precise reconstructions of a rood screen system in England. It was constructed between 1909 and 1916 to the designs of George Fellowes Prynne. It is based on a medieval fragment surviving at the west end. One of the reasons it is so impressive is that it does not try to recreate a medieval effect, but rather serves to demonstrate the actual mechanics of how the whole thing worked. If you are lucky enough to be allowed through the locked grill, the original roodloft stair in the south aisle takes you up into the loft of the parclose screen as at Dennington, and then up a ladder and through an opening in the south arcade across into the roodloft itself

Seats for the clergy in the Sanctuary

East window, altar and carved reredos of the last supper

On my way into church I met an elderly man who had just finished some cleaning and was on his way home, he told me all this woodwork and steps up to the ringing chamber are recent additions.

They look very smart

The pews in the nave have been replaced by chairs, although they look just as solid as a pew!. The kneelers were so colourful.

Over in the north aisle is a small chapel to remember the men of the The Mighty Eighth, USAF who flew from the nearby airfield towards the end of WWII

So many Suffolk churches have some sort of memorial to the USAF as  almost every village had an airfield nearby. The men were welcomed into the homes of local people to eat with them and the children loved the 'candy' they always had. Now the descendants of the airmen come to visit and remember them.

Back Soon

Sue

The End of the Reading the Seasons Year

It's a year since I came up with the idea of reading some books with Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter in their titles.

This was the book that inspired the idea, and I ended up reading 6 for Spring.

Two of these I would have read anyway even if I hadn't been doing the challenge but it was good to search out the others and  I enjoyed all of the books. 

Then it was onto Summer titles, nine found and read in total.

.

 Again there are some that I would have read anyway but others searched out for their titles and enjoyed.

In Autumn I didn't find so many, out of half a dozen borrowed I only read these two. My excuse was I was decorating the living room and nothing else appealed.

So then it was winter and there were three from the library

The Woods in Winter was the best of them

And one from my shelves

And that's it, 'Reading The Seasons' is all finished. Info on all the books above are on the separate pages or click  on the Reading The Seasons in the label list .

 I did ponder reading books with the month in their titles, but after putting 'April' in the library search and finding lots that didn't appeal at all I gave up on that idea.

Back Soon

Sue