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.

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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.

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Sue

For or Against?

 Or just pragmatic?

What do you do if you live within 3 miles of a Nuclear Power Station that was built in the 1950s and then another is built beside it in the 1980's and now another is planned?

A lot of people object strongly, so far without it having any effect but I think the majority of the people who live in the small Suffolk town of Leiston are used to the idea and resigned and they shrug shoulders and say 'it pays many peoples wages'. Once you've lived in the area for over 20 years, like we did, you tend to forget about it.

Anyway, the Archaeology company doing all the pre-build exploratory digging there are currently paying YD's wages.(she's not digging but running their on-site admin) so I have to be pragmatic.

 I went over to visit YD and EGD on Sunday and discovered Cotswold/Oxford Archaeology had a exhibition going on of all their finds so far. I popped in to have a look as did dozens of other people, it was really busy. The finds from the site cover almost all of history.

I couldn't take many photos but managed a few between all the folk looking. Sorry they aren't in proper order.

I'm not sure why they had a repro of the Sutton-Hoo helmet!

The most special find, the hoard of 300 silver coins from the 11th century, wasn't on display - much too unique but the guy who was the lucky bloke to find it was there.

More about the coin find HERE

There is a constant reminder of the dangers of living close to Nuclear Power Stations because since 2013 everyone who lives in Leiston has a pack of anti radiation tablets to hand! 

They didn't give us any - we were a couple of miles further away, although if anything did happen there it wouldn't  just be the people in the surrounding area who would be wiped out!

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Sue

Another Vegetarian Taste Test

It's been an age since I did a taste test and  these have been in the freezer since Christmas, I bought them from Aldi when I didn't know what was happening and when and who would be here.

About time I tried one. Like so many of the other vegetarian lattice bakes I've eaten in the last few years

it was OK but not exceptional. There weren't many cranberries to be found inside.

I'll eat the other one but won't buy them again. 

But I'm definitely Not trying something DiL tried recently from Aldi.......... Spinach and Cheddar Grills - she said they were really nasty!

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Sue