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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Autumn, Apples and Sweetcorn

 The weather turned really autumnal here yesterday, although it was sunny up until 4pm when there was a fantastic thunderstorm with rain and hail and the electric went off for an hour.

 

The wind had knocked five of the Charles Ross apples off the minarette trees while I was away so they were quickly peeled and stewed. There are still a couple left and a few eating apples on the Falstaff tree.

My own sown sweetcorn is finally ready for eating - very delicious. I shall eat a cob most days until they've gone, there are only half a dozen and some very small ones. Everything else is definitely finished unless the courgette plant  puts on a late spurt.

After the days away out and about  visiting places I'm going to have a quiet weekend at home. Although I do need to do a shopping trip - I'm fresh vegetables (apart from the sweetcorn) and fresh fruit less, and I need eggs. Plus the bread maker needs to go on and I'd better go and get a few beetroot from BiL's garden.

I'll sort out photos of the the places I visited on the coast ready for posts for next week.

Have a good weekend.

People Said "Have a Holiday". So I did!

 I didn't go far, just an hour to the coast and stayed in a semi-detached lodge. With sea-view from the decking and the sound of the sea with the door open.

And very steep steps down to the beach - I didn't bother to go down. Too much for my dodgy knee I reckoned.

 In 1968 or 69 a small boy in the first year of Grammar school was killed when there was a cliff fall here - it's mainly sand. Not rocky like cliffs in other parts of the country. We were told in school assembly and some of the girls burst into tears and another fainted. 

The site also had tent/caravan/motorhome pitches and some that looked as it they had been parked there all summer or even longer.

I got plenty of Vitamin D, the sun was glorious. The weather is always better on the coast, the air is softer unless there's a North- East wind of course!  although it turned wet a couple of afternoons. I slept well - which proves how disturbed I get by the odd bits of passing traffic at home.

I ate out each day - that was a real treat. It was a good opportunity to visit some of the churches in this bit of Suffolk  and villages I'd not been to for ages. So lots of church posts to come and some posts about  the places I visited too..

A good change of scenery.

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Pakenham Water Mill

 I last visited the water mill a few years ago on a National Mills Day. This Craft Day looked interesting and there was nothing else happening so I went to have a look.

Ladies spinning and weaving

I'd never seen a Bow and Arrow maker at any event before

Stanton Folk were there making music

 

The Owl and Raptor group. Owls are bred bred in captivity so the are used to being out in daytime and being admired

A stick maker had all sorts of interesting walking sticks

West Suffolk Beekeepers had their honey show and a warning that these hornets have been seen in south Suffolk this summer. 

Some photos of the information signs in the mill itself

The Mill Wheel is huge

On special days they fire up the original bread oven and use their own milled flour to make several different loaves for tasting.

The Maslin loaf on the right was lovely. That's what everyone would have eaten in the medieval period when rye, oats and barley were all sown together. 

The Mill's own website is HERE

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50p Addition to Autumn on the Bookshelves

 I picked up this little bell at the car boot sale a couple of weeks back. It was in one of the boxes of all sorts being sold by one of the house clearance people. I spotted the apple and thought it would be a nice little extra for the top of the bookshelves for Autumn.

I've got more bits and bobs for Autumn and Winter in the cupboard than I have for Spring and Summer, so can have different stuff out and this is what I've brought out of the box for this year.

But maybe it looks a bit brown and dull, so may have a rethink.

Last weekend at the bootsale a man had several of the Beswick Birds that I've mentioned before  and now have an accidental collection of 3! Luckily he wanted £7 Each - so I wasn't even tempted as there was no way was I paying that much when my 3 have been cheap (cheep?). The Chaffinch was 50p in June and the Blue Tit and Wren have been around a few years and were either £1 or 50p. I wonder if he sold his for £7 each?

Back Soon