Notes From The First Week of September.

• September started with having the YGD and the MGS here for Monday and Tuesday as DiL had PD days at school - I can't even remember what PD stands for - perhaps it's Professional Development? The school has had some classroom refurbs over the summer hols and teachers coming and going so that's interesting for the Grandchildren's return.

• Has anyone else come across a Channel 5 crime thing - a short series of 3 -  with Phyllis Logan as The Puzzle Lady - 'Murder most Puzzling'. It's weird - cosy crime with swearing! American stories (we don't have Mayors who can tell the police how to do their job!) moved to the UK. So very wrong!
• At odd times over the last several weeks I watched my way through all 5 seasons of an Australian series on the free Pluto channel. It was called Sea Patrol and all about  HMAS Hammersley and the crew and their patrols around the Australian coast off Cairns. It was made from 2007 - 2011 so probably a bit dated now. It had a sad ending - which was disappointing. 

• Because I hadn't heard much about this years Strictly Come Dancing I Looked to see when it starts and who was in it. The first pre-recorded introduction show is on the 20th and I hadn't a clue who half the celebs are although I see they've a drag queen and the Australian Stefan Dennis who I remember from Neighbours way way back.

• Yesterday I got the red tomato, onion and pepper chutney made - 8 jars in total. I'm glad that job's done, chopping everything small is a fiddly job. I used my homegrown red peppers after all so only bought red onions, red chilli peppers and red wine vinegar.

• There's a  government emergency alarm thing on mobile phones tomorrow at 3pm - last time I didn't notice it - either it didn't happen on my phone or the phone was indoors and I wasn't.

• The weird page view numbers are still happening, I thought they'd stopped but this week page views are over 2,000 a day again, when the norm was around 700.

• There is  warm and dry weather forecast for the weekend which is good news, there were several rainy hours during this last week and I discovered my garden shed is leaking again. The water had dripped onto the battery mower. Luckily charging up the battery and standing the mower in the sun yesterday dried everything out and it's working fine again......phew!

Hope you have a good weekend, I'll be back Monday.

St Mary's, Helmingham .

 This church is all about the Tollemache family who have owned the huge Helmingham estate for several hundred years and many generations.

This church was built specifically for the family and their tenants in late 15th and early 16th centuries.

Highly carved font

In almost every available space on the walls are painted  bible texts. The work of the vicar here during the mid 1800's - John Ryle who later went on to be the first Bishop of Liverpool

And then everywhere you look, there are the many, many memorials to members of the Tollemache family - recent and from long ago

The largest memorial is this one below, and the dormer window was added into the roof to make room for it. Erected in 1615 it remembers 4 generations.

This is the  dormer window, from outside and you can see the top of the massive memorial inside

Many more Tollemaches and their tenants are remembered on the 1914-1918 war memorial

Zooming in across the parkland to the House. Still lived in by the Tollemache family, although it isn't open to the public but the gardens and parkland are and they have various events through the year.

 The links at the start of this post give more information and this is the link to Simon Knott's Suffolk churches website for more about the church.

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Tour of Britain Cycle Race

 The Men's Tour of Britain Cycle Race had two stages in Suffolk this year. This is at least the fourth time that the men in lycra have raced through the county. I went to watch many years ago at the smallholding when they zoomed down the A1094 to Aldeburgh. Then when we were at Clay Cottage before Col died we went  just a few miles to watch them whizz through Eye.

The 169.3-kilometre (105.3-mile) leg will depart from Ipswich Street in the town centre at 11:00, leaving towards Stowupland and Forward Green. The route takes in Debenham and Bedfield, before the intermediate sprint in Stradbroke after 40 kilometres of racing. 

START Ipswich Street, Stowmarket 11:00 | Stonham Aspal 11:23 | Debenham 11:31 | Stradbroke 12:13 | Walsham le Willows 12:58 | Lavenham 13:49 | Sudbury 14:08 | Stoke-by-Nayland 14:21 | Hadleigh 14:41 | Hitcham 14:58 | FINISH Ipswich Street, Stowmarket 15:16

(Makes me smile to see the King of The Mountain stage - one of the few steep-ish hills in Suffolk)


I've never seen where they get ready for the beginning of a race, so as I needed to go to Stow anyway I went early and walked through town to where all the police and safety people were parked up ready for the start.

The is where the finish line was -  ready for the end of the day. 

On one town car parks they had a huge screen showing some previous race footage with extremely LOUD speakers. This is where the presentations are made at the end of the race.

I felt sorry for the people on the trade stands- they'll be deaf by the end of the day!

On another town car park the coaches and support cars were gathering. A tight squeeze to get them in and out but I guess it's like that in all the small towns they roll up to.

I not exactly sure where the start line was. The first road with the rolling closure was on one of the main roads out of town - the road I usually use for getting in and out of Stowmarket - but sensibly didn't use it yesterday!

That's when it started raining again, so I walked back through town to Asda - where the car park was by then chock-a-block, got the bits of shopping and home again.

Home with time for lunch before I went out  again just a few miles to the village of Gislingham, where I knew I could get in and out of the village and park without getting caught up in any rolling road block.

(The rain had stopped at this point, but the poor blokes got soaked later in the day)

First lots of support vehicles and police and  then there was a breakaway of 4 cyclists just over 1 minute ahead of the others.

(I didn't notice a mans leg on the rails on every blinkin' photo I took!)

Then the peloton, several people had come out to watch.

It's impossible to look and see who anyone is and the 100+ riders were by in a flash!

More support vehicles, ambulances, medical people, media and that was that.

Then home again and I put ITV4+1 on to see the race. They didn't show the cyclists going through Gislingham - that was during one of the very long ad-breaks. At the end of the race there were some good overhead views of Stowmarket and it looked like a good crowd watching the presentations.

 

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The Good, the Not So Good and the Other One

 The good, the not so good and the other one.................that's my take on 4 books read in the last couple of weeks from the most recent mobile library collection.

The good were two crime fiction books by two authors I'd read before and enjoyed. Both of these authors originally wrote some of their crime series over 10 years ago but I've only just discovered them.

The library have all the Christina Koning series which have all been recently republished either in stock or on order, as I suggested they purchase the two in the series they didn't have.

There are very few of Jim Kelly's older books in the library. He's written three different series going back to early 2000's. They've got all of his most recent Cambridge Nighthawk series (2018 - 2025) which I've read but the one below is from  The Detective Inspector Shaw and DS Valentine series (2008- 2016) set on the Norfolk coast and they only have a couple of these. I don't know if they had them all at any time in the past.

The not so  good  was this collection of short modern crime stories all written recently specially for this book by various authors. Some were so weird I couldn't follow the story at all. Most of the authors I'd never heard of and won't be looking for more of their work for sure!

The other one was this non-fiction book by Lucy Easthope, an emergency planner who has been called in to advise and support survivors in many disaster situations. She has stories of how some help in these situations is really no help at all and more about how long recovery can take. Not sure I learned from it although there is one idea that often comes up on 'prepper' websites and that is to have a 'grab bag' ready just in case it's necessary to leave home very quickly.

 Just last week people living near Whitby in Yorkshire were advised to have a bag ready in case they were told to leave due to the huge moorland fires that were sometimes out of control around them. 

Hopefully recent rain there has helped.

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(Blog post page views seem to be back to normal this week!)

Orchard Barn

 Information about an open day popped up on the local website and as I'd read about this place it seemed a good opportunity to go and have a look.

Community run Centre for Environmental Education - practical courses in heritage building (IHBC Recognised CPD Provider) natural, greenwood and rural skills

It all began in 2007 when the old barn began to be restored, there is a youtube video - if the link works below or HERE if it doesn't.

They started with the restoration, using old building methods, of the  barn which is set amongst lots of overgrown woodland. 

All the 'tiles' or wood shingles on the restored barn were individually made by hand

Then permission was given to rebuild the Suffolk Tudor Long house, which had been in ruins for many decades.

Which is still being worked on but looks very good. The tiles or wood shingles on the long house roof are again all hand made, this time from Chestnut wood. I was a bit puzzled as originally surely it would have been thatch but the lady explaining things inside said they wanted to use sustainable things from on site.

Inside the long house with it's beams and wattle and daub walls. Everything is done by volunteers bit by bit over weeks, months and years and by students doing practical building courses at Suffolk College.

A new addition to the roof - an apple sundial

They've used on-site clay for much of the building. Below are bee-bricks- for bee nests and hibernation- being made - they will be added into some of the other buildings.

Some interesting Pargetting on one of the buildings.

Wood forms for making clay bricks

Much of the land is still woodland and orchard with paths through and around and piles of wood everywhere.

One of the huge flints that have been found when digging for clay

It was interesting to go and look and it reminded me of the 'Tales of the Green Valley' TV series from many years ago

Visiting Orchard Barn made me get out my book and DVD again as I've not looked at them for ages.

Having grown up in an old house which was part  wattle and daub and then restoring a C17 cottage from beams outwards, and done lots of apple pressing, a lot of what they had here wasn't new to me at all -  lots of good memories.

There should have been talks, music, coffee and cake but they didn't seem to be happening and it did look a bit muddled with no one knowing quite what was happening and when. This was their first widely advertised open day so maybe when they do another one it will be a bit more organised. 

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September Days

 Fair on the first of September, fair for the whole month

Autumn Hedgehog and Fruit one of the  Angela Harding prints from her book
'A Year Unfolding'

" I saw old Autumn in the misty morn,

Stand shadowless like silence listening to silence"

Ode:Autumn .Thomas Hood (1799-1845) 

 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)

It's an amazingly good year for hips, haws and sloes which is a worry because...............

Many haws and many sloes make many cold toes.

The full moon this month is on the 7th and in the past the September full moon was  called the Fruit Moon, Wine Moon or Barley Moon. It is also a total moon eclipse or blood moon. The moon will rise at around 7.30pm and will already be in total eclipse.

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