31st October

The cats come out

The bats come out

The pumpkins come out, too

The treats come out

The ghosts come out

It's Halloween.........BOO!

Apologies. but I can't remember where this illustration comes from. - One of my books for sure.

All Hallows Eve, the evening before All Saints Day or Halloween as it's more usually called is now associated with pumpkins, and dressing up but it is a day that was for centuries full of  mysteries and superstition.

The Night of the Dead - the most unpredictable night of the year - when festivals from many cultures collide.

On Hallowe'en the old ghosts come

About us- and they speak to some

(Anon)

The traditional beliefs of  Halloween are connected with rituals for Samhain, the Celtic festival that was celebrated in Ireland and Scotland and by modern pagans. Samhain was one of the four Celtic festivals known as quarter days. The meaning of the word in old Irish is 'summers end'. Celts considered sundown as the start of a day, which is why although Samhain is November 1st, it would have been celebrated at sundown on the 31st. It was their new year and fires would have been lit on the hilltops to drive out the evil of  the last year and welcome in the new. 

Later festivities would have been influenced by the Christian feasts of All Saints on the 1st and All Souls on November 2nd, when the dead are remembered in prayers.

For on Hallowmas Eve the Nighthag shall ride,

And all her nine-fold sweeping by her side 

(Waverley by Sir Walter Scott published in 1814) 

 In the past it was a night for staying by the fire, out of harms way, and telling fortunes.

Fortune telling was done by throwing a hazelnut into the fire and seeing how it burned, or by peeling an apple and looking for the shape of the peel. These were ways of foretelling a birth or death in the family, the success of a marriage or the initials of a future husband.

In some parts of the country the 31st of October was known  as Mischief Night when mummers  would blacken their faces and knock on doors asking for cash. So although we think the trick or treat idea for Halloween came here from the USA, along with pumpkins, during the last 25 years, it's not completely  new............... before pumpkins,  faces would have been carved from swedes, turnips or mangle wurzels.

Apologies for not replying to comments some days - so many good books to read is my poor excuse!

Back Tomorrow . A-Z posts start - not sure how long I can keep it up as I've only got plans for about half a dozen out of 26 so far - oh dear.

End of October Round-up

Tomorrows post will be about Halloween so I'm doing my  End of October post a day early. A month when I have felt unwell a couple of times with something last experienced 20 years ago. On the whole though it was a decent month weather wise although why we had to have rain for the last car boot sale of the season I don't know, and it turned much colder quite suddenly............Back to taking a hot water bottle and my microwave heat pack to bed again. 

I did some garden clearing, until this last week, but there is still so much Buddleia to cut back and all the perennials out the front. I'm going to get BiL over with his chainsaw to cut one buddleia  back much further than I can do. Plus the Flamingo tree died suddenly in the dry weather of the summer so that will need to go too.

 The month hasn't been too spendy but I accidently put one birthday present purchase on the wrong card so that will catch up with me next month. Two lots of diesel, Council Tax, charity donations, monthly electric bill, phones and broadband and my laptop Windows update came to £444 this month.

I found a couple of things for Christmas gifts and there were two birthday presents. In the house I spent out on a new kettle and the window cleaner came. From boot sales came the new ceramic pumpkin for the bookshelf display for £1 and the Summer Chintz jug also £1 also from boot sales a nearly full roll of baking parchment for 20p, Christmas crackers for £1. I stocked up with bird food from the market stall for £12 - should last until the new year. And for myself some second hand books and a new Puzzler book.

Food is still going up in price - I noticed milk is up another 10p for 4 pints, that's an increase of 30p since April but I did call in at the nearest proper butchers and picked up a large bag of lamb scrag for stews for £3 and then found a nice big gammon joint for Christmas for half price = £7 on Diss market.

 November is round the corner, always a  month  when I try to spend as little as possible except for Christmas presents etc., while still visiting as many Christmas Sales and Fairs as I can. Some Saturdays in November there are three, in three different villages, on one day. I gave up the idea of coffee and cake at each sale when this happened last year!

Back Soon

Church Book Sale

Pouring rain early morning meant I didn't go to the last car boot of the season at Needham Market, there wouldn't have been many there if I had gone. Instead I journeyed to a village called Acton in South Suffolk after blog reader Jan told me the date of their book sale in the church. They hold this twice a year and I've always missed out before. The church pews and many tables were full of books, mainly fiction which I skimmed for grey Persephone books or old crime novels without any luck. 

But from among the non fiction I picked up half a dozen. I've chopped the top off the book at the back but its a 1990 facsimile of a book from 1899 called 'The Book of Shops' with illustrations by Francis Bedford and verses by E.V. Lucas.  

Two pages below from the Shops book

The one at the bottom on my windowsill  is called 'Suffolk Strange But True' chapters about odd happenings, lost villages and Suffolk mysteries and above that 'Tatterlegs for Tea' by David Woodward  is a follow up to his book about Suffolk dialect which I already have. This little book has Suffolk stories collected with a few verses. The Nature of Autumn and The Nature of Winter are both by Jim Crumley and share his love of the seasons and what he finds in them. The sixth book 'Four Walks in English Rain' is by Melissa Harrison who has written many books about wellbeing.

Blog reader Jan, who lives just over the Essex border and brought me snowdrops several years ago, somehow recognised me among all the crowd which was a surprise. I'm hopeless at recognising people only seen once! 

I couldn't do photos of Acton Church, much too full of books and people, I planned to visit Chilton church before going home but couldn't find it! (Turns out to be across a field behind Chiltern Hall and is closed at the moment anyway, a good thing I didn't find it as it was too cold for walking far) 

So I thought I'd call in at Great Waldingfield church on my way back but they were having a special heritage weekend so the church was full of people and display boards making that  a no - no too. But I did manage a visit to the church in Little Waldingfield on my way through, by which time  I was getting so cold and glad to go straight off home, especially as by then I was feeling very grotty again.

Back on antibiotics - doctor visit  booked for later in the week. 

Back Soon

St Mary's Church, Ixworth

 Ixworth is one of those villages that used to be important and almost a town but now the main roads go round instead of through and there are just a couple of  shops left in the High Street.

Just behind some of the houses in the High Street stands the large church. I looked at a map before I got there unlike Simon Knott on the Suffolk churches website who cycled right past!

The church has two side aisles so is almost as wide as it is long.

In the north aisle is the small lady chapel, with it's mother and child stature and it's own small altar.

It was a bit gloomy in the chancel

The tomb is for Richard Coddington from the 1560s

The Stained glass below is from the 20th Century

Text over the chancel arch

Font with it's interesting cover

Back Soon

Told By A Ghost!

Library Books -  reading or not reading?

Did I want to read a book written from the point of view of a ghost? No. (A Schooling in Murder by Andrew Taylor)

Then there were the two by Alex Pine, I read one of these a few months ago and it was OK so I'd reserved two from earlier in the series, but these seemed so stilted, with  conversations that sounded really artificial, so I didn't bother finishing either.

That wasn't a good start to my reading after the library van collection almost a fortnight ago. So it had to be something guaranteed to be good next, ............... Murder in Berlin by Christina Koning. Set in 1933 Berlin when things were beginning to get very nasty in Germany. It was a good read as I expected. That's two books set at much the same time read in the last few weeks - the other was Evil in High Places by Rory Clements, set during the 1936 Winter Olympics. Both capture the fear as Hitler comes to power, military on the streets and everyone is suddenly afraid of saying the wrong thing to the wrong person and no one quite trusts their friends and neighbours anymore.

Next I read The Skeleton in the Rosebed by Alys Clare. This is the 5th in a series set in 1880's London with Lily Raynor and Felix Wilbraham who run the World's End Investigation Bureau. Three elderly siblings come to the bureau asking for help with a skeleton they've found in a rose bed in their garden. They believe it to be a relative from 300 years earlier. Unfortunately for Lily and Felix, it is something happening nearby that really causes them problems and when Felix is almost beaten to death it takes all of the residents of 3, Hobs Court and other friends to look after him and to find out who attacked him and why.

Then I pulled out The Odd Flamingo by Nina Bawden, This is a British Library Crime Classic originally published in 1954 and just republished this year. Nina Bawden is better know for children's fiction although I've never read any of her books. I just couldn't get into this, so abandoned it after a chapter.

After that I read the short crime stories in the British Library Crime Classic Continental Crimes this was published in 2017 but for some reason I'd not read it. There are some very old and odd stories, I skipped one or two.

Finally, now I'm reading the new to me author Sally Smith and her first book set in the early 1900's , 'A Case of Mice and Murder' in which Barrister Gabriel Ward , working in London's Inner Temple trips over the body of the Lord Chief Justice and is asked to find who, among everyone working there, is the murderer. But his mind would rather be on his latest case defending a publisher of the book 'Millie the Temple Church Mouse'. by an unknown author.

 So far it's a really good read and will definitely be finished, probably before this post is published!

 I'm looking forward to  reading the other two books I collected by Christina Koning but there's still nearly two weeks left before the library van is round again so I'm spreading them out..

It's a complicated business choosing which library books to read in which order!  

Back Soon

St Crispin's Day

 If they existed St Crispin and Crispinian were brothers who lived devout Christian lives in Rome until they were driven out to Gaul where they became missionaries, they had given up all their possessions and became shoemakers and lived in peace until Emperor Maximian visited and some Pagans complained about the brothers preaching Christianity. They were tortured and then beheaded around AD285. 

But it was much later before they were heard about in this country where they became known as the patron saints of leatherworkers. 

It was Shakespeare, whose lines in Henry V Act IV remembered the day, as it was the day that the Battle of Agincourt was fought in 1415

This day is called the feast of St Crispian.He that outlives this day and come safe home will stand a tip-toe when the day is named. And rouse him at the name as Crispian. He that shall live this day, and see old age, will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours and say 'Tomorrow is Saint Crispian'. Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, and say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day '.

In some places customs remembering the saints carried on until the mid 1800's at least. This was recorded in 1852

 In the parishes of Cuckfield and Hurst-a-point in Sussex. It is still the custom to observe St Crispins Day and is kept with much rejoicing. The boys go round asking for money in the name of St Crispin, bonfires are lighted, and it passes off very much in the same way as the fifth of November does.

   

St Crispin's Day: Shoemakers having a holiday in honour of their patron saint. (George Cruickshank Comic Almanac 1836)

And an old saying from Herefordshire 

"The twenty-fifth of October, Cursed be the cobbler who goes to bed sober". 

A reminder to shoemakers and cobblers to celebrate appropriately!

*************

Thanks everyone for comments over the last two days, especially for all the ideas for A-Z posts for November, and to Jan, who went above and beyond with two long lists, although the AI one was a bit random! I got my lap top back with it's windows update, nothing changed really but I guess being on windows 11 updates security.

Have a good weekend, it's clocks back weekend here - not a fan, but  I'll be back Monday.

Enough Christmas Crackers?

 I found another new box of Christmas crackers for £1 at the last boot sale, I have enough for a small army! 

I was surprised how heavy these were when I picked up the box and found the shiny bits on the ends of each are metal candle holders for tealight candles. They've gone a strange colour and don't need to be included.

Must tell the family not to get any new ones this year.

Back Soon

A-Z Ideas Needed

 I'm thinking about doing the A-Z blog posts through November and need ideas - maybe not those used already in 2022 and 2023. Needs to be something that I can make some sort of connection too. I can't write about things, I know nothing about! I don't mind repeating from previous years as long as I can think of something different to say.

These were the A-Z subjects before

In 2022                                                                    In 2023

A = Apples                                                               A = Art
B = Books                                                                B = Bread
C = Colin                                                                 C = Clothes and coats
D = Daughters                                                         D = Dogs
E = Embroidery and Cross stitch                             E = Elections
F = Figs                                                                    F = Fireworks
G =Gardens                                                             G = Giant Second-hand book sale
H = Hampers for Christmas                                     H = Home
I = Ipswich                                                               I = In between
J = Jams                                                                    J = Jam (again)
K = Kitchens                                                            K = Kenton All Saints
L = Leaves                                                                L = Lists
M = Mistletoe                                                           M = Mum
N = (all sorts of N words)                                        N = Norfolk Cheese
O = Owls                                                                  O = Onions
P =Positivity                                                             P = Preparedness
Q =  Questions                                                         Q = Quite a Nice Collection
R = Reading                                                             R = Retirement
S = So Many Things                                                S = Second-hand post
T = Treasure                                                             T = Treats
U = Underwear                                                         U = Upset
V =Village Halls                                                       V = Vaccinations
W = Watching                                                           W = Wordle
X = Xercise                                                               X = Xmas
Y = You                                                                     Y = Yule log
Z = AmaZing and Zenith                                          Z = The End!

I may regret this plan!

and this plan.............as I'm risking all and taking the laptop to the computer place for it to be updated to windows 11 today and picking it up tomorrow. I can access the blog on the phone but answering comments is tinier and harder so please accept my apologies in advance.

Back Soon.............I hope

And More!

 Yep, another piece of Portmeirion Holly and Ivy china.

A tea-light holder. Car boot find - of course. £2. I was walking by just as the lady selling was unwrapping it and swooped in quickly. It's less than three inches tall so not taking up a lot of room in the cupboard and I can use it on the bookshelf for December, with my other winter bits . That's my excuse for the purchase of my tenth item.

I had three years between 2020 and 2023 when I didn't find any - there are many pieces on ebay but much more expensive than I would pay. Mine are just from charity shops or boot sales - mostly the latter. So finding two bits in the last couple of months is odd.

Back Soon

Then and Now

 This was the old Edwardian photo of Hollesley church, one of those I found and wrote about a couple of weeks ago. 

And how it looks now, the house in the foreground is long gone, you can just see the top of the roof of the house behind which is still there and can just be seen on the old photo. All the other buildings that can be glimpsed on the old photo have also gone.

And as I pulled into the entrance way to park I realised that I HAD been here before and because I thought I hadn't I didn't even check my new checklist of A-Z churches - what an idiot woman!

A couple were doing some tidying in the churchyard, so I showed them the old photo and they were really interested to see it and hadn't seen it before although they were both local people. I left the photo with them to show others in the village. Better for it to be in the village than 30 miles away in my house.

It was almost exactly 4 years ago  that I visited Hollesley after a tour of the Woodbridge charity shops and I did the same last week and  went round all of them and found nothing, although there was a Grey Persephone book but it was £5 - more than I wanted to pay simply to add to the shelf as it wasn't one I'd want to read. I was hoping to find a Nativity scene of some sort for a friend at the Keep Moving group, who is trying to collect lots (donated or loaned) for a display as a fundraiser for her church. No luck with finding anything in Woodbridge, in fact few charity shops had Christmas stuff out yet.

I'm loaning the two I have 

But it will need dozens more to be anything like the display I visited in 2018 when there were 200 on display at Grundisburgh Church, where they were lucky to have many loaned by Libby Purves and more from their vicar at that time. They've never had another display there , the vicar moved away and Libby Purves doesn't loan out her collection - she was looking for a new home for it at the time.

So if you know anyone who has a nativity scene they don't want anymore, there's a new home for it here in Mid Suffolk!

Back Soon

 

The October Library Book Photo

 Whoop Whoop -  so many crime! A lovely collection of books picked up last week. I'm sure I won't run out before the van is round again this time. They are all books that I'd reserved online.

There's just one non fiction on the left ' The Bookseller of Hay' which is about Richard Booth the man who more or less started The Town of Books at Hay on Wye. One of the crime novels is a new to me author and Andrew Taylor is an author I've tried umpteen times and never managed to finish and two more are British Library Crime Classics. The Lake House by Kate Morton is the only fiction that isn't crime but the three I'm most looking forward to are those by Christina Koning from the Blind Detective series, they weren't all requested or reserved at the same time but have arrived together.

Last month I collected these below and ran out of reading well before the van came this time. 5 out of the 8 were read properly and one skimmed through. Info about those I read are on the Books Read 2025 page.

Back Soon

Rushing Through The Month As Usual

Autumn colours. 

We don't get the huge range of oranges and reds that can be seen in the US, usually just yellows and browns as the leaves change but here and there the odd tree stands out. This one below I think I've photographed before as it's at the edge of the Asda car park in Stowmarket.

Outside under the kitchen window is this patch of Michaelmas Daisies that has gradually spread from nothing over my years here. There is another plant with much darker flowers by the path too.

The weather this week has been dull and cloudy, drizzly and murky in Mid-Suffolk, no rain to speak of but no dry out for the washing or for getting the grass cut - it's still not stopped growing.

I've finished the October jigsaw puzzle, all pieces present and correct, thank goodness, after thinking there was a piece missing right to the end.

It's definitely Colin in his blue overalls in the workshop!- we even had a grey Ferguson tractor and a Collie dog although we didn't have the lovely stone building and all the other bits of machinery.

And now we are past halfway through another month, it's another weekend and racing to November. 

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

Out and About Last Weekend

 It's the start of the Autumn Fayre season. Fundraisers for villages all around. From November they will be called Christmas Fayres, but basically the same thing! 

At the first one I went to in the United Reform Church in Debenham I found a crime fiction new-to-me author, I've read it already as I was out of library books. It was slightly cosy-crime but readable. Also bought a home made lemon cake to take home which has lasted me all week.

At the second Autumn sale in Thornham Magna village hall, I just bought a jar of lemon and lime marmalade from a local small business but it will be the last one I buy from them as they're now using 8oz jars whereas they used to sell in 12oz jars, but charging the same price for the smaller. As well as selling at all the craft/autumn/Christmas sales, they've just opened a shop in a unit at the hardware/gift place - maybe they had to put prices up to cover that.

Lots of people selling Christmas bits at last Sunday's boot sale. I have enough really now I only do a Christmas tree and the seasonal bits on the bookshelf but I liked this Christmas Goose and bought it for £1. The man had a whole box full of these and similar new tree decorations, originally from The Range and originally priced at £1.99 or £2.99. Maybe he bought them in the January sales last year? 

Also splashed out 20p on another crime fiction which I wasn't sure if I'd read or not as there are a whole series of these short story collections. Luckily it's one I've not  read  so that's added to my shelves for reading 'emergencies!'

I do like to get out and about at the weekends while I can.

Back Soon

St Margaret's Thrandeston

 I drove round and round part of the village of Thrandeston without finding the church when I went here first time, then stopped to ask where it was and eventually found it. The village is just off the A140 in North Suffolk but there are so many little lanes it's easy to get lost.

Later I looked at Simon Knott's Suffolk Churches Website and found I'd missed taking photos of the interesting bench ends so had to go back for another look.

So here are the curious carvings that I missed first time round, some in the nave but others in the chancel

The first thing you see when you step in is this  - a 17th century poor box, changed to a collection for the church.

And then in the chancel is what looks like another old collection box or maybe for storage for the items used in the communion service?

Interesting tiling around the altar

The font dates from the 15th century

Up above  are the Victorian corbels of heads and some serious cracks!

A brass plate dated 1533 that was lost for three hundred years

And a few more interesting things

Back Tomorrow