February Financials

Income in February was the usual State Pension and County Council spouses pension, interest on savings plus £20 from 'We Buy Books' .

Because of choosing to pay Council Tax over ten months rather than twelve, February and March have no payment due. Instead there was the half year for sewer and water charges - and that had gone up yet again. Other  expenses were the usual direct debits for phones and broadband, charity donation and the monthly electric bill. I filled the car up twice with diesel once at the beginning and once at the end of the month and read the meter and paid the monthly electric bill. That lot came to £435. Then on Friday I ordered a fill up of heating oil to arrive next month - 500 litres for £338.

I prepared for growing with seed compost, two packets of seed for here and two packets of beetroot seed for BiL to grow some extra for me.

Household stuff included some spare bulbs for my lamp, the bread-machine blades and bin bags.

I  have a bill still to pay due to  problems with the flush on the bathroom loo cistern. It started flushing all by itself! Problems here are usually caused by our hard-water area, limescale getting into the works . The cistern on the bathroom toilet is all built in but I managed to prise one bit of cupboard off and unscrewed the front cover on the cistern and stopped it flushing but it was still trickling in water so I got the guy who fixed my drippy tap last year to come and look and he capped off the water intake and took out the inside 'gubbins' and went off with them to track down replacements , which are now fitted. I was very glad it's a 2 loo bungalow! I think water might have been trickling in and out for a while and that would be the reason for the bigger water/sewer bill.

Personal spending was just two woolly winter hats, exercise group and the book I bought at the beginning of the month  

which  doesn't have anything in it that I didn't already have in other foraging and WWII books and seems to have some mistakes about the dates of the introduction of rationing. It does have some lovely pictures but I was a bit disappointed - although not sure what I was expecting

Penny savings to spend on more interesting things

• Turned a couple of bread crusts into dried crumbs for topping bakes
• Started to save apple peel etc to make some compost jelly as I'm on the last jar - I'll add some raspberries that are in the freezer and some sort of cheap bought fruit.
• Got diesel for car when visiting YD and opticians - it's always several pence a litre cheaper there.
• Had to use the tumble dryer once but managed to dry in 40 minutes - so not too bad.
• Usual bread in the bread-maker
• Dishwasher only used every other day.
• Lots of lovely books from the library
• No newspapers, magazines or make up etc bought as usual.

March, despite no Council Tax, is one of the expensive months of the year (along with April and Christmas) and there will be the bill for boiler servicing added to the list too and the car servicing and MOT. No way to have a low-spend March.

Shopping, % UPFs and a Closer Look at Ingredients

 Long Number Heavy Blog Post Warning!

Food bought during February...................

Small shop - Leeks, eggs, Burger baps - 3 items

The picture below ............UPFs 4 things out of 13 bought the list is here

Burgers, Linda McCartney Mozzarella Burgers are considered ultra-processed foods (UPF), typically falling into Nova group 4 classification. While vegetarian, they contain ingredients and additives characteristic of industrial processing, such as methyl cellulose (E461), flavourings, and rehydrated textured soya protein. 

Key details regarding the processing of these burgers include:

• Ingredients: Primarily composed of rehydrated textured soya protein (65%), rapeseed oil, mozzarella cheese (9%), and various stabilizers/flavourings.
• Processing Indicators: The presence of methyl cellulose and added flavourings are clear markers of ultra-processing.

 Pringles are the worst..............,

Pringles are a classic example of ultra-processed food (UPF), made from a reconstituted dough of dehydrated potato flakes, corn, rice, and wheat starch rather than sliced, whole potatoes. Engineered for hyper-palatability, they are fried and laden with additives like MSG, emulsifiers, and refined oils, often leading to rapid consumption and potential health risks, including inflammation, weight gain, and metabolic disruption.

 The others two ultra processed  things not quite so bad - Hovis biscuits and Tortilla wraps.

Below are 17 items for the 3rd food shop of February the shopping list is here. 4 items are UPFs - Stuffing mix, tortilla chips, fig biscuits and someone pointed out that the soft cream cheese also has a couple of odd ingredients. 

Key Benefits of Citrus Fiber in Cream Cheese:

Citrus fiber is used in cream cheese as a natural, clean-label stabilizer and emulsifier to improve texture, enhance creaminess, and prevent syneresis (water separation). It acts as a fat replacer and thickener, allowing for better yield and a creamy mouthfeel without the need for chemical stabilizers or added gums. 

Key Considerations for Guar Gum:

Guar gum is generally recognized as safe (GRAS) by the FDA and not considered inherently bad for the general population in the small amounts used in food. As a soluble fiber, it may help manage blood sugar and cholesterol, but excessive consumption can cause digestive discomfort like gas, bloating, and diarrhoea. 

Rye Flour.

The  final main food shop contained 3 UPFs  out of  15 items purchased the list is here. Frozen sweet Potato fries (borderline), cheese and onion rolls and the Dunkables biscuits.

I wondered about the noodles? 

Does the potassium carbonate in noodles make them an UPF..........

Extensive research into the effects of additives on food products and the nearly 100-year history of using potassium carbonate in food has yielded no results published to prove the risk of this chemical compound for human health. At the Food and Drug Administration, all carbonate salts are on the list of safe substances. So far, no evidence has been provided on the possibility of side effects due to the use of compounds such as potassium carbonate, sodium carbonate, calcium carbonate, sodium bicarbonate, or potassium bicarbonate.

 

And finally going to the Opticians where I used to live so went in the Co-op to get celery, salad leaves and cheese except they had no celery so I got spring onions instead. Spend £3.98 - jolly expensive for 3 things but no more UPFs.

Adding everything up.......... roughly 53 different  items of which 11 are classed as UPF....More than I thought. Although I'm not worried because I'm not eating them all at once and anyway...........

Based on recent data (2023-2025), the average diet in the UK and the US consists of approximately 53% to 60% ultra-processed foods (UPFs) by calorie intake.

Average Consumption: For many, over half of daily energy intake comes from UPFs

Surely I must be  around 10% a day which is probably OK.

There are several easy swaps to be made if I want - usually involving making things myself rather than buying or, as I'm not strictly vegetarian, buying more meat products rather than 'fake' meat products.

Total food spend for home in February just over £88 which is down on usual and just means next month will be more! No coffees/cheese scones but I ate out once treating YD and OGD to a meal and then fish and chips takeaway for us when doing Nanna duty.

Not sure I shall do these food photos again through March....maybe if I'm looking for ideas for blog posts.

Flashes and Floaters

 That's flashes Not Flashers!

A few weeks ago I noticed a new floater in my right eye and then was a bit worried to get flashes in the corner of the same eye. I checked with YD who worked in an opticians for many years and she said best get checked.

So I popped into the Asda opticians in town, went through a whole lot of questions only to be told at the end that they hadn't got a regular optician there at the moment and are referring everyone to the emergency eye phone number (like 111 but for eyes). 

That made me decide to ring  my regular optician where we lived on the coast and where YD worked, at least they would be able to make me an appointment and of course they had all records of eye changes going back years.

I went for a  check -up, all looked OK, nothing really worrying and have to go back for another look next week as the drops needed to do one of the tests require no driving for 2 hours afterwards and I wasn't parked anywhere I could stay that long.

But this leaflet described everything and of course I should have known - it's all down to Old Age!!

Spring Arrives in Books

 In January I wrote a post about Winter Books  and   I've got library books reserved about winter that I'll not get to read until spring but this was a book about Spring that I read last week - while we are still surviving winter.

Simon Barnes - Spring is the Only Season: How it Works, What it Does and Why it Matters.

This book covers every aspect of spring - From birds and butterflies to agriculture and literature , mythology, religion and art.

The library website says..........

Spring is the time of renewal and rebirth, a celebration of the resilience of life. As the year turns, animals and plants that have struggled to survive the winter find new hope and create the next generation. The season has inspired some of humanity's greatest art and many of its most significant religious festivals. Simon Barnes provides a fresh and compelling look at this period of the year. He explains the science of the seasons, which are caused by the planet's 23.5 degree tilt; he also highlights the music, the paintings and the poetry that have tried to capture it.

This took several days to read, there was so much of interest in it  but it comes with a warning...........

However, while the Earth will continue to spin on its tilting axis, he reveals how our impact on the planet is beginning to destroy the natural course of the seasons, and that elements of the beloved spring - from migrating birds to emerging butterflies - are endangered by climate change. But it's not too late. Not yet. We can still make a difference and so continue to enjoy the pleasures of spring. 

One tiny patch of celandines for spring down the road from home

The  other spring book here that I needed to read before spring arrives as it's due back at the library is 'Spring - The Story of a Season' by Michael Morpurgo. (Second of four books commissioned from authors who usually write fiction, the post about the Winter book is HERE )

This book is a look at the arrival of Spring on the farm and land around where Michael and his wife Clare have lived for many years in a remote area between Dartmoor and Exmoor. Here they are now retired to a small cottage but live next to the farms that are part of the charity started by them 'Farms for City Children'. 

Review from Waterstones website

As the weeks pass, we accompany Michael as he watches the lambing on the farm, walks through the bluebell woods, and feeds the birds in his garden in his wellies and dressing gown. He describes dramatic encounters with sparrowhawks, hares and otters, while sharing other magical discoveries, new poems and reminiscences about childhood and springs gone by.

This is an uplifting burst of springtime joy from one of the nation's best loved authors.

Another Spring book 'The Nature of Spring' by Jim Crumley will go back to the library unread - for the second time. It's just too wordy!

A couple of the Winter themed books I have reserved still have long waiting lists, so I might cancel them and make a note to re-reserve next Autumn ready for next Winter. 

Final Food Shop Of February

 This was probably (except for eggs and salad ) my last food shop of February, photographed again for food-shopping-photo fans!

 

Mostly from Aldi but as I needed to go into town I had to spend £5+ at Asda to get my £1 car park cost back.

Frozen sweet potato fries went straight into the freezer. On the work top is a lovely big British savoy cabbage, strong bread flour (this is Aldi's own brand which I mix with Allinsons more expensive flour for a cheaper loaf in the machine). Cheese and onion rolls, self raising flour, spaghetti,  butter, extra mature cheese, coffee, cocoa, castor sugar (Silver Spoon from Asda as it's made from British sugar beet rather than foreign cane and can be very local ). 4 pints milk, fine egg noodles, hidden at the end are six British apples and 5 British pears. And because I went into QD for some cheap beetroot seed to give to BiL there was  a 'junk food' purchase of a packet of Dunkables - which are broken or mis-shaped chocolate biscuits - somehow they  leapt into my hand!

Total spend £27.51.

There is a post in drafts almost finished ready for Friday which will have all the February shopping photos and the % of UPFs and total food spend.......so much to look forward to!!

That Rye Flour

 

The rye flour bought for £2.40 from the Farmers Market to make a medieval/Tudor maslin* loaf - just out of curiosity, then needed the purchase of a different blade for the bread-machine, which I'd not realised.

So I bought a spare ordinary blade at the same as they came in a pack of  one of each for £5.99.  AND THEN ........even sillier, when I came to set the menu for the loaf on the bread-machine I found my model didn't have that setting, which of course is the very reason it didn't come with a rye flour blade....Duh!

 I let the machine do the dough making and then bunged it in a loaf tin and cooked in the oven.....curiosity can be more complicated than it was meant to be!

It's taste? Deliciously nutty and different. 

Below is info I found from a blog called Breadclub20. (My loaf didn't include floor sweepings!, just rye and wholewheat flours)

*Meanwhile, down at the other end of the social ladder.....and, really, you couldn't get much lower, the peasants and the lower orders ate Maslin, a bread originally made using barley and pea flours and a fair bit of millstone grit. Not necessary for roughage, but probably accounted for all manner of dental problems as people moved into adulthood. Add to that, chaff, straw and the sweepings-up from the bakehouse floor, and you had a bread fit for only the very poor. 

By the time we reach Tudor times, the 'best' Maslin was made from a blended flour of wheat and rye often grown together. 

Briefly Last Week............

Thanks for all the weather comments yesterday - I always love it when a comment turns into a post and makes lots more comments!

.

Briefly last  Saturday I thought about a week of meal photos, but then the leek and kale fritters served with bacon and tinned tomatoes on Sunday weren't very photogenic (although it was a very filling and tasty meal for a day with snow).

Which started off looking like this, got heavier with huge flakes which somehow settled on the very wet ground for an hour before everything turned to rain - quelle surprise!

I eat my main meal about 1 o'clock-ish nowadays, preferring to eat a much smaller meal later in the day...............sign of old age I reckon!

The famous nutritional advice to "Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper" is most commonly attributed to Adelle Davis (1904–1974), a prominent American nutritionist and author. She popularized this phrase in the mid-20th century to promote eating a heavy breakfast, a moderate lunch, and a light dinner for better health. 

Breakfast each morning at the moment, until I fancy a change. Chopped apple/pear and prunes, warmed for a minute in the microwave, toast  (home made bread  50/50 wholemeal/white) and cheats home made marmalade and a large coffee.

 This was one day.............

Main meal - Stir fry carrots, onion and chopped kale with noodles and soy sauce and two each cook-from-frozen party food ....... mini spring rolls and tempura prawns. Small meal - Celery, Hovis biscuits and Blue Stilton cheese.

That was the end of that brief foray into a food blog week!

Last weeks good news was the letter from NHS telling me all was well with my mammogram. Last weeks  bad news was a letter from HMRC telling me I'd earned too much money from my savings so they'd have to tell Suffolk County Council to tax me more on the spouses pension. 

Oh well, I downsized to have some savings - Ha!

I know lots of people aren't watching the Winter Olympics but if you can cope with it have a look today at the GB team in the Men's Curling at 6pm this evening. They did so well to get through to the final. It's a fascinating sport, tactical and more difficult than it looks of course. I'll be cheering them on from Mid Suffolk

Back Monday

Why?

This was a comment last Saturday.  

Anonymous15 February 2026 at 07:09

So many posts on UK blogs about depressed-sounding pensioners sitting around looking out at the rain. Don’t you ever long for a bit of adventure in foreign lands? With the internet it’s so easy now to organise affordable accommodation for a couple of months. Have you never considered escaping the winter? Helen.

I know why I don't long for adventure or fancy two months somewhere warmer - it would be no fun on my own and I'd be bored stiff!

And anyway, I'm English, moaning about the weather is what we do and always have........

On 26th February 1768, MP  Horace Walpole said in his journal "We are drowning again for the second winter, and hear of nothing but floods and desolation"

And weather folklore says..... 

                                                         "If in Februeer there be no rain,

                                                           The hay won't be good, nor the grain.

                                                          All other months of the year

                                                            Most heartily curse a fine Februeer"

Apparently rainfall records have been broken this winter in many places, so we aren't imagining it!

Chocolate Brownies for Grandchildren

 It's good to have something in the freezer that all grandchildren like for a dessert. Adults don't refuse them either.

This is a recipe from the WI Chocolate recipe book and always turns out well. I've added it to the separate recipe page.

CHOCOLATE BROWNIES 

These are good served warm with ice cream.

4 oz butter diced

4oz plain chocolate, broken into pieces

1 Tablespoon Golden Syrup

5oz dark muscovado sugar

5oz castor sugar

4 eggs, beaten

8oz SR Flour

1½oz cocoa powder

2oz white chocolate drops or chopped (optional)

2oz walnut pieces(optional)

Line base and sides of a 30cm x 22cm tin (12 inches x 8½ inches)

Preheat oven to 180℃/ 160℃ -fan

Place butter, chocolate and syrup in a large saucepan and melt gently over low heat.

Add all other ingredients and mix really well.

Spoon into tin, spread evenly into corners

Bake for approx 30 minutes until it has risen and is firm to the touch and coming away from the sides

Allow to cool in tin.

 Cut into 32 or 24 pieces.

The photo below is from when I made brownies and cheese straws back in early January.

Crowded Jumble Sale and Rye Flour

 The jumble sale last Saturday, a fundraiser for a village hall in a nearby village, was absolutely packed with people. I just picked up a three things for £1

Something for Granddaughter to do when she's here, another freezer storage box and lid, the right size for putting small cakes in the freezer and a solid clipboard for the check-in charts for Keep Moving group, I've been using a cardboard one for the last three years and it's falling apart.

BUT while looking round I lost my woolly hat, which I'd shoved in my pocket as everyone went in, so annoying as I'd had it ages. It probably fell out of my pocket and got added to the jumble! I can't go out in winter without something over my ears as getting cold can make me dizzy. When I got home I searched high and low for two other pull on beanie type hats that I had and they've vanished, I do still have two but one is a very thin knit and the other is an old fleece hat that lives by the back door for going in the garden. 

So that jumble sale has ended up costing  me more money than I wanted as I've sent for two different new hats - one home knitted from the Oxfam online shop  and a cheapie from ebay. (just occasionally I wish I'd had the patience to learn to knit!)

Then even more annoying, when I put my other coat on on Tuesday I found one of the vanished hats in my pocket ................duh!

After the jumble I went on to the next village for their monthly craft/farmers market and got a bag of rye flour to try (I've been wanting to try to make medieval maslin bread for ages)

 BUT what I'd not realised was that rye flour needs a different mixer blade for my bread machine as it makes a very sticky dough. I could make by hand but find kneading dough very hard on the wrists now. New blades for the bread machine are cheap enough so I sent for a pack containing one of each - normal and rye -  handy to have a spare anyway while it's still available.

So even though the sun was shining for the first time for many days it didn't feel as if I'd had a successful day.

Ho Hum

17th February Chinese New Year

 I don't really know much about Chinese New Year or Spring Festival except that it's  very important  for the Chinese, where ever they are, but it gets a mention in the Almanac for today.

The date of the Chinese New Year is calculated by the date of the Lunar New Year, which falls at some point between 21st January and 20th February. Celebrations start on the New Year's Eve and finish with a Lantern Festival on the 15th day and include dragon dances, lion dances and fireworks.

Customs and traditions include thoroughly  cleaning your house before New Year but not sweeping on New Years Day in case luck is swept away. Windows and doors are decorated with red paper cut-outs and money given in red envelopes.

The Chinese zodiac is a twelve year cycle with each year being represented by an animal. This year is the year of the Horse (it says Fire Horse in the Almanac book)

• Rat 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996, 2008, 2020 

• Ox  1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997, 2009, 2021 

• Tiger 1950, 1962, 1974, 1986, 1998, 2010, 2022 

• Rabbit 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999, 2011, 2023 

• Dragon 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012, 2024 

• Snake 1953, 1965, 1977, 1989, 2001, 2013, 2025 

• Horse 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002, 2014, 2026

• Goat 1955, 1967, 1979, 1991, 2003, 2015, 2027

• Monkey 1956, 1968, 1980, 1992, 2004, 2016, 2028

• Rooster 1957, 1969, 1981, 1993, 2005, 2017, 2029

• Dog 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, 2006, 2018, 2030

• Pig 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995, 2007, 2019, 2031

• 
  

• 
  

I was born in 1955, the Year of the Goat - which I reckon explains a lot!.

This Week

 We know about Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday but  each day of this week has a name..................

Collop Monday had other names in different parts of the country - Carnival Monday, Rose Monday, Hall Monday, Peasen Monday and Nickernan Night.

Nicky, nicky nan,

Give me a pancake and then I'll be gone,

But if you give me none

I'll throw a great stone

And down your door shall come.

This was the last day for eating meat and  for eating up collops of bacon and meat. Any fresh meat still available would be sliced and salted to preserve it until after Lent . A Collop - a Scandinavian word, means a slice of meat.  

 

Shrove Tuesday also had other names -Bannock Night, Brose Tuesday, Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras.

Shrove Tuesday is the last day of Shrovetide and can fall anytime between 3rd February and 9th March.  And since medieval times  the last day for rich foods before Lent fasting starting the next day -and it really was fasting back then - no eggs, no fats, no meat. It was customary to make confession on this day too. But it was also a day for merrymaking and fun and feasting on the last of the eggs and butter.

Pancake Tuesday is a very happy day,

If we don't have a holiday we'll all run away,

Where shall we run, up High Lane,

And here comes the teacher with a great big cane.

Mix a pancake, stir a pancake, pop it in the pan,

Fry the pancake, toss the pancake -

Catch it if you can.

( children's rhymes from the past )

Lacemakers had to stop using candles on this day, no matter the date or the weather conditions.

Ash Wednesday 
The first of the 40 days of  abstinence. The word Lent comes from old English lencten  and Germanic langatin  meaning spring or lengthening of the days. Originally only 1 meal a day was eaten during Lent. It's thought the origins  of fasting might date back as far as 325CE to the Council of Nicaea.

Fritter Thursday
Maybe because of the dough fritters that were often eaten in meatless Lent or perhaps using the last of the stored apples dipped in a flour and water batter?

Kissing Friday or in some places Nippy-Hug day
Once this was the day when boys had the right to kiss girls without being told off,  if the kiss was refused they could nip the girls bottom!

(Information from some of my folklore books)

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

And meanwhile .......how about GB at the Winter Olympics.........3 Gold Medals - Never been done before! Well done to them all.

Back Tomorrow

Into the Middle of February, Just Books and Shopping.

 And of course next day -the digger had to come back to fill in the grave.... 

................now the entrance is even muddier than yesterdays photo. The mourners and men with the coffin came in the top gate and walked down the shingle path avoiding the mud - thankfully. ( I don't stand watching funerals! but it's right opposite the bungalow so can hardly avoid seeing what's happening when I'm in the kitchen)

Such a grey gloomy week with lots of rain. I've not been far at all. The Winter Olympics on TV have kept me company - curling, skeleton, snowboard cross, ice dance and three books have been finished.....although one was a children's book and read very quickly. I even started to feel guilty that all I'd done was watch TV and read, with the odd bit of housework thrown in but then tried to think of other things I ought to be doing.......and there wasn't anything.

This below is by an author who usually writes under Natasha Solomons. I enjoyed 'The Song Collector' and 'The Novel in the Viola' by her several years ago. This is listed completely separately on the Fantastic Fiction website, a one-off under N.E. Solomons, a sometimes violent thriller set in the Balkans after the war there. Details here.

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

As mentioned the other day I was out of carrots and eggs, for the good reason of Son doing a roast dinner here for us all last Sunday, so  shopping needed doing 4 days earlier than planned.

There was no point just getting two items so I did the weeks shop at Aldi with lots of bits that will last for several weeks and replacing things that had been used in the last couple of weeks.

Another one  for the 'food-shop-photo-fans!'

There's soft cheese and Blue Stilton (still no Shropshire Blue), tin of tomatoes, two decaf ground coffee - while they had it in stock as they often don't. Celery, kale, carrots and apples. A big tub of peanut butter (no salt, no sweetener - just peanuts, lasts me for months) 1 dozen free range eggs, 4 pints milk and a 600g pack of mini chicken breast fillets.- which I divided up into  5  portions before freezing. The UPF were stuffing mix and tortilla chips and a packet of figgy biscuits- they're there somewhere.

Then on my way home I called in at a village butchers for some lamb scrag/neck of lamb chops and they had some fresh cut,  ¾ Kg for £3 so I was able to divide into 2 separate portions before freezing. I'll be making a delicious lamb stew and dumplings twice (two meals each time) sometime in the next couple of months.

Total spend £30.92. Food spend so far this month £54.27

Out of curiosity at the end of the month I'm going to see what % of my purchases are fruit and veg and other basic simple foods - and how many are Ultra Processed Foods.

******

There's a jumble sale today, I might go, if I don't run into flooded roads on the way .

Daffodils and Mud

Found something to post about..............

Like the snowdrop photos the other day, these daffodil buds, not too far from opening, are on the bank of the Churchyard. The few daffodils that survive in my garden are a long way behind.  

After weeks of rain the mini digger came to the churchyard to dig a new grave. Now the lower entrance to the burial ground looks like this. This is often the way mourners and the coffin bearers enter for the committal....oh dear.

The Problem............

........with not going far or doing much of interest is there's nothing to write about! 

This grey, wet weather has a lot to answer for.

Thank you to everyone for comments yesterday. I've never read Moonfleet so will borrow a copy. I wanted to try and read more children's books this year anyway.

Back soonish - probably Saturday. 

A Smugglers Inn

When I found this book at the jumble sale in Eye last month I knew it would feature many of the pubs near where we lived on the coast. The one on the front cover is in Aldringham, just a couple of miles from the smallholding.

Although a lot of information in the book is about the pubs in the past, there is also plenty about how they are now and I'm thinking the book was perhaps sponsored by Southwold Brewers Adnams.

This large hotel/pub used by the smugglers back in the day is in Leiston. It's 5 minutes walk from where YD lives and sometimes we go there for Sunday lunch when I visit.

In the 1800's the licensees of popular inns would have been an important person in the community. Between 1732 and 1834 members of the  Gildersleeves family ran The White Horse. They were known to be valuable ally to the Sizewell Gap smugglers, bringing in contraband just a mile away on the coast. 

This is a bad photo due to reflection but its an ancient 18th Century flintlock pistol in a case on the wall in the pub.

And a facsimile of  a poster from that period.

 It's said that smuggled goods were stored under the platform of the Quaker Meeting House just across the road - unbeknown to the Quakers who met there of course.

The smuggled goods that passed through Leiston in the 1780's would have been mainly tea and there is an account of 80 horses being used to move the load inland.. During 1788 soldiers were billeted at The White Horse to help the Customs men but two soldiers were found to be too drunk to help - probably due to being given a lot of free liquor by Ann Gildersleeves - the licensee at that time.

On the 27th June that year in the Ipswich journal  there was  a report of an inquest held by the coroner, probably at the White Horse, where local coroners courts were often held at the time.

'there was an inquest at Leiston on Robert Debney and William Cooper who entered a cave used as a repository for smuggled goods, they were suffocated by the stench rising from it, a young man who went to their assistance was very near sharing the same fate, the cave was let down and covered over with horse manure in order to exclude excise officers'

 I don't think the White Horse has much smuggling going on in the C21 but the food they dish up for Sunday Lunch is always good!