6 Months Later

 Is it really 6 months since I walked down to the Mid Suffolk Light Railway to see how they were getting on with the line extension?

Braving the mud after the days of rain I went to have another look.

 

Last April the new track-bed was clear -ready for sleepers and tracks

Now.............6 months and brambles have crept in from the sides, it will take a bit of clearing

But they've nearly finished the bridge carrying the path across the ditch. Six months ago,the big oblong box sitting on a picnic table was ready to be dropped in the hole and filled with concrete to make a firm footing for one side of a bridge..................

Now it's nearly done.......A good sturdy bridge across the Dove Brook, no steps yet but I climbed up to have a look

 

From the bridge here's the very old tunnel taking the water from the ditches near my house under the railway track and all the way down to join the River Dove which then flows north to eventually join the Waveney. This culvert would have been built in the 1890's when the line was first laid.

 They've got lots of sleepers old and new ready to lay for the new quarter mile extension.

So one day the new bit will look like the bit they've already restored.

Like many other small visitor attractions run by charity they've been shut all year but should be running Santa Specials on 3 Sundays in December and on New Years Day hope to have Festival of Steam and Light. 

I'll keep an eye out for booking info.

It's odd that the ditches behind the house go north to join up with other streams that end up in the River Waveney,  eventually flowing out to sea at Gt Yarmouth  but not far away on the other side of the road the water flows down to Debenham and south to the River Deben and out to the sea at Felixstowe Ferry.  

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Walking Down To The Middy

First of all thank you to everyone for some lovely, kind comments over the last few days and apologies for lack of responses, I always read but don't always get round to replying.


Now the fields have dried and the sticky clay mud has turned to solid clay concrete I thought I'd walk down to the Mid Suffolk Light Railway to see if any work had been done to EXTEND THE LINE

It was Easter Saturday, a beautiful blue sky day

Here are the buffers where the line will end.  But it all looks the same as early last year, nothing has been done in the mean time. It's awaiting sleepers and rails and fences

The footpath goes beside a field of Willow, which is cut and bundled ready for collection. I have no idea where it goes - to be made into baskets I assume.

In the 1940's when the railway ran from Haughley Junction to Laxfield this gate would have been for farmers crossing the track from field to field. There is another further down the track and they will be restored later.

The little steam engines would have puffed up this slope from Brockford Halt, and they will again sometime.

Below are some of the old carriages in storage at the station, this is as far as it's possible to walk to at the moment.

Here it looked like someone had started to dig a grave! but I decided the big oblong box sitting on a picnic table is to be dropped in the hole and filled with concrete to make a firm footing for one side of a bridge..................

.................to cross this ditch. A similar dug out area waits on the otherside.

And then I turned round and walked back up the hill and home.

More about the history of this railway which never made any money, went bankrupt and closed in 1952 can be seen HERE

With two of their main visitor events already cancelled and another postponed it seems unlikely any more funds will be raised for  work on the extension this year.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Wartime at The Middy

Living just across the fields from a heritage railway, holding their annual wartime event with half price entry for locals there is really no excuse for not walking down to have a look. Although I think it was rather a waste of a fiver and need you to remind me not to bother next year!

There wasn't much happening, hardly any stalls certainly  less there than 2 years ago although they had found a air raid siren and sound recording of planes attacking and ack-ack and the "home guard" did some shooting at the imaginary planes.

I looked round at what was there, took some photos then the battery went flat on the camera so I walked home again. Ho Hum.

 I'm counting my £5 as a donation to a local charity and just calling it a good walk on a chilly day!

This is the little shunter called Serapite. It usually lives at The Long Shop Museum in Leiston, where it only has a short bit of track to run on so here it gets to show off on quarter of a mile!

 The "Home Guard" doing a spot of marching drill.

Later after I was home again a Spitfire from the RAF Memorial Flight did it's flypast over my house and the museum. 2 circuits and off back to it's home in RAF Conningsby (which I photographed from the top of Tattershall Castle last week). On Bank Holiday Monday an old Bomber based at Conningsby should have done a flypast but I didn't hear it.

I  asked when they will be laying the rails to extend for another quarter of a mile but as it's going to be done mainly by the volunteers they are just hoping the work will be done sometime in the next two years!

Don't think I'll bother to visit again this year.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

On Track

Last week I heard the noise of big machinery across the field and guessed it was things to do with the Heritage Railway Track Extension and as the weather on Saturday was better than the forecast  I took my new walking shoes to have a look.

Sure enough here is the new  end of the Middy Railway. Its just quarter of a mile from home. They wanted to put a big turntable in here to turn the trains round to run back to the station. But with this new ending to the railway being just  50 metres from houses and as the railway didn't own the land they needed, they couldn't get permission, which I'm quite pleased about for the sake of the people who live there. Because it would have meant lots of people getting off the train to watch the turntable going round and probably wandering about the lane by their houses which would be quite a change from how their lane is at present.

This "new destination" 1km from the museum is to be called Aspal Halt. Heavens knows why as the village of Aspal is several miles away! The railway museum has an open day on the 21st April then their Middy in the War Years weekend on 5th and 6th May. I expect they are hoping to have the sleepers and  rails laid by then - depends on the weather I guess.

  This is where we picked loads of blackberries in 2017, now all cleared for the railway extension

Here's what was making all the noise

 I don't know how I feel about this, it was a lovely path (although not an official footpath)down the old track-bed, now its stones ready for sleepers and rails

There is a footpath crossing the railway here not sure how that will be sorted out

This is where the railway used to end

And the other way shows where it will be going - up hill a little, so I expect to hear the little trains huffing and puffing up the slope every Sunday through the summer.

Other machinery I might have been hearing was this, it's a willow cutter

 And here are the bundles ready to be collected

 I'm glad they haven't removed the cherry-plum tree -  blossom just beginning to appear.

 Heading home...........this is the footpath where  boots get caked in mud after rain, and that cream house is my cottage at the end of a lane.

Lovely lot of primroses this year on my meadow, among the new trees.

Thank you for all the comments about the random odd blog yesterday.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Walking, Railways and Answers

We walked the footpaths around us several times in the first months we were here while Colin was still well enough but since he died I've not done much walking at all. Trying to keep busy has taken all my time.
That needs to change as swimming once a week isn't really enough for fitness. So last week I did a short walk (and I mean short!) one day and then two days later a wee bit longer..........which is the smallest circular walk - only just over a mile................. I need to build up gradually!

Before I got to this lane I had to cross the field at the end of the meadow - 'twas a tad muddy.

 A tree covered in small crab apples, it was also full of blackbirds eating them until I came along, the caravan is in the garden of a house and looks really old. I expect someone lived in it while they were doing up the house and then just left it to fall apart.

 This is a small barn that's falling down. I wonder if someone will get permission to rebuild it as a house  one day, it happens a lot in Suffolk

On a dull day none of the photos, taken on my phone, were much good.

Made a decision  to get myself some walking shoes rather than my big walking boots.... next month. The boots are so difficult to get on and heavy too, especially when caked in good Suffolk sticky clay soil.

With a bit more walking I'll be able to get down across the fields to the Middy Heritage Railway Museum when they have their WWII re-enactment weekend in May. I just had a look on  THEIR WEBSITE and found they have a "guest engine" there for the season - it's the little shunting engine Sirapite which is usually to be seen at the GARRETTS LONG SHOP MUSEUM in Leiston, just down the road from daughters house. What puzzles me is Sirapite is one of the main attractions at The Long Shop so people visiting there  to see it this year will be disappointed.

Sirapite at The Long Shop Museum in Leiston

Here are the answers to the spot the difference jigsaw puzzle pictures from Thursdays post.
Top is  the picture on the box

1. The ladder doesn't go as far up the tree
2. The weather vane on the summer house becomes a ball
3. The man digging has a blue instead of brown jacket
4. The man digging is using a spade rather than fork
5. The statue figure is reversed
6. The right hand butterfly by the roses is a different sort
7. There is a hedgehog by the greenhouse door instead of a rabbit
8. There is a squirrel in the apple tree instead of a bird
9. The pigeon flying between house and greenhouse is reversed
10. There is a rose bud rather than full rose in bottom left rose bush
11. The man pushing the wheelbarrow has a cap instead of a hat
12. The front door of the house is red rather than blue
13. The thrush on the pond surround has become a blackbird
14. The cat on the path on the left hand edge is reversed
15. and finally - most difficult to see - on the ground by the ladder an extra apple has appeared.

and here is the puzzle.

Think I may have got rather too choosy about jigsaws, went round all 10 charity shops in Stowmarket and didn't find one I wanted to do!

Have a wonderful weekend folks,
Back Monday
Sue

The Middy

When I was out before Bank Holiday weekend at the end of August I went into Eye library to look at the events pages in The East Anglian Daily Times to find out what was on and spotted this.
The Middy or Mid Suffolk Light Railway is the heritage railway museum across the fields and Colin liked to walk there when he was still well enough and use our local residents free pass.

Something to do over the Bank Holiday weekend I thought, but  looking on their web site and noticing that actually there's more happening on their final open days of the year.........The Country Railway Gala and Beer Festival, I put off my visit until this weekend just gone.

I had sorted some more of Colin's old railway books into a bag so took them for their secondhand book shelves. I'm always a bit disappointed when I've been to the railway, there's never as much happening as they advertise ..........or maybe you have to be an extra super-fan of railways to spend more than an hour there........... It was mainly old men standing around! Of course It's wrong to compare it to all the big Heritage Steam railways in other parts of the country - it's not been going so long,  hasn't much space to expand and anyway it  never was a big railway, never completed, always in debt and closed in 1952 long before Mr Beeching did his big railway closures.

So just a few photos of my hour there and then I came home for lunch.
Steam Traction engines  as an extra attraction for their final weekend of the season.

 From home, if the wind is in the right direction I can hear the chuff, chuff, chuff  of the little train going up and down the track. It's a special sort of sound to hear in the middle of the countryside and I don't understand all the people who've objected to the railway museum and restoration, including the lady who lived here before us. She was one of the people who signed a petition to stop them tooting the hooter! What a fuss about nothing, they are only open May - September on Sundays and a few Saturdays!

 Little and Large!

 The quarter mile track goes as far as you can see on this photo and just round the corner. When they extend it will be half a mile long and a bit more of a ride.

They are closed now except for the Santa Specials and next time I go there it will be for their WWII weekend next year.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Victorian Christmas Fayre?

The local primary school were holding what was advertised as a Victorian Christmas Fayre at the Mid Suffolk Light Railway Museum. That sounds worth a look I said.

So we walked down our footpath and across the field and down another footpath and up a little lane until we get to the railway museum entrance.

There were lots of craft stalls and a tombola and rides on the train of course but where the Victorian bit was I have no idea...............just  two ladies in long dresses. That didn't matter as it was a lovely sunny afternoon for a walk. Col bought some draw tickets so there is always the faint chance that we could win a hamper but as we are never lucky it's a bit unlikely!

We spoke to some of our neighbours who live in the house opposite the end of the lane, they had also walked down our footpath "looks like you've got plenty of wood!" they said and they also introduced us to another lady who lives just along the road a bit who we hadn't met yet.

Then we got on the train for a lift part of the way home!

When they raise enough money to extend the track it will take us even closer to home.


Back Tomorrow
Sue

In The War Years

Just across the fields from us is The Mid Suffolk Light Railway Heritage Museum and they held their annual "Middy at War" event so we went to have a look.
The first nice thing was they have a discounted entry for villagers.......half price.

The steam train with passenger carriages was chugging up and down the track. It's only quarter of a mile long at the moment but they have permission to extend another quarter mile............they just need to raise more funds.

They've restored some carriages and goods wagons that would have run in the 30's and 40's.



There were several old military vehicles, a Home Guard display, a couple of stalls selling vintage bits and bobs.

I succumbed to temptation and bought a book (no surprise there, although in my defence this is the only book I've bought all month!)  to add to my WWII Home Front collection-

Then they had a display of American and British Army firing guns.LOUD. Quite a few people came dressed up for the period, something I'd quite like to get involved with I think, although it's really just standing around all day.........so maybe not.

Son and Daughter in Law met us there and we looked round for a while, had a ride on the train, a hotdog and drink each and then home again. The sun was shining but by golly the wind was chilly.

There was no RAF Memorial Flight  flypast due to the weather being too windy for the planes to take off from RAF Coningsby - their home base- disappointing.

Thank you for all the comments on my poor frugal list, not a patch on the old days of 2013 - sadly.
 Welcome to new followers especially everyone who is remembering to click again on my new blog - much appreciated. 

Back Tomorrow
Sue