10 January 2025

The January Library Book Photo

 Brought home from the library van yesterday were these few. I've only got nine others reserved  so at this rate I'll be running out of reading matter. I'd better do a search to find some others to reserve.

I know I'll like the crime by Ann Granger and Candice Robb and the book by Claire Keegan will be another quick read. The other two are an  unknown quantity so I'll see how they go.


These were the books brought home last month. I didn't read the Ann Cleeves book as it was one of the series with Vera's finale on TV over Christmas. I also didn't read the two by Louise Scarr. I still have two of these below to read.


Right, I'm off to check my book of books read and Fantastic Fiction to see if any of my favourite authors have written anything new that I can reserve.

Back Soon
Sue

09 January 2025

Crinkle Crankle Walls

Many of the Crinkle Crankle, Serpentine or Wavy walls in the country are in Suffolk.

This one isn't far from home, it's in the small town of Eye . A few  others I know are in the villages of Bramfield, Bacton, and Easton and in Saxmundham town centre.






In Eye it is around Chandos Lodge


I was parked right by this one when I visited Bramfield church months ago. (The spots are rain on the lens)


There are now over 100 in Suffolk as they are still being built but  many of the older ones have been Grade II Listed, so can't be altered. 
 These walls are actually cheaper to build than a long straight wall as they needed no pillars, buttresses or bracing and were better at reducing wind damage, some were built around kitchen gardens and those south facing used as protection for fruit trees grown against them

It's thought the idea may have been brought here by Dutch Engineers who arrived in the mid 1600's to sort out the drainage of the Fens, the Dutch called them slangenmuur or snake walls. At that time the word crink meant 'twisty'. Some references say that Crinkle Crankle are Suffolk Dialect words that have spread across the country.

 The words Crinkle Crankle are an example of Ablaut Reduplications!! 

(....Ablaut reduplication, or ablaut-motivated compounding, is a type of word formation of "expressives" (such as onomatopoeia or ideophones), in which words are formed by reduplication of a base and alternation of the internal vowel.)

There's lots more about the walls and the words on wiki of course and as usual someone in Suffolk with plenty of time has compiled a list!

Back Tomorrow
Sue





08 January 2025

A Winter Book, a Snow Jigsaw, Keep Moving and Apple Crumble

 The short stories in this book were weird but I got to the end. It's only the second book with winter in the title so I thought I'd better finish it and it needs to go back to the library anyway.


The jigsaw puzzle is coming along and I'm way past how far I got with the other snow jigsaw before I gave up, this one has more colour and less snow and sky. This is a 'Spot the Difference' puzzle but I won't tell you what they are as I'll make it into a blog post when it's done.



I put a note on some of the local face book groups to tell people about the Keep Moving Group and we had 2 new ladies come along, which is good. Numbers have dropped from a high of 16 down to eight or nine due to illness, being busy elsewhere and winter colds and flu. We only had two weeks off over Christmas and New Year but we all felt so unfit! (or maybe that was just me!) Personally I feel Fat! need to get moving more so I came home and booked a swim. It's a pain going swimming in winter with so many layers to take off and put on but needs must. I'm hopeful that the Stradbroke pool will be quieter as the next nearest pool along the Norfolk/Suffolk border at Diss is reopening after being shut for a nearly two year re-build.

This apple crumble will do nothing for the weight but was delicious and next year I'd like to find more free cooking apples to put in the freezer. I don't keep ice cream in the freezer all the time  but got some in as a just-in-case thing at Christmas and didn't use it but I'll save most for the end of the month when the Surrey boys are here




Back Tomorrow
Sue