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| Aldeburgh Beach on Thursday evening |
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| Pub in March |
We travelled along unfamiliar roads - via Framlingham, Stowmarket, Bury St Edmunds and Littleport until we reached the fens - a seemingly endless flat landscape that stretches all the way from Cambridge and Peterborough to The Wash.
It is not a landscape I would wish to inhabit. You can see for miles. Your view unbroken by hills and there is no significant woodland. Just vast fields and ditches, big skies and the uninhibited wind. Some of the long straight roads are like roller coasters for it is hard to build a dependable road surface on water-logged fens with no solid rock for many yards below. There has been subsidence through the years so in spite of Clint's eagerness to travel at 80mph I frequently reined him in to do 40.
After Peterborough it was plain sailing. Up the A1 Great North Road to Worksop and then west along the A57 to Sheffield.
Home.
We return with many great impressions of Suffolk - including the vicar in Walberswick Church. She was playing the organ when we entered and the old Norman church was filled with her music. Her bicycle was propped up near the entrance door. Soon after we entered the organ music ceased and we could hear some grumbling from behind it.
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| Fifteenth century font in Walberswick Church |
The vicar emerged and almost immediately she said, "You're a man! Can you fix this bloody light?" The best I could do was the take the bulb out and advise her to show it when purchasing a new one. There are so many different kinds of light bulb these days.
She was filled with the love of life and presumably the love of her non-existent God. She had children, grandchildren, great grand children and one great great grandchild. Her face beamed beatifically. She was ninety years old. There is hope for us all.
Pictures
1. Mushroom we saw on our round walk to Leiston
2. Medieval pew carvings in Southwold St Edmund's Church
3. Gallery house at Snape Maltings
4. Evening sun reflected off the tiled lamp base in our holiday apartment. There were miniature suns all over the room. It was quite magical.
I like the boat photo at Aldeburgh Beach. Sounds like you had an interesting and enjoyable trip.
ReplyDeleteThank you Sue. Yes. We loved it and the weather was so kind to us too.
DeleteLiving at the bottom end of the Fens, you would have passed nearby us en route to Littleport. The Fens doesn’t have the drama of the Yorkshire Dales and Peak District, nor the quaintness of Southwold, but I’ve grown to like the flat, treeless expanses a lot. In winter when the mist comes down it can feel bleak, though, and you expect Magwitch might jump out. Glad you enjoyed Suffolk.
ReplyDeleteWe could have called in for a cup of tea Philip and I could have given your ram some in-service training. At least you are on the edge of the fens with the rolling and more ancient Suffolk landscape to the south east of you. "Prickwillow" sounds like a nice place.
DeletePrickwillow is a small village on the way to Ely. It’s ‘famous’ for the Drainage Museum.
ReplyDeleteI saw a sign for that museum and chuckled about it but really drainage is a fascinating subject and it has of course changed the character of so many low-lying areas. Without it fenland would not even exist.
DeleteSometimes your world is so different than mine that I secretly think you must make this stuff up.
ReplyDeleteThey've just about given up on that gallery house, haven't they? I wonder how many small children have disappeared into those branches.
Inside the gallery house there was a super exhibition of coastal photographs by a local man. He also had a great photo of white horses running through a shallow lake in the Carmargue region of France.
DeleteThe cock inn
ReplyDeleteOnly you
Many residents of March - men as well as women - prefer The Cock Inn.
DeleteI agree with Ms. Moon. Florida and South Carolina are very similar, but your part of the world almost seems like a whole other planet. I hope that I can visit England before too much more time goes by! I would love to see your beautiful home country!
ReplyDeleteMaybe I look for the good in what we have. Good weather for pictures. Good scenes. Interesting history and so on. I could be guilty of that. It would, I am sure, be possible to blog more negatively and gloomily about this island.
DeleteI have enjoyed reading through your posts now that I am home. And enjoyed your pictures, as usual.
ReplyDeleteSounds like that vicar would have a lot of stories to tell you for your book. Better hurry. I think she might be ready for Him.
She seemed so bright and spritely that I guess she'll live to be a hundred or more. I guess that HE likes the way she boogies.
DeleteGlad you had a nice break. There's no place like home, though.
ReplyDeleteThere's no place like home with the privet hedge and the lawn to cut and the missus continually having digs at me about the kitchen flooring and the downstairs shower room. There's always something on her list.
DeleteCanadian prairies and the Arctic would also give you the see forever feeling. It's always good to be home.
ReplyDeleteCanada is a very BIIIIIIIIIIIG country. So big that at times the people who live in those "see forever" places must feel very small.
DeleteHah! I was thinking along the same lines as Red - I've never been but have read plenty about the flatness. Drive forever and never get anywhere!
ReplyDeleteThat's an impressive mushroom. Were there any little people about?
You mean fairies? They scurried away when they saw us coming.
DeleteWhoever named the "Cock Inn" had a good sense of humour!
ReplyDeleteA better name than "Cock Out".
DeleteLOL!
DeleteLove the pictures, as always! That lamp DOES make a terrific effect!
ReplyDeleteThere were electricity pylons between the room and the low sun and within each of those mini-suns there was the tiny shadow of a pulon. It was quite amazing.
DeleteLoved sharing it all - thankyou for your postings.Fancy you met a lady vicar ... sounds like something the Vicar of Dibley would say :)
ReplyDeleteI'm curious to know though... what breed of vehicle is Clint???
And how old. I have an MGB called Sybil we have owned her for 36 years ... she still brings joy to driving.