Clouds

I had two weeks off work at the beginning of August.  For various reasons I wasn't able to go away but I was determined to have a proper break and took lots of days out over the fortnight. Looking through the photos I took the common theme seems to be clouds.

There were clouds over Brightlingsea,

and clouds over the sculptures in the walled garden at Marks Hall.

There were clouds over the warmup track at the Athletics World Championships in the Olympic Park in London,

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and clouds over Orford as seen from RSPB Havergate Island.

There were clouds reflected in the river Alde on the walk from Snape to Iken,

and clouds over the beach at Walton on the Naze.

Fortunately, apart from on one day, they didn't produce much rain!

I'll finish with a picture of clouds taken through the meadow of corepsis and cornflowers at Marks Hall.

If you're interested,  and want to see pictures of more than just clouds, I posted photos of my holiday everyday on my instagram feed.

A Cambridgeshire Feast!

My Dad was born and brought up in a village just north of Cambridge, Cottenham, which is part of the Fen Edge villages.  Every year, on the first Sunday after October 11th, they hold their annual Feast.  On the Sunday there's a parade that starts by the church and processes down the High Street, ending up at the green.  The first parade was held in 1894, so it's been going a while!  When I was little we used to go there every year for it, this is me, my little sister, my Dad and my Grandad in 1969, standing on the front step of my Grandad's house, eagerly waiting for the parade to go past.

Dad hasn't been for years but really wanted to go again, so yesterday we went.  We listened to the brass band play while we waited for the parade.

Then the parade came past - lots of excited children, some of whom had walked a long way, eagerly collecting money for local causes.

Aren't those jellyfish costumes clever!

There were a variety of vehicles towing trailers full of people - Dad was really thrilled to see this one, driven by an old friend of his!

After the parade had passed we all made our way onto the green.  Originally there was a service on the green once the parade arrived and somewhere I have a copy of a very long speech that my Great Grandad made during it sometime in the early 1900s (but I can't locate it at the moment!). There was no Salvation Army band playing like there used to be when I was little, so no hymn singing like we used to do, but lots of people milling about.  

Dad had a long chat with his old mate.

We also managed to find the people who now live in his old house and were thrilled to hear that the small holding behind it, in which my grandparents used to grow fruit for Chiver's and flowers for Covent Garden is still there! Although it's not used as a small holding anymore they still have a productive fruit and veg patch.

We all had a great day out!

A flea, some blocking and a battle!

This is a combined/random type of blog post as I've failed totally to manage to post them separately over the last few weeks.

First of all I've discovered a rather lovely, and very cheap, flea market near where my parents live.  We went to it a few weeks ago and I bought all of this:

There are 3 lovely 1950s Midwinter Cassandra dinner plates (I paid £8.00 for the three and they retail at about £20 each online).   The jug is holkham pottery and the Mrs Tiggly Winkle dish is wedgwood.
The bottle says King's Lynn Soda Water on it

All together I paid £30 for all the goodies in the photo (apart from the cat, she was just being nosey!).

Next, several people have asked my about why I block knitting.  Blocking turns a crumpled piece of finished knitting like this

into a defined, uncrumpled item.  I soak mine in water, roll it in a towel to dry it and them use wires and pins to pull it to the shape and size detailed in the pattern.

When it's dry it holds its shape and, it this case, retains the detail of the lace pattern.

This Henslowe shawl has turned out well, its a wool and silk mix yarn from Skein Queen.

Finally I went with Celia to a battle.  A reconstruction of the Battle of Assandun, between the Anglo Saxons led by Edmund Ironside and the Vikings led by Canute.

There was lots of charging about and a commentary telling the story (which was hard to hear), but it was fun and we had tea and cake too.

I'm off to London this weekend to see Kenneth Branagh in The Entertainer - can't wait!

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Exciting, Challenging and Relaxing - Three Very Different Days.

I've just had 2 weeks off work - I didn't go away but I did do lots of things.

The most exciting thing I did was a 20m tree climb.  Using ropes, knots and karabiners I climbed right into the tree canopy.

The tree was a 30m high, 200yr old sycamore in Marks Hall Arboretum

I'm the circled one, about to go through the canopy!

Once we'd got to the top (there were 6 adults and 2 children in my group, including the curator of Marks Hall), we did a free-fall abseil back down to earth.  This is where you don't put your feet on anything but control the descent through the ropes (picture the SAS climbing down a rope from a helicopter) - it was amazing.

The most challenging thing I did was to make a new deck for in front of my shed.  The old one was made of pallets and was rotting.

The reason I need a deck here is because underneath it is a big hole.  A old brick lined drainage chamber (old cess pit) which dates from when the houses were first built and before they were connected to the main sewer.

It's about 15ft deep and is not what you want to fall into (although it was very useful for chucking the old rotting wood into!).

It was challenging as the normal way of constructing a deck wouldn't work as there wasn't enough solid ground to lay the joists on, but I persevered and adapted as I went along and this is the finished result - it's very solid and looks good too (though I say it myself!).

The most relaxing thing I did was visit Wicken Fen - I'd not been for many years and it was just as lovely as I remembered it.  I took a boat trip along Wicken Lode where we watched dragonflies darting all around.

It was a glorious day and I went for a long walk - ending up at the mere before returning back to the visitor centre.

I also visited Fen Cottage, which is one of the last remaining buildings of the hamlet that once existed by the reserve.

It's constructed of local materials including peat, wood, sedge. reed and clay, all of which would have been harvested from the fen.

It was occupied until 1972 and has been restored pretty much to how it was when the last people lived in it.

The cottage gardens are gorgeous!

It was a lovely, relaxing way to end my fortnight off.

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Bits and Bobs

This is a bitty, rather random blog post - a bit like my brain at the moment!

First of all I had a really lovely 'staycation' this summer.  I had hoped to get to Ireland to see friends but unfortunately by the time I was able to book flights they'd gone up to silly prices.  So I stayed at home.

I spent one day at Castle Acre Priory.  I'd called in there a few months ago and walked around the edge but this time I was able to go in and took the audio tour which was fascinating.

On another day I walked with a friend from Dedham to Flatford Mill along the Suffolk/Essex border to visit the RSPB Wildlife Garden which is almost next to the National Trust tearooms at Flatford.

 It's a really lovely garden, free entry and had lots of information and activities for children.

After we'd left there we did the obligatory walk up to Willy Lott's House as made famous by John Constable's The Haywain.

I also spent a day in London with Celia, when we visited Dulwich Art Gallery and the Ravilious Exhibition.  It was wonderful.  Such detail and such light in his pictures.  It's finished now but there are still some images of his work on the gallery website here.

The next week I drove down to Bexleyheath to visit The Red House - a house commissioned by William Morris and designed by his friend Philip Webb.

We took the tour, which was really interesting and then wandered around a bit more after lunch.

Isn't this ceiling stunning!

If you're interested, like I am, in the Arts and Crafts movement it's a wonderful day out.  (Celia went a few months ago and has more photos and information about it on her blog which I can recommend reading)

And finally (for now) my new chair covers came this week, 2 weeks earlier than they'd originally said, so the 2nd hand very traditional chair now looks rather different and has already been given the feline seal of approval!

A Bank Holiday Bog!

On Saturday my new (ish) boots and I set off for North Norfolk to see Mum and Dad for lunch and a walk.

After some legendary directions from mum along the lines of:
Mum "Go along the road you came in on"
Me  "I came on the Swaffham Road"
Mum "No, not that one.  Then turn right!" - at this point I had no idea which direction she meant at all, but somehow we ended up at the carpark in Wolferton by the sign that said 'Dersingham Bog'.

When we were kids we used to access the bog from the track along the side of the tip and use it as a short cut to the Station Museum at Wolferton where we played (without permission) on the handcar  (as in 'The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery".

Now the area is managed by Natural England  and contains many rare mosses etc.  It's a bog, not a fen, because it's on acidic soil whereas Fens are on alkaline soil.

We had a lovely walk on the board walk, as walked on by Tony Robinson in his recent programme 'Walking Through History', where the cotton grass was everywhere.

Then we walked around to the Wolferton Cliffs from where we could just see across the wash to Boston and Skegness in Lincolnshire.  Although Wolferton is now several miles inland the cliffs are evidence of its past shoreline location.

There was a beautiful low lying glade, that I couldn't resist scrambling down into

and of course the rhododendrons were stunning as they always are this time of year.

The rest of my weekend has mainly been spent in the garden dodging the showers and repairing a hearth with fire cement (but more about that another time).

I hope you've all enjoyed the long weekend too.