This morning the sun was just peeping over the horizon and it promised to be a glorious day. It was, we had blue skies with a few fluffy white cumulus clouds and bright sunshine, a day out of time and we made the most of it.

Yesterday we had visited Thorpeness to try and get some KAP pictures of the ‘House in the Clouds’ but there were too many trees and one Golf Course which had trespass signs all around, so we made do with ground based photos.

The house was originally a water tower and has now been converted into a seven story house, 5 in the tower and the platform on top that extends beyond the tower on all four sides has 2 floors. The roof is a typical tiled roof with chimney. I don’t know whether I’d be able to live there with my vertigo?
The village of Thorpeness was designed and built just before the First World War and the 65 acre specially dug lake is only 3 ft deep. The houses are cunningly disguised concrete in many different styles including Tudor and Elizabethan and traditional East Anglian Tarred Weatherboard. The village has a charming olde worlde air about it but I didn’t realise it was concrete and therefore it has completely lost it’s character for me.

The lake was being used for everything except swimming, it was too cold. There were rowing boats and canoes and we parked near a couple of kids and their Mum fishing. I just had to be nosy and find out if they’d caught anything. It turned out that the kids had only just started fishing this week and they had caught a small silver fish. I would have loved to join them but the rod, reel, licence and everything else was at home.

From Thorpeness we went to Sizewell beach alongside the Nuclear Power Station, I still haven’t worked out why because last time we were there I had a paddle and it was a good 6 months before Pat stopped checking my feet for extra toes! There is a good car park (free this time of year) and plenty of people. It’s another shingle beach for as far as you can see and I found my 5th Hag stone.

Back at Aldeburgh it was getting dark so we decided to go window shopping - temptation is firmly closed after 5 o’clock. Aldeburgh is a Saxon Town and the oldest building is the Moot Hall built about 1512. It’s a half timbered building and really lovely to look at. The old red bricks and weathered timber look and feel warm and interesting. If only it could talk what stories it would tell. In the 16 century there were 3 streets between the Hall and the sea, today the Hall is almost on the shingle beach. Let’s hope the modern defences work.

This coast is notorious for lost villages and land reclaimed by the sea. The sea wall to the South of Aldeburgh is built over the foundations of one such village, Slaughden. The wall is big enough for vehicles to travel along and park and this is where we spent the night.

Slaughden had about 400 people living there in the 1800s but gradually the sea crept closer and reclaimed more and more houses until finally the pub collapsed. That was when the remaining houses were evacuated and the last house succumbed about 1930.

The River Alde has silted up over the years and now runs parallel to the coast for 10 miles and rejoins the sea below Orford. Nearer to Orford the shingle spit widens to form Orford Ness and the spit is still growing. In 12 century the spit ended at Orford quay but it now extends 6 miles further south effectively making Orford a landlocked town. Now it has lost it’s seaport status it has become a pleasant village with red bricked houses covered in Virginia creeper (lovely colour at this time of the year) and old fashioned roses and flowers in the gardens of the terraced cottages.

The main attraction here is Orford Castle Keep, built by Henry ll to help keep the spirited East Anglians under control. The castle is still in good condition so presumably it worked. The weather was perfect and we got some lovely pictures from the kite.

It was in Orford craft shop that I was told not to be a bull in a china shop. I had got a rucksack on and a kite bag slung over my shoulder. I saw him wince as I carefully negotiated the first room and when it looked like I was going into the pottery room he just had to point it out to me. I can’t understand why he was worried because surely he would have made me pay for anything I broke, as it was we left without buying anything. I did fall in love with the basketry though, one in particular had been woven out of lavender stalks and smelt lovely. I still have a bag full of lavender stalks at home, given to by a workmate so I’ll be making my own this winter.

Orford quay was disappointing but we still had a happy hour flying the kite and getting some good photos of real, old wooden boats although some of them were derelict and slowly sinking into the mud.