Tuesday 24 October and we’re off again. It’s a lovely sunny day with some new clouds in the sky, big white fluffy ones. According to page 4 of my junior weather forecaster’s book, Cumulus. There are 4 different type of cumulus so now all I’ve got to do is decide which type they belonged to.

We headed for Suffolk where the weather should be the kindest over the next few days. The seaside places like Blakeney and Wells-next-the-Sea were very busy because the kids were on half term holiday but we managed to park at Wells. This is where I failed the temptation test again. My downfall came in a gift shop, the type that sells balls of fancy yarn, cheap! I just had to have some of the pink and Blue and then the purple was nice as was the black. I could have spent a fortune but these will end up as fancy scarves and with the colours I already have they end up looking like liquorice allsorts, very attractive.

I’m also making necklaces on my Lucet incorporating beads in them and I’m hoping they will be popular for Christmas.

That night we stayed at a place called Fiddlers Hill near Wells next the sea. It’s a late bronze age barrow with a burial chamber. It’s dated between 2000 and 1400 BC. As with a lot of these barrows, it has it’s own legend. There is said to be a tunnel running from the Guildhall in Blakeney to Binham Priory and only a fiddler and his dog were brave enough to go along it. The Mayor and other important people of Blakeney followed above ground by listening to the fiddle’s music. When the fiddle stopped they assumed the devil had taken him and neither the fiddler nor his dog were seen again, so they built this mound on the place where he was last heard. We spent a lovely peaceful, but very quiet night!

Next morning we set off early for Aldeburgh and while Pat was driving I studied the sky, I’m having a lot of trouble deciphering the clouds but this morning there was a small patch of rainbow, like someone had cut a piece off and left it lying around. My weather bible explained it as ‘Iridescence’ where sunlight bends around water particles instead of going straight through as in a proper rainbow. I’m no wiser now than I was before I read it!

We spent the afternoon on Dunwich Heath in the rain. I started my weaving and Pat had a rest, well he had done all the driving today, he reckons I’ve got my head in the clouds too much recently.

We camped on the sea front at Aldeburgh about 30 yards from the high tide mark. It’s a shingle beach here which stretches for miles and it’s very steep, Jo, you and the kids would love it, all different coloured pebbles to collect! The wind was about 20 mph straight off the sea and we hoped that it was rain we could hear battering the van and not sea spray.

There were a few fishermen along the water’s edge and the one that arrived after us started out looking quite slim but after he’d put on a tartan shirt, a jumper, a fleece, a quilted jacket and a windproof he looked two sizes larger. He must have loved his fishing because he sat out there in the wind and rain for 3 hours. I kept seeing him recast but didn’t notice whether he’d caught anything, thank goodness we’ve left our fishing kit behind this trip, I didn’t fancy that!

The Blackheaded Gulls came and hung around outside the van hoping to get some free food, not now we’re pensioners they don’t! They were all facing into the wind and now and again walking sideways at which the wind caught them and they were blown backwards, their little legs working like crazy, so fast that it looked like a film on fast forward.

After dark it was still very windy and we just had to peep out to see if the tide was in or out. I couldn’t see anything except the skyline where a few white clouds were being blown along. Underneath that it was pitch black, the sea. Pat saw the sea and all the white frothy edges to the waves he couldn’t see any horizon. As I tried to adjust my focus the clouds suddenly turned into waves all breaking in different places, it was like one of those coloured dot puzzles where you have to focus in front of the page to see the pattern, I put it down to old age.

We slept reasonably well even though the wind was noisy and next morning the sun was peeping through the clouds on the horizon and shining red. Despite that it was good day, the sky was full of all the different cloud formations none of which I can recite yet but I’m learning.

It was still windy so we walked down to a Martello Tower, built in the 1800’s as a defence against Napoleon, there are still a few surviving along this part of the coast this one being the most northerly.

We managed to get some decent KAP pictures of it. I also found my first non chalk Hag stone here, a very auspicious moment. Together we found a further 3, this makes me think of Bridget ‘cos we could spend hours searching until we‘d emptied the beach of them, mind you it is at least 6 miles long!. After the success with the Tower we wandered towards the town because there was a Windmill, now converted into a holiday home which we also photographed but with less success.