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.

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.

The Threshing Barn

I've spent the afternoon spinning. Getting some wool ready for weaving bags and also thinking up new ideas for Christmas, and as Pat is watching the Grand Prix I've got the computer! So here are a couple of pictures from The Threshing Barn - just to whet your appetite.





I just love the colours and I always want to buy more wool and more wool. I really need to plan a project and then spin the wool myself but temptation is a terrible thing.

There's no stopping me now! At the third attempt I've managed to get a picture or two included. This is the Scooby Doo house at Westward Ho! It was even creepier after dark!

It was cold at Woolacombe.