Clacton

Monday morning was beautiful but cold. We stopped off at Ramsholt Quay on the River Deben. There is a Pub and an old Quay and you’re not allowed to park unless you are patronising the pub. Apart from the fact that we don’t like alcohol it was only 8.30 a.m.

So we walked down the hill and found a bevy of butterflies, Red Admirals and they were magnificent. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any as perfect and fresh. There were about 10 all basking in the early morning sunshine and we think they were this year’s young getting ready to migrate to the continent. They were too quick for me to get a photo.

Down by the water we decided the pub in it’s waterside setting with the backdrop of wooded hillside would be a nice Kite Aerial Photography subject. It was very cold in the wind but we managed to get some nice pictures. The dog that was sat in the middle of the road and totally ignored us suddenly came to life as we were pulling the kite down. It wasn’t for us though, his friend the Yachting club ranger arrived. We got talking and learnt that the wildlife here was good, there were geese and Little Egret’s outnumbered Herons here. That explains why the one at Woodbridge was ignored.

We moved on to Landguard Fort at Felixtowe, an English Heritage building only to find out that it closed for winter - yesterday! Is this a ploy to get us to come back? Lost and lonely in a strange town we telephoned and arranged to visit Bharat and spent a lovely afternoon chatting. It’s amazing how much in common we all have. We’re all Radio Amateurs, we love the outdoors, we love mountains and walking and so it went on. Airplanes came high on the list for both Bharat and Pat and even I could join in the conversation having had a go in a light aircraft. I flew it from Nottingham Airport (Tollerton) to Belvoir Castle and back again, great fun, but Ken wouldn’t let me land it, values his future too much!

When it came time to leave we had been given a couple of lightweight Indian cotton towels for the van and a model of a Lancaster bomber which now has pride of place on the dash.

It was a wonderful experience for all of us and I believe we will keep in touch.

That night it was first quarter moon and it cast lovely silvery light on the water of the estuary as it wove it’s nightly path through the clouds.

Next morning we took Bharat’s advice and visited Kersey, it must be the most beautiful village in Suffolk and perhaps in England.

It is quite small and from the church you can see the whole village below you, all the rooftops, tiled and thatched, surrounded by the gently undulating fields. Real hedges separate the fields and small copses of trees dot the countryside. The whole scene is one of charm and tranquillity.

We didn’t count them but I think 90% of the Main Street has thatched houses and dates from the 14th century. Many of the upper stories of the houses extended beyond the lower floors, most were of wooden beam construction with lathe and plaster infill and each one carefully preserved and looked after. The whole scene with the village ford flowing across cobbles is totally idyllic.

The cars and overhead cables were the only two things that kept you rooted firmly in the 20 century. Thanks Bharat, it is truly a gem and a dragon moment.

Lavenham was the same but larger. The houses in the centre were again about 14 century and even more crooked than Kersey. The angles of the walls defied gravity and it was difficult not to photograph each and every one. They had beautiful names like Honeysuckle Cottage and one in particular made me think of Kenneth Williams in the ‘Round the Horn’ radio series - Cordwainer, OK so his was a Cordwangle but it’s near enough. My favourite has got to be ‘Tickled Pink’. The sign was a maid lying on a couch showing off her garters and there was also a plaque on the wall with a pair of bare feet and a feather.

The Guildhall is a huge building and looks a bit anaemic because they seem to have whitewashed all the wooden beams as well as the plaster. It has a connection with Corpus Christi and like a lot of us, we only know about this from the ‘Davinci Code’ but we didn’t manage to do the tour this time.

The Main Street was wide here and we passed what was once an old coaching Inn and just marvelled at the old beams still holding the rooms above the entrance to the courtyard.

As we drove out of Lavenham the streets held more of these buildings and I felt that I wanted to get out and walk past all of the houses it was almost as though we had stepped back in time.

It was decision time and I decided that I wanted to go to Clacton on Sea. I know, I know Pat said the same thing but I’ve never been and so Clacton was where we went and I am now satisfied that I will never want to go again. A lot of the coast around this part is quite muddy and all the towns have to be protected by a sea wall. We think this part took a hit in the 1952 floods that devastated this coast up to Lincolnshire and the wash.
Point Clear looked (on the map) like it was a dead end country lane and we faithfully followed the road, bumps , potholes and all and kept as close to the sea as possible. At one point we had a 4 ½ ft high seawall on our left and a motley mess of chalet bungalows on our right, the sort that are built on a wooden frame so that they have a space under the floorboards. I know this because several along this stretch had been dismantled leaving only the wooden frame standing proud of the earth.
The whole place made me think of a shanty town, they were built very close together and it felt claustrophobic, gardens were small or non
existent. Some looked very neglected and uncared for and the streets were all parallel. It felt like and old caravan park where individuals had done their own thing without interference from planning. I’m afraid we couldn’t wait to get out.

We camped that night under a waxing moon by the side of a lovely lake. The fish were feeding in the silvery light of the moon that bounced off the water like shattered crystals and we had no fishing rods!

It was Halloween, the start of the Wiccan year when the veil between the worlds is very thin but we heard nothing and spent a very peaceful night.
Next morning was very cold with bright sunshine and a clear blue sky. As we sat and ate breakfast we watched a family of pheasants wander along the bank of the lake just like a school class on a nature ramble, walk a little way and then stop to examine the flowers and insects and then carry on to the next interesting point.

Mersea Island was on our list this morning. The island is joined to the mainland by ’The Strood’ a causeway that can sometimes be flooded at high tide. The North of the island is arable farming and the Southern side has beaches with sand and shingle. The beach is lined with a double row of beach huts all numbered and painted those ghastly reds, blues and greens. We passed through between numbers 525 and 526 and were probably about halfway along the line. The beach was great because there were all sorts of shells and we found Oyster shells like we’ve never seen before. They were all curly and wavy, different sizes and depths. I just had to fill my pocket with them, well I don’t think we’ll ever come back to this part and I might never see any ever again!

Oysters are found along the Mersea coast and the creeks here and are known as West Mersea Natives. We don’t know whether you can still buy them here but at one time they were collected and put in storage pools on the beach to sell.

We thought that our curly shells were maybe 'The Natives' but it turned out that the common British Oyster ’Ostrea edulis’ is the one so we’re still totally perplexed about our funny shaped shells. Some have pebbles embedded in them, some have other types of shells attached and we found clusters of oyster shells embedded into each other, 3 or 4 shells and in at least 2 of these clusters one of the shells still had someone at home.

It was still a glorious but very cold day and we gently wound our way to a campsite with all mod cons. The temperature is promised to be -1 degree C tonight and -4 degree C tomorrow so electric is a must.

The Shingle Coast.

On our site that afternoon we met a lovely couple who had retired last Christmas, yes I’m telling anyone and anybody that I’ve retired and loving it! Anyway they were having a whale of a time as well and were certainly not getting time to be bored. They left that afternoon and had to negotiate Ipswich before going home so needed to get away before the rush hour.

I think the lady’s name was Doreen, so if you’re reading this Doreen it was lovely to meet you and who knows we might meet up again on another CL. We hope your Granddaughter is OK.

Next day on our way to Woodbridge we passed a signpost for Rendlesham Forest. Pat remembered the name because this is where the English Roswell occurred in late December 1980. It was a dark and windy night and the dogs were howling loudly…. Sorry I was getting carried away there. It was late December and it was 1980 and some locals witnessed the landing of a UFO in the forest. At that time there were two American airbases close by and the military men investigated the sighting. The hearing eventually suggested that there were no unusual circumstances and the Radiation levels were normal, the light was a fireball and the flashing light seen later was the Lighthouse on Orford Ness. The eye witnesses were not convinced and accused the Government of a cover up. There is now a UFO trail in the Forest but we’ve left that for another day.

As we came out of the forest it was drizzling, back to the Stratus clouds, so we continued to Woodbridge. This is a lovely town dating form the early Anglo Saxon period with lots of old houses on narrow steep streets that lead down to the River Deben. We landed in the Market Square where the old town pump still stood. It had a 3 ft iron wheel attached to it which was attached to the pump making it a lot easier to use than a normal pump handle. The town name ‘Wood bridge’ may have derived from the Anglo Saxon ‘Woden Burgh’ meaning Woden’s Town.

The main shopping street is narrow with a lovely jumble of shops in the original buildings rather than big new superstores. It still retains it’s charm and shopping here would be a lovely experience.

It was on the main street that we saw a group of young people dragging narrow brown wheelie bins behind them. They had coloured patterns painted on them and with me being so nosey we just had to follow them. It was great, they were a Drumming group, Simon and Lyn- you would have just loved them. The group was aged between about 12 and 25 and were lassies and lads. One with a shaven head looked particularly mean.
Most of the drummers used drumsticks on all parts of their bins but the oldest two actually used the bin lids as part of their drumming, the sound was fantastic. They had worked out a routine as well, part way through they all laid their bins on their sides, still drumming, and stood on them using their feet as the drumsticks. Once they were all back up the right way one of the teenage lassies leapfrogged her bin, and to add a bit of humour to the whole proceeding the next lassie leapfrogged a bucket! The crowd loved it.

At the end they all laid their bins down again this time one after the other in time to the beats and they all pointed towards the centre in a star like pattern and they stood on them. It was really great and everyone enjoyed it.

They turned out to be a church group and were advertising a free lunch at St John’s church. You can’t get better than that!

We got lost next and had to ask for directions back to the pump. By coincidence Pat had been reading that the average person gets lost for about 39 hours in a lifetime, we two are obviously getting lost for several other people.

We walked to the River to have a look at the Tide Mill. It was built about 1170 and it’s successors remained in operation until 1857. When the tide rose it opened a sluice gate and the 7½ acre pond would fill. As the tide dropped the sluice gate would close leaving the pond full. When the tide was low enough the miller would open the gate and hey presto mill power!

The pond is now part of the yachting club but they have dug a much smaller pond for demonstrations.

We spent a couple of hours here bird watching and found a Little Egret prancing around the shallows around the boats. No one seemed to be excited about it so we can only think that it is a common sight down here.
There were plenty of Godwits both Bar Tailed and Black and a few Canada Geese which seemed totally out of place wallowing in the glutinous mud. Usually they crop grass but they all had muddy beaks so I don’t know what they were finding to eat.

A lot of the boats and barges seemed to have been moored forever and looked very lived in, net curtains at the windows and pot plants along the gangways but sitting in the evil looking mud up to their plimsoll lines they looked a bit unloved and uncared for. Perhaps they will look happier at high tide.

It was still a really dull day and we decided to got back to Aldeburgh for the night.

Sunday and the wind was blowing, the sun shining so we tried to take Kite aerial photographs of the Moot Hall and some beached boats, I’ll know later whether we had any success. We also saw a boat heading directly for the shore and as he didn’t seem to be losing we speed we stood and waited for the crash. He ran straight at the beach full pelt and managed to get it halfway out of the water. Then a chain was attached and it was winched up the shingle to well above the high tide mark. In the hut by the winch the catch were all cleaned, gutted and ready for sale within minutes, small cod, crabs herring etc.

Just look what I found on the beach to the South of Aldburgh, I really really wanted it but Pat said I'd got to eat all the tins of beans to compensate for the weight!

Next stop was Shingle Street which turned out to be a row of cottages on the shingle beach, exactly what it said on the tin! I did manage to increase my Hag stone hoard to seven.

Nellie (Sat Nav) very kindly directed us to Bawdsey Quay at the mouth of the River Deben. Bawdsey Hall is the birthplace of Radar which was developed before WW2 and helped us to win the Battle of Britain.

It was here we met a super guy, Bharat, he has a Devon VW camper, the one that Pat wants, it was even the right colour, green. Bharat was enjoying his camping too much to let Pat have it so we traded conversation instead and got talking as I took over the spare chair. We sat and talked the afternoon away. Bharat loves mountains which remind him of his homeland, and loves Wales and the Lake District. He gave us some directions to lovely wild spots. Now all I’ve got to do is remember them until I get back to my map book.

Bharat was pleased for us when we told him this wandering was our new way of life and wished us well.

It’s very peaceful here, sat by the side of the River, the sun is hot and it’s hard to believe it’s nearly November. The river is about ¼ mile wide with yachts dotted down the middle. We have a sandy beach when the tides out and I’ve managed to secrete a few shells away out of Pat’s sight.