Saturday 22 June 2013

Hectic Days In Framlingham

Boy it's been a hectic week this week here in Framlingham. Heaven knows how we would have coped if we were still working. But it's given us a good feel for what a great choice of town we've made for our retirement.

We got back from our niece's Spanish wedding in the early hours of Monday and a few hours later we had a visit from Angelika who is involved in the Framlingham "Hour Community". This is a scheme whereby local residents volunteer to help others and we had put our names down. Angelika explained that some of the voluntary work involves DIY and I explained that it would not be wise to include me on that list as my toolkit came from a Christmas cracker (this is true). We will however be happy to help run people to appointments, do a bit of shopping or simply keep them company.


On Tuesday we had a call out of the blue from our old Sales Director Nick who was going to be in the area for the day. We were very pleased to see him and put him up for the night. In return he treated us to a great dinner at The Crown. I had duck, Marion had pasta and Nick had pizza. All were really good. When we moved here some people were critical of The Crown but we have always found the staff extremely helpful and friendly and the food has always been good and recently it has been very very good.

Wednesday was taken up by a visit from a journalist and photographer from a national magazine who had somehow come across our home improvement project and wanted to photograph the en suite bathroom for an article. We tried to explain that it is a very small bathroom but nonetheless the photographer, journalist and assistant were here for over six hours. I'll be writing about it again when the article is published.

On Thursday we went to Ipswich for Man of Steel but I've already written about that. We went to the college on Thursday night for the FramSoc book club. This month's book was The Testament Of Jessie Lamb - a dystopian novel about a young girl's choice to sacrifice herself for the future of the human race. Coincidentally it was Woman's Hour's book of the week so we were able to both read it and listen to it. Marion reckons that the recorded version was better. None of us thought much of the novel.


On Friday afternoon I managed a couple of hours out with the detector after going to Bury St Edmunds in the morning to visit the business person I am mentoring, pay for the new car and introduce myself to Andrew, the local county archaeologist. I was delighted to find this amazing medieval artefact. I think it depicts the descent of Christ from the cross although Christ's head is , sadly, missing. I'll have to make another visit to Andrew now so that he can record it.



Here are a couple of close ups.



Last night there was a Jazz night at Lemon Tree Bistro. We had another excellent meal (I chose duck again) and were entertained by an outstanding saxophonist who played for over two hours. It's the second Jazz night at The Lemon Tree we've been to and, although we're not really jazz fans, we've had two fabulous evenings and some very good food.


Having drunk more than was probably sensible at the jazz night I didn't feel like cooking breakfast so we went to The Common Room and had a super fry up. It's Framlingham's newest cafe and it has a very pleasant informal and relaxed atmosphere.

After that it was a quick trip to the market, Leo's Delis and the local Co-Op for the week's food and then we had enough time for Marion to look for some clothes.



We've got some fine clothes shops in the town (not men's unfortunately) and Marion found two super maxi skirts in Darcy B and another in Impulse. There were some nice things in Boo Tiki too but the budget was getting a bit stretched by then.



It wasn't too stretched to get a great little glass plant holder for the bathroom from Kittys for a bargain price.


This afternoon we went to the excellent Ipswich Film Theatre to see Summer In February but due to technical difficulties we ended up watching Populaire but that's enough for today I'll write about that next time.

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