Back In Fife

We’re back in Scotland again and that means that, yet again, there’s no WIFI. This is becoming increasingly frustrating as, whilst I usually moan but am at least able to check the emails, this time there is no signal here at Craigtoun Meadows at all so I am writing this offline on the assumption that normal substandard service will be resumed at some time in the near future.

On Thursday I got up at 5 and drove to Rochester. This was the view of the cathedral at 7.15. I was too early to go to the family’s house for my babysitting stint so I headed to a local coffee shop for a bit of breakfast. It was full of UKIP supporters enthusiastic about their chances of victory – Ha! I had a lovely day looking after our granddaughter. We played with lots of games, read plenty of books (I love those Julia Donaldson ones) and had a hearty lunch before Paul came home and I drove back to Suffolk.

It was a late night watching the election results before the drive up to Scotland and, whilst this may lose me some readers, I was very happy with the outcome. I think that David Cameron is a decent man and Osborne has been an extremely sensible and prudent chancellor. I feel sorry for Nick Clegg though and would not have been upset if the coalition had continued. As for Ed – it’s ludicrous that the poor bloke’s future should have been influenced by a flipping bacon sandwich – the internet has a lot to answer for.

We’re so obsessed by image aren’t we? When I heard about that website that would estimate your age I (like many others I guess) immediately and vainly logged on and posted a recent photo expecting some flattering result.

Hm!

We’ve come back to Scotland now because we’re having a lot of decorating done at home in Framlingham. I know it’s only two years since the whole house was done but we’ve decided that the hall, landing and stairs, which were painted, would look better wallpapered. So the excellent Gerald Clements and his blokes will be doing that for us as well as touching up a few scrapes and knocks and repainting the downstairs ceiling which has developed some cracks in the new plaster.

I mentioned in an earlier blog that I had done a few hours of detecting in the last few weeks. This is what turned up. There seems to be an awful lot of lead scrap in the field. Although the other finds don’t look much, there is a medieval buckle, a medieval rivet and a medieval strap end amongst the finds as well as a post medieval spur fragment, five musket balls, a thimble, three Victorian pennies and a gold coloured bottle top that for five seconds had me thinking I had struck lucky. I’m looking forward to harvest time when there will be much more land available to search.

We also went to a great evening at Framlingham College where we were given a talk by Esther Freud who has recently published her novel Mr Mac And Me which is set in Walberswick at the start of the first world war. The Mr Mac of the title is Charles Rennie Mackintosh who did indeed stay in the village at the time and the novel is narrated by the son of the landlord of The Blue Anchor which was on the site of The Anchor where we went for lunch with Paul a few weeks ago. It’s an interesting story and it’s good to learn some history of our new home county.

My own novel, which is also narrated (partly) by a boy, is still selling but I haven’t had any reviews on Amazon for a few months now. I’m doing a price promotion for a week in May and hope that it might result in a couple of fresh reviews appearing on Amazon. I’ve got plenty of ideas going on for a second novel but haven’t found time to sit down and push on with it yet.

One final word, whilst on the subject of books – young Dominic Weatherby, a student at Fram College and, like me and Marion, an avid film fan, has been selected to attend the global youth leaders’ conference in Washington DC. He has to fund the journey himself and, as part of his fundraising drive, has produced this recipe book which is filled with great movies and cuisine to accompany them from all over the world. It’s packed with great recipes and you can help Dominic achieve his dream by buying a (very inexpensive) copy here.