Welcome To Some Old Friends

The only real negative to our retirement move to Framlingham is the distance from our friends - friends who we've known for thirty, forty and even fifty years as well as my mum and brother. But on the positive side we're almost two hundred miles closer to our wonderful son and family which is an enormous plus. And another enormous plus manifested itself  this week when we welcomed friends from the short period that we lived in Kent in 1987/8. We were very close to Wyndham and Lesley Westaway when I worked in London and we relocated to Edenbridge and our children and their children got on together like a house on fire. 

They joined us here in Framlingham yesterday and we had a wonderful day with them catching up on over twenty-five years of each others' lives. We did the usual tourist visits to our town and had a good look around the castle and the church.

The sun shone brightly and showed our new home town in the very best light. Wyndham and Lesley stayed at The Crown and we joined them in the evening for another lovely meal which flew by so quickly that we had barely scraped the surface of our catch up. We are really looking forward to another get together soon.

Wyndham and Lesley headed home to Kent early today so we decided to get on our bikes and head out into the Suffolk countryside. Today was our most ambitious cycle trip to date as we headed to Aldeburgh for a light lunch by the sea.

We chose the new seafood grill at The Brudenell. We've eaten here several times and have always been very happy but today was a bit of a disaster. After waiting over fifteen minutes for our order to be taken, my meal, which was supposed to be chargrilled squid stuffed with chorizo, arrived as a squid salad with chorizo (another choice on the menu). As Marion's choice was correct I didn't want to send mine back and wait so I told the young waitress that I would have it. We ordered drinks to accompany the meal but they arrived after we had finished eating. It was a real disappointment and I can only really blame the perfectly nice but hopelessly inefficient waitress. Don't let me put you off The Brudenell - it is a very good hotel and restaurant but the service today was very poor.

We headed home via Thorpeness. We went through some beautiful countryside and cycled through some wonderful Suffolk villages and passed lots of our county's famous churches like this one, St Mary's in Benhall.

In other news I'm still making the most of the weather and the unplanted fields to get out with the metal detector and am still making a lot of nice finds. Here are some of the latest.

A wonderful local find- a 1669 half penny from a Framlingham trader. "Daniel Barnes His Half Peny"

The Other Side

A Silver Penny Edward III

More Musket Balls

Some Medieval Buttons

A Medieval Buckle

A Battered Silver Hammered Coin - Probably Tudor

A Fragment Of  A Queen Mary Coin

A Cut Half Penny From Henry III

Not Sure What This Is. Any Ideas?

We're here for another four or five weeks so there's plenty of time for more finds before we head up to Scotland.