A Winter Wedding And Other Bits

If you've been wondering what happened to the blog in December, something quite important kept us occupied Here's a clue. 

But more of that later.

It's almost a month since that fateful day in December when, despite our very best efforts to get rid of them,  the country somehow managed to elect the Tories. I blame it on the broken voting system - it's surely time for some sort of proportional representation when the Lib Dem's 11% of the votes resulted in 2% of seats and the SNP's 3.9% vote share gave them four times as many. 

We got a very good reception in Framlingham market and had plenty of support and a lot of positive conversations.

Although somebody knocked over my sign in the middle of the night.  

It wasn't all politics at the market and several visiting choirs created a very festive spirit. We had to leave Suffolk before the election as there was something very important happening up in Scotland.

You may recall an earlier blog when I mentioned daughter Sarah and Duncan's wedding and, before we knew it, the big day was upon us.

Cambo House near St Andrews was a great venue and our wedding party took over the whole place for the weekend.

It's a grand old Scottish house with loads of character and comfort and we were very well looked after.

I was too involved to take many photos so forgive the lack of shots (especially of Marion who looked fabulous). I will post more when I get them from friends and family and the official photographer,

Grandson Teddy got into the spirit of the occasion and donned a kilt for the first time.

It was soon time to join Sarah for her walk to the ceremony.

And,before we knew it, it was all over.

Our old friend Jan Harbon excelled herself yet again with this beautiful wedding cake.

Such amazing detail

We had a couple of very short speeches and then enjoyed a good meal at the reception accompanied by some fabulous wines supplied by the excellent Whalley Wine Shop and a super ceilidh in the evening, followed by delicious pizzas and cake.

Sarah was determined to walk to the nearby beach on Sunday morning and have some photos taken in her wedding dress. The sun shone on us after a few days of torrential rain and she braved the weather.

While Sarah was dressed like that, we sensible oldies needed to wrap up more thoroughly.

Before we left Scotland, temperatures plummeted and when I went to take my local farmer friends a few bottles of wine to thank them for letting me metal detect on their land, it was minus six degrees. 

Back in Framlingham before Christmas we enjoyed a fabulous concert in St Michael's Church by The Rabble Chorus. A few friends sing in this group and it was a joyful evening with some great singing and skilful arrangements.

It wasn't long before we were on the road again, driving to Rochester for Christmas with the Kent branch of the family.

We had a lovely Christmas and enjoyed exploring the old town in the peace of a very quiet Christmas day.

On Boxing Day I gave Marion her Christmas present. It's a copper welded sculpture by local artist Spadge Hopkins. We saw Spadge making this during one of his exhibitions and Marion liked it so much that I asked him to put it to one side for her.

Back in Suffolk we seem to have finally seen an end to the incessant rain and we've made the most of it with long walks around Walberswick, Dunwich, Thorpeness and Aldeburgh since Christmas.

A bracing walk along the beach.

I love finding sea glass and other pretty stones on the beach.

The scenery around Walberswick is beautiful.

The house in the clouds at Thorpeness is a converted water tower. Such a romantic building.

I read almost fifty books last year but none was as good as this one which is the first I've read in 2020. It's such a beautifully constructed book full of twists and turns in a Gothic Victorian landscape. It has echoes of The Essex Serpent (which I also loved) but I would rate this higher. 

My own books have enjoyed reasonable sales recently. The reduction in price on Kindle has paid off. Follow the links at the top right. A reader recently tweeted this 

(PS I did make it up)

We've also managed a couple of cinema trips this week.

Knives Out is a fun whoddunit with Daniel Craig in a completely different role to his Bond.

Marion reckons that Little Women is the best version she's seen. I enjoyed it even though it was a bit too sad for my liking. We're off to see 1917 on Monday. It should be spectacular in IMAX.