Back From The Long Haul

I said when I last blogged that I hoped it wouldn't take a miracle to salvage our night away from home. We were staying in Dunwich at The Ship and had booked the last available room which (though described to me by email as "lovely") was far from perfect.

I know we were only staying in a pub and couldn't expect The Ritz but small touches like the state of our window weren't exactly conducive to relaxing and luxuriating in the room which, though I mentioned it was cold, did eventually warm up when we closed the door to the passageway to the bathroom. To be fair to The Ship, the evening meal was excellent, the service and atmosphere in the bar was warm and friendly and the entertainment put on by classical/jazz keyboard player Jack Pescod together with violinist Hannah Voat was lovely. Add on the fine breakfast in the morning and the break was not a total failure. But I do feel that one of the most important parts of a hotel or inn break is the room and I am afraid that that was a letdown.

We weren't going to let that spoil the day so we had a look at the fabulous beach and look forward to returning to Dunwich in warmer days to walk along the coast and explore the beautiful heathland. After that it was off to Southwold for a quick and bracing walk along the pier before heading into town and having a look around the shops.

We've been meaning to have a look around the clothes shop Collen and Clare in the middle of Southwold for some time so now was a chance. They had some great clothes in there and Marion bought this super casual coat for spring.

As the diet is now reaching its conclusion we went into Two Magpies bakery and felt that we could get away with a pain au chocolate with the coffee. It's a good job we ordered only one between us as it was enormous. I can highly recommend this little bakery. The food on offer was amazing, the coffees were great and the service was outstanding.

From Southwold we headed back to Framlingham via Snape Maltings and had a look around the gallery. We were taken by this large ceramic sculpture of a cormorant by Mary Wyatt. We didn't buy it but I found it hard to believe that the artist could produce such a fine piece of work for less than £400 - my photo doesn't do the detail in the work justice.

Whilst on the subject of ceramics we found this large jug in The Theatre in Framlingham today. It's by celebrated Suffolk artist Tessa Newcomb and at just £80 I thought it was quite a bargain so it's now brightening up our dining room.

It's good to see the Lemon Tree has reopened in Framlingham. We usually pop into The Crown on Saturday morning and do The Times jumbo2 crossword but as The Crown and Dancing Goat were both full today we gave The Lemon Tree a try. I wish the new owners every success. It's got good access for the disabled and for push chairs so I imagine it will fill a gap in the market for young mums and dads with kids as well as the regular Framlingham coffee drinkers. It will be interesting to see if they eventually reopen in the evening.

Keeping Busy

On Monday we were back in Southwold again for the Ways With Words Literary Festival. The day's session was held in the magnificent St Edmunds church which was completely packed for a talk by Jeremy Paxman. We didn't go to the earlier guest Alan Johnson's talk so when we got inside the building most of the seats were taken and we could only find a pew behind a pillar with a very restricted view of the area set up with microphones. However it was decided that Jeremy would not talk from that area but instead from the pulpit which just happened to be immediately above us so we ended up with the best seats in the house. It was a fascinating talk about his new book on the effect of World War I on the social history of Britain. He was an exceptional speaker and, as he is on both Newnight and University Challenge, the master of the putdown. He was introduced by John, a Southwold man who once worked with Jeremy at the BBC and who commented that their paths crossed about every twenty years - to which Paxman replied that, with current life expectancy, they wouldn't be meeting again. Whether the needling between Jeremy and John which continued in the Q&A session was real or contrived it was great to see the quick wittedness on display. 

We took advantage of being in Southwold by visiting the excellent Adnams shop to stock up on a few early Christmas presents. We're very much on top of the present buying already. I know that there's a long time to go but with several trips north ahead of us in the near future it pays to be organised.

On Monday evening an old colleague came to stay for the night so we took him down to The Crown for a bite to eat. The food at The Crown continues to go from strength to strength on every visit and we had another excellent meal from head chef Matt Ransome's kitchen. Both the dining room and the pub were very busy for a Monday night but, as always, the service was speedy, friendly and attentive. 

After a brief visit to the opticians with Marion I spent Tuesday and Wednesday reading through the final copy edit of my novel. I've paid for it to be done professionally and I'm very pleased with the results. My editor corrected all my errors perfectly and, in addition, made a number of suggestions to improve what I had written by getting rid of a few clunky sentences and descriptions. It's funny that she highlighted a number of passages that I knew were a bit flowery but had left in perhaps to show off a bit - they've all gone now. Traditionally the next step would be to send the manuscript off to scores of publishers and wait for the rejection slips but with the wonderful world of self publishing I can now publish it myself and inflict upon the reading public yet another wannabe's effort. I'm fairly friendly with a few self-published authors on Twitter and some have had amazing success and sold over 100,000 copies. If I do a fraction as well as them I will be happy.

 With the editing done and dusted we headed off to the super Ipswich Film Theatre Trust for a matinee showing of The Selfish Giant. This is a British film that has achieved massive critical acclaim but is never going to make it to the multiplexes. It's the story of two school friends Arbor and Swifty in Bradford. Arbor is small, scrawny, foul mouthed and angry. Swifty is much taller, overweight and a far gentler character who is bullied at school. They're both troubled teenagers from troubled backgrounds and it reminded me of the characters in the early episodes of Shameless before it became a ridiculous parody of itself. After seeing men stealing cable from a railway line and then being excluded from school they attempt to make money from scrap metal, riding a borrowed horse and cart around the streets scavenging for whatever they can. Arbor is hell bent on making money by whatever means while Swifty's passion is for the horses. 

Thuggish scrap metal merchant Kitten plays a pivotal role in the film by encouraging Swifty to train to ride a horse in a trotting race and by encouraging Arbor to steal heavy duty power cable. The horse gives Swifty hope but Arbor is hellbent on self destruction. This is a very powerful film. The direction and the acting are exceptional and those glowing critical reviews are well deserved. But, as well as powerful, the film is also extremely grim and I'm not a lover of grim. So if you want to see a powerful and devastating drama give it a try but if, like me, you like a bit of happiness in your filmgoing, give it a very wide berth.

Welcome Visitors

We had hoped that we would have finished the house before we started to entertain visitors here but at this rate (snow cancelled the gardener again yesterday) it could be Christmas before that happens. So we were really pleased to see our old friends Janet and David Wareing who stopped over here in Framlingham en route (sort of) to a wedding in Hampshire. I used to sit next to Dave at school and we've been firm friends ever since. Although they didn't manage to make it here until well after five we still managed to fit in a quick tour of the town and a beer in The Crown before heading home for a good meal which was made pretty merry by Dave and Janet's housewarming contribution of a vintage bottle of Dom Perignon.

We had a brief look around our fabulous church this morning before heading to Southwold where the conditions could be described as "bracing". We had planned to walk down to the ferry and cross to Walberswick but, despite reports in the Suffolk magazine that the ferry was open today, it was closed and we had to drive to Walberswick where we had an excellent lunch at The Anchor. It was quite an eye opener to make us realise how useful that ferry is. A crossing of no more than perhaps twenty yards was replaced by a drive of maybe six or seven miles.

Dave and Janet had to get back on the road by three but, although they were with is for less than twenty four hours, we crammed a heck of a lot into the time and it was a very enjoyable stay.

In my last blog I was fairly optimistic about the landscape gardening progress - before it started to snow again. The fences are finished and the borders and lawn are being prepared. But the decking is not quite complete and I think that Tony's estimate of everything being done by the end of the month still looks wildly optimistic. He started on January 7th so that means that by Monday he will have been working on the garden for three months and by the time that the front is done it will be four months. 

Well that’s the first few steps of our great adventure over.

Amazing how much you can get in a Prius

Premier Inn Ipswich

We completed the sale of the house in Southport last week and headed down to Suffolk with the car heaped high with all the essentials for our next four months whilst all our non-essential possessions headed into store. We felt like a couple of tramps turning up at the Premier Inn in Ipswich after a first night stay at a Days Inn on the M6. But we had little choice as we needed to appoint a builder for the work in Framlingham as quickly as possible or risk pushing the start date for the renovations back even further.

We got the builder appointed by Friday and made good progress with the kitchen, windows, outside office and interior design so we’re looking at the work starting in less than three weeks when the house will begin getting knocked about. Before then we’ve got to try and come up with some bathroom ideas which is not easy as the rooms are very small and we’ve little scope for mistakes.

The beautiful art nouveau frontage to Norwich Royal Arcade

We even found time to do a bit of sightseeing at the weekend and visited the renowned Anchor at Walberswick for a fabulous fish lunch before taking the rowing boat ferry across to Southwold where we enjoyed a walk down the pier and around the town. On Saturday we had a look around Norwich – what a great city!  There’s a great variety of shops, a wonderful market, a castle, loads of places to eat, modern shopping malls, old shopping lanes, independent bookshops (and a good Waterstones) and so much more. We’ll certainly be making regular visits when we finally get to live in East Anglia.

After the relative peace of the weekend we sorted out the giant Leylandii in our new garden that was offending our neighbours; we had it felled at a cost of well over £300 and we hope it’s earned us a foot on the ladder of acceptance in our new neighbourhood. There’s no longer any chance of the tree causing us future disputes. Leylandii have been at the centre of so many huge rows between neighbours; I’ve seen it referred to as “the tree at the centre of suburban warfare” and it’s no surprise – they grow to phenomenal heights.

After that it was back on the road again and that meant another Premier Inn; this time it was Rochester where Paul and Josephine have just bought their new house. It’s a super old Grade 2 listed building with lots of big rooms (their house that is not the Premier Inn) and it’s a perfect new home for our furniture that either won’t fit in our new place or won’t suit its more modern style. It was fortuitous that Paul and Josephine’s purchase came within a few days of our sale so the Rochester house will be furnished and ready for them to move into as soon as yet another huge event (the birth of their first baby) happens.

After we oversaw the delivery of the furniture (well done McDowells Removals – can’t recommend them highly enough) Josephine and her mum Jenny came and we spent some time together getting things unpacked.

Marion Jenny And Josephine At The Rochester House

It was our thirty-sixth wedding anniversary and we got this super bottle of champagne from Paul and Josephine. Although they bought us some picnic flutes to drink it from, the Premier Inn rooms don’t run to a fridge, so we’ve saved it for this weekend. It was strange being within a stone’s throw of where we got married (Chatham) on our anniversary. We didn’t feel up to going out as we were tired and our clothes were starting to look a bit of a mess so we dined in the Premier Inn. It was only regular chain restaurant stuff but it was served with a smile and was perfectly acceptable.

That night we had the chance to check out Premier Inn’s good night sleep guarantee. We were in one of those rooms that links to another by way of a door. And behind that door was someone who managed to snore loudly from around 2am until we got up at 6.30. I told the receptionist and within a couple of minutes my £65 was refunded with no fuss whatsoever (I managed to record the snoring on my phone but although the receptionist listened to the recording I am sure that he would have taken my word alone). So, well done Premier Inn. We stayed with them for seven nights in all and if you are looking for a budget hotel chain with clean rooms, friendly service and okay food you don’t need to look any further.

After our sleepless night we took delivery of a bed at the Rochester house and then set off back up north – after a delay when we witnessed a minor accident and stopped to help out. We made a brief stop at a kitchen showroom in Ipswich and then headed to St Andrews where we managed to get our head down in the caravan before 1am.

As we unpacked the car this morning the car seemed to groan with relief and it finally looks like a car again. Now we're looking forward to some quality time with Sarah, Duncan and Rose.

Today We Rolled Into Southwold

The retirement property search continued unabated today as we headed north from the holiday cottage we are staying in and explored the lovely coastal town of Southwold. It's great to visit places that neither of us has ever been to before and we were both extremely impressed with this fabulous little seaside town. Mind you, it's clear that plenty of others are similarly keen on the place as our budget wouldn't find us much - we were told that these beach huts have fetched up to £70,000.

This little cottage caught our eye as it's called St Andrews Cottage - quite a coincidence as we spend such a lot of time in St Andrews but, whilst I am sure that the locals won't bat an eyelid, I bet any fellow Sandgrounders reading this blog will choke when they read that it's on the market for £370k (no garage, no parking, two bedrooms). Hello! It's Suffolk not Chelsea. Fortunately, although we loved Southwold, and think it would be a brilliant place to take the grandchildren in years to come, we didn't think it was the place for us. So off we went again.

We trundled into Beccles. We were drawn to this wonderful old art deco cinema and I thought that might be an omen as our favourite place so far has no picture house. However, when we reached it we found the cinema transformed into a chain restaurant. Beccles is a pleasant little town but, on our Goldilocks scale, this one was too big so we set off for Laxfied (which an estate agent insisted was the place that dreams were made of - she lives there). It is, without question, a very attractive village with two super pubs but we found ourselves shaking our heads and leaving with the words "this one's too small".

All this traversing the country put me in mind of Ben Hatch whose Are We Nearly There Yet is one of the books I've read this week. Ben travelled 8,000 miles researching a travel guide and wrote about his family's adventures. Here's the review I put on Amazon.

If you want information on child friendly attractions buy the Frommer's Guide that came out of Ben and Dinah Hatch's 8,000 mile drive around Britain with their two toddlers. If you want a book that is a genuinely "nice" read, buy this. I'm sorry if "nice" is a word that grates with some people but for me it's the most appropriate word to describe it as, as he records his family's adventures, Ben creates a warm, generous and affectionate glow in the reader .

Like everyone else who is likely to buy it, I read with interest the few curmudgeonly one star reviews on Amazon before splashing out my £1 and I can only say that those reviewers are truly on a different planet as, for example, there is no sign of Ben and Dinah's children being anything other than normal toddlers and Dinah's bad driving is clearly exaggerated for comic effect. Okay there are one or two factual inaccuracies but this is pleasant entertainment and not sold as a traveller's bible.

The journey was a massive achievement although one that was tinged with great sadness as Ben describes his emotions at the loss of his father during the family's time on the road. His writing on his father's death is genuine and conveys true love between father and son in an extremely touching way - if my own children have feelings like this for me and my wife I will consider our parenting a job well done.

It's not hilarious - and I don't think it was ever intended to be. It's pleasant, well written and thoroughly enjoyable. And, unlike a lot of Kindle books, it's not riddled with typos and editing errors.