A Dedicated Follower Of Fashion

We're off to France next week for a well earned holiday (okay I know that we always seem to be on holiday but we haven't had a real vacation abroad for several years).So it was time to top up my summer wardrobe before setting off. Sadly there's a dearth of men's clothes shops in Framlingham so we headed down to London for a couple of days. I tend to only shop for clothes two or three times each year so we took an empty suitcase with us to save struggling around the city with carrier bags on our second day.   

I'm not over keen on traipsing around a lot of shops so we headed for Selfridges - thank heavens for Ted Baker: their clothes fit me, I know their sizes and they are fashionable without being too young for the older bloke. The helpful young assistant must have seen his sales targets coming within reach as he brought me shirts, t-shirts,trousers, shorts and jumpers over a frenetic hour and I liked and agreed to take almost all. With the back of the planned shopping broken in that short time, we were able to take a leisurely lunch in the Selfridges wine bar and spend the rest of the afternoon looking for the few extras on the list. I managed to buy a couple of jackets, a scarf and some shoes before heading to John Lewis for a dinner suit and some undies and to M&S for some t-shirts for cycling and swimming shorts for the hols.

Thanks to Trivago we got a good deal at Flemings Mayfair which was handy for the shops. The room was fine and the service was very friendly but I wouldn't have been happy paying full price as the dinner, whilst a reasonable meal, took so long in arriving that we asked to have the dessert course in the room plus two complementary glasses of wine and the removal of the discretionary 12.5% service charge. I'm a very reluctant complainer but booking a table for 7.15 and eating your starter at 8.20 is far from the perfect dining experience.

Since I last blogged we managed to help our neighbour get to Ipswich to visit his wife who is in a care home and isn't well enough to return to Framlingham at the moment. He's in his late eighties and hadn't stepped over the doorstep for a couple of years due to his own poor health so the journey was a worry for him. After the minor struggle of getting him into the car, I'm pleased to say that the trip went well and we will hopefully be able to repeat the visit again when we are back from France and now that he has found that he is able to go outside perhaps we will be able to wheel him into town for a coffee one day.

We also experienced the Framlingham Gala for the first time. Our son Paul and granddaughter Catherine came to stay for the weekend and I'm pleased to say that the weather held up for the event. After a tasty lunch at The Lemon Tree we watched the colourful procession pass up towards the Pageant Field.

It was great to have family visit us for the weekend and to have plenty to do.

Catherine managed to hook a duck at the funfair. 

The funfair was quiet when we went but she enjoyed half a dozen rides before we had a look around the castle.

We'll miss seeing the family while we're in France but before we head there we've got the Opera In The Barn at Crows Hall (above) tomorrow. I had to buy a new dinner suit for this event as my old suit (worn just once) was bought before I dieted - the weather forecast is reasonable so we should have a pleasant evening.

In between all the activity I've been working on finalising my novel for self publishing. Thanks to a lot of help from Caroline at Red Button, it's all edited and formatted and now I just have to put it onto Amazon (and wait for the one star reviews). 

A Good Week

It was nice having my mum come to visit us here in Framlingham this week. It was her first trip to Suffolk in many a long year and we had a busy week ending with a trip to Rochester to see our son and family before dropping Mum off at Gatwick for a flight to Alicante to see my sister who lives in Benidorm. Although Mum is a very fit 88 year old, negotiating an airport like Gatwick was a bit daunting but Gatwick had a great assistance service which helped her to get through security and to the boarding gate more easily. My sister Julie emailed this photo to show that she arrived unscathed.

Our week of Framlingham dining out continued on Thursday when we joined some friends for a meal at The Station. It's not as formal as The Crown but the pub was very busy and everyone enjoyed the food which was reasonably priced, well cooked and very tasty. The same went for The Lemon Tree where we had a pleasant meal last night. We were trying out their new Suffolk Supper Club. It was a great idea - one long table and one set meal so that everyone could eat together and talk to new people. The only snag was that, sadly, too few people joined the party and we ended up with just two groups of four on one very long table and one group left a large gap between the other. The food was good and we enjoyed the conversation with another couple we had never met before but another twenty diners were needed to make it a success - a pity.

After all the driving around with Mum and to Gatwick and back we found time for a bit of relaxation over the last couple of days and I managed to get out in the fields again with my metal detector. I took a friend onto one of the fields that I have permission to search and he was delighted to find this medieval heraldic pendant. This is a lovely find dating to c1200-1400. There is still plenty of detail and perhaps we will be able to find the family that the pendant represents.

I didn't come away empty handed and along with about forty shotgun cartridges I found over twenty buttons.

Including this Dandy Button from the 18th century.

This good pewter globular button from the seventeenth century.

And these nice early buttons from around the same period.

I also found this cloth bag seal dated 1590.

And this interesting harness decoration which I think may be medieval (I'm checking with the local archaeologist in Bury St Edmunds).

There was a decorated buckle from c1600 too as well as the usual couple of musket balls.

And finally a large hammered silver coin.

Unfortunately it has been folded in two. Tantalisingly there is writing inside and it is tempting to try and unfold it to try and find out what reign it is from but I am sure that would just end up with it snapped in half. I'm sure that the archaeologist will be able to identify it. My best guess is Tudor. The field will be planted up shortly so I'll have to wait until harvest time to see what turns up next.