Rainbows in Suffolk

This half-term, with great forward planning and thinking time (er- half a day?), CBC and I decided to head to Suffolk and the borders of Norfolk for 2 days.  This was thought-up and executed on Monday.

Tuesday morning, we set off in the car, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (cue that BBC music) in the car and headed first for Aldeburgh.  Aldeburgh is most famed for being the home of celebrated British composer, Benjamin Britten and his partner, Peter Pears.  Britten, who was our first great composer for around 400 years (since Henry Purcell. I am quoting my lesson plan here from a year 4 lesson), fell in love with the Suffolk coast and moved there.  One of his most famous operas, Peter Grimes is set here- beautiful, beautiful music but a horrid story-line!  Snape Maltings, a couple of miles from Aldeburgh, is the home of the Aldeburgh festival, a great classical music festival every year.  CBC was a steward here once and the whole experience had a huge impression on him, so he was keen to visit.

Sometimes called the Hampstead of Suffolk, Aldeburgh is a picturesque seaside town with a selection of independent and high class shops and one of he best fish and chips in the country.  Fair enough- we decided not to rally against public opinion and bought some fish and chips to eat on the beach.

As we sat and ate our food, reclining on the shingle of Aldeburgh beach, listening to the lap of waves onto the stones and listened to a child excitedly talking to his dad, I reflected on the wonderful effect the sea seems to have on me.  It's like a reset button, or something like that- but I feel that all things are well when I hear that sound and smell that air.


Eyed up by ravenous and menacing-looking seagulls, we decided to take a jaunt along the beach in search of the famous and contraversial Aldeburgh sea-shell sculpture.  Apparently, it is considered contentious by different people because they say that using aluminium or whatever metal it is made out of is going against keeping the seaside natural at Aldeburgh.   Luckily, we found it a fair stretch along the beach.  Shingle is really hard to walk over!!! It makes you really slow!

Everyone wanted a piece of the seashell, so we could only grab a few shots.

The quote comes from the aforementioned Peter Grimes.  It started to rain a little, so some people tried to shelter under the sea-shell.  We walked back towards the town.  The rain was that most disgusting sort- the one that is really really cold, wet and horrible and leaves you really soggy and cold.  BUT, there was an unexpected boon of staying out in it.  As we reached the town, we saw the most amazing primary AND secondary rainbow stretched across the sky, ending as if like mist into the water.
  Again and again, I snapped photos in delight at this sight of beauty and peace. It was hard to leave it. According to the comments of someone local which I earwigged on, they've been getting double rainbows all week!




We then walked into the town and went into apparently, according to the Independent, one of the top 5 ice-cream parlours in the country!  Despite being cold, I enjoyed a double cone of chocolate orange and chocolate.  CBC had blackcurrant sorbet and maple-walnut.  They do many flavours including Christmas pudding flavour! We wondered if anyone ever orders the pink-grapefruit sorbet- not my idea of fun!
After a quick stroll along the high street and a nip into Joules, where I almost bought a fox-jumper (too expensive) and amazing fur-lined navy-blue snow boots  (tiny bit too small despite being  42!), we headed off in the car towards Beccles, the entrance to the Norfolk Broads apparently.  The drive was beautiful with sunsets and yet more amazing rainbows.  CBC forbade me to take photos whilst he was driving, but there was a HUGE patch of really vivid colour on the horizon.

Arriving at the Swan Inn B&B in Beccles, we were taken up to our room in the loft.  It was a deliciously cute and cosy room with a lovely chintzy chaise-longue,
and lovely-beams to bang your head on (if you are clumsy like CBC and I!).

A cute shower room and a cupboard that had Orla Keilly mugs, Tea-Pigs tea-selection and some chintzy tea cups and saucers
Since we don't have a TV, we were really excited to be able to watch the winter Olympics (which was unfortunately curling.  What a strange sport!) and see Netflix for the first time which we watched Dawson's Creek on after dinner!

Heading down to Dinner, the Swan has a great restaurant where everything is cooked from scratch and they offer a 2 courses for £14 option. I went for the Cauliflower and stilton soup (to be honest a little boring) and CBC had a pate (nice).  For my main, I enjoyed apple and pork sausages, mash, broccoli and onion-gravy (though looking at this picture makes me want to retch. I get like that when I've eaten meat too often!)
 The Swan in Beccles has a HUGE beer menu and they list all the different varieties and flavours in their guide, giving a little history of each one- heck, they made Budweiser sound posh!

After dinner, we headed back to our room to watch Modern Guy and the very first Dawson's Creek episode.  I love a bit of teenage angst.  All together now: "I don't wanna wait... for this life to be over..."

More tomorrow...