Half term catch up

 Hi there,

It's been a little while since my last confession and that was in the form of a bad poem!  The half term was enjoyable.

It involved a lovely trip to Maldon on  Valentines Day.  CBC and I went to lunch at Mrs Salisbury's tearoom where, to our delight, we met our friends Lara and her husband. We explored the town and then returned home.

Sunday, apart from a trip to church, where I was completely saturated by torrential rain, the day was spent sheltering inside.

Monday and Tuesday, CBC had 2 days of work experience for  Garden design company so I travelled over to Mum's for the morning and early afternoon. We had a tasty simple lunch, lots of chat and tea, a walk to the seafront and then I returned home via town where I had my hair cut into a short bob which I was very pleased with!  

*Updated with haircut photo for Ang! *

Later, after an achy and muddy CBC returned home, I went off to the station and went over to have a rehearsal with my lovely flute quartet.  This was especially lovely as I didn't have to rush home for school and we ate cake and had a pleasant time. It meant I got to chat with Lara on the car journey from the station.

Tuesday, I had a tidying morning and then headed to town for the market. I bought delicious olives and fresh fruit and vegetables.  In the evening, CBC and I travelled to the other side of Chelmsford to a friend's house for a pancake party! It was the first time we've seen her since her husband died which was sad but we cheered her up. I was touched that she gave me a lovely cashmere cardigan which had belonged to her Mum whose memorial I played flute for last year.

Wednesday, after packing, we drove to Sussex to Angmering where we were staying for 2 nights at the Angmering Manor Hotel.   

We went to eat some lunch in a nearby cafe Juna and then after relaxing in our room, we went to swim in the pool. There were only 4 of us in there and most of the time was just CBC and I. We tried the sauna but it was boiling!

After showers, we went to dinner in the hotel. Huge portions. The young staff were really nice there.

Back in the room, we read and had a game of Qwirkle Cubes (SOB, my proper travel version of Qwirkle is stuck in Northumberland STILL!).

The next morning, we enjoyed a very pleasant breakfast down in the beautiful restaurant and then drove to Bosham for a walk around the water and church.  The tide was in.

Later, after tea and cake, we drove to Chichester for an explore of the Cathedral gardens and a look about town.

Back at the hotel, we read and I went for another swim.  There was only myself in the pool most of the time!

For dinner, we headed to Ferring where we visited Andalucia, a family run Tapas of 39 years which was wonderful!

The next morning, after packing up, we drove to Petworth to see our music camp friends Ellie and Nick. 

Ellie, C and I drove to walk around a Neolithic circle and got extremely wet!  We had lunch at Ellie's and then C and I drove to Guildford where we got the train to London to meet CBC's French/Phillipino cousins for a lovely catch up. We went to a beautiful Art-deco restaurant, Zejel for dinner which had a live Jazz Band.  Back to Guildford to pick up the car back home.

The next morning, after some washing and tidying we mostly spent the day avoiding/doing some work and the same on Sunday, except I went to church late so I went to the sister church for the 11am service and walked the 2miles home which was pleasant.

It was a lovely half term.

The return to school has been exhausting but OK! I have been filling in a Grant application for some equipment for school till now so I am very tired! Tomorrow, Lara is coming to tune the pianos at school and then in the afternoon, she and I are going to give mini recitals to the whole school. We'll then have a natter in the car on the way home!

Half term happiness

 Hi All,

Greetings and hope you are well!  It's the last night of the half term holiday and I've finally made it here onto the blog to show my face!

I have to say, this holiday has been a really good one for a few reasons and has been a much needed antidote for me.

• We spent 6 days in Antwerp plus night at a hotel 5 minutes walk from St Pancras station. 6 nights away in a new place!
• Having a complete change of scene was just what we needed
• The weather blessed us for much of the time in Belgium there was sun and not too cold- made such a difference to mood.
• We had a really lovely apartment in a really nice and salubrious part of the city
• Really comfortable bed meant I had lots of sleep.
• Most nights we went to bed at a reasonable hour (e.g. before 11pm and slept through the night till 9am). I didn't have my waking up fretting at 5am for no apparent reason despite being exhausted and not being able to go back to sleep again.
• Eating lunch and dinner out for 6 days made such a difference in terms of energy and enthusiasm
• Antwerp is lovely!
• I got to meet one of my favourite blogging friends (more on that soon!) and feel so grateful and glad for our friendship.
• Bought a couple of nice things in Antwerp (see previous point!) 
• Feeling so refreshed, having got home on Thursday night around 9.30pm, the next morning, we awoke at a reasonable hour and because I felt so replenished, I was able to get right on with hoovering, some cleaning and tidying, putting washing in, putting washing away and getting on with the previously insurmountable pile of marking that had been building for a term and a half.  I am ashamed to say I had got completely behind on all that marking and had not been recording the results in my assessment sheets. Well, I worked my way through pretty much all of it and put the data on sheets. I was then able to do my 540 reports (fairly easy as only had to report an effort and progress grade but doing that for 540 pupils,checking against data takes a while) and get on with some of the planning that I had got behind on. I still have some work to do on that (but because I haven't got Mount Marking looming lugubriously behind me, I don't feel so worried and overwhelmed about it) and one or two other bits but I will get it done.
• Doing the marking, I was very proud of my Year 6's who nearly all did well in their Listening to Baroque cantatas and concerti and were able to name an impressive array of Baroque composers as part of one question.  This was work from that last day of the half term and the kids were really enthusiastic during their listening lesson.  I told the children about Bach's Coffee Cantata as an example, a secular cantata about a girl who was obsessed with Coffee which they found hilarious. At the end of the lesson, they begged to hear it (we'd been listening to a cantata about hunting) and when they listened, one of the 'cool' boys found it so entertaining and funny that the girl was singing, "Coffee! Coffee!" in an operatic voice, that he kept giggling!
• Read 3.5 good children's books which I look forward to sharing with kids at school.
• Had a nice lunch out on Saturday late afternoon- new cafe in town was empty and we had it to ourselves for a yummy lunch.  Whilst waiting for my food, I managed to nip to the library to get a book out (I think it was National Libraries day on Saturday or something?) and nipped into the Charity shop and picked up a cute lightweight top, a brilliant Jennie Maisels pop-up Grammar book and a Harry Potter for the school library.
• Put together some cute outfits- felt inspired to do this!

I'm going back tomorrow feeling lighter and long may that feeling last.

Hope you too are well and refreshed!

xx

Dedham to Flatford Mill- standing in the Constable's footsteps

The day was glorious and shining blue on Tuesday and CBC and I had a yearn to wander in fields of green so we headed off to the Essex/Suffolk border to visit Constable Country, namely Dedham and Flatford Mill.  The countryside around here is wonderfully beautiful and I really recommend coming here.

Parking in Dedham, we walked down towards the river to make the gentle saunter along the river Stour. The sky was brilliant blue and it felt fairly warm in the sun.

Fairly soon, due to the meandering of the river, we had to take a woodland path.

Every tree was lovingly wrapped in ivy

We reached the bridge where we could cross the river. CBC and I paused a moment to watch the almost mirror-like river.

A canoe came along, drenched in sunshine. I called out cheerfully, "Are you having a nice time?" to which I received a reply which was full of calm and joy at the world, "Ah yes, wonderful,"

We looked over to the other side of the bridge to watch them flow under.

Continuing our journey, the living was easy, the ground soft, flat and springy.

The meanders of the river came to meet us again and some mature cygnets.  The trees were curiously bristly.

The tree below looked exactly to be like a transfigured ogre leering at CBC as he past in futile hunger!

We curved with the river towards our destination.

We soon came to the picturesque bridge near Flatford Mill

Many of the old thatched buildings from Constable's time remain.

As we walked along the road, we saw this curious sculpture of old tools.

Finally, we reached Willy Lott's house: here is a link to Constable's painting of this:

We sat here a while to get a feel of the atmosphere- it is serene and beautiful apart from the streams of school students.



Unfortunately this is private residence but it is nice to be able to get this close. There is a National Trust visitors centre and tea room here too.


Here is a link to Constable's painting of this


Last time we visited here, I fell in love with this scenic house. Look at it, what a view to look out on!

There were many swans, geese and ducks swimming about.

Here is a link to Constable's painting of this area (not quite the same)


Finally, a group of teenage girls were walking with their teacher and asked very loudly- "How do swans wee? Do they wee? Where does it come out of??" and began scrutinizing the swans bottoms as they ducked into the water.  To my amusement, I absentmindedly scrutinized their bottoms too as they dived.  The girls pointed out all sorts of things and it did strike me as funny!

Finally, we headed back toward Dedham for some lunch. It was a wonderful day and it is such a beautiful place, I can highly recommend it. Have you been?xx

If you want to visit here, it is surprisingly close to Manningtree station on the Ipswich line from London. You can walk from there to Flatford Mill and then on to Dedham- the journey in reverse.

Flip it!

Oh the joys of half term and being free to be spontaneous, indulgent and frivolous and say yes to last minute plans and expeditions without panicking about the S word!

After a wonderful spontaneous walk in the afternoon, CBC's Brother WKWTTG invited us to London to come and have pancakes. 

"Excellent!" we thought. A chance to see him and eat pancakes!  We drove from Suffolk, where we had spent the afternoon to Westfield to grab some last minute birthday pressies for him and some maple syrup and arrived at his flat.

He made a delicious vegetarian stir fry for us and then we looked up Saint Delia's pancake recipe.  Lacking a measuring jug or kitchen roll for smearing butter, we improvised a bit.   

I am a firm believer in just lemon and sugar but they also melted 90% dark chocolate, crushed hazelnuts, fetched raspberries and there was maple syrup.

I confess to this being the first time I have actually ever tried to flip a pancake.Can you see the terror in my eyes in the gif above? That was genuine panic! I hate getting anything wrong. They made me flip this one but I chickened out of doing anymore. Honestly, what is wrong with me, it's not like the pancake police were going to turn up and say "YOU HAVE MISSED THE PANCAKE- OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!" but some terror inside me told me I would get it wrong and mustn't try it again! Dumb girl....

So in the first batch, we all had 2 pancakes.

Here we have 'Facebook update status' concentration as both tried to capture the perfect artistic shot.

I was persuaded to try a  different topping and drizzled the dark chocolate added sugar and crushed hazelnuts and decided myself to drizzle some orange juice over the top (you know, chocolate orange??). It was nice but I decided from then on, none of this experimental toppings quite tops a good old lemon and sugar- I SHALL not be diversifying again.

In round 2, the boys decided they would attempt a triple flip (showoffs. It will always end badly) CBC missed the pan when flipping his and it landed on the floor.

WKWTTG flipped his, achieved great speed and height and...

...missed!

When it came to me, we'd been using an acrylic pastry brush to brush the pan with butter. Unforunately, I was a little too dedicated to brushing it round the pan and managed to completely melt the pastry brush and contaminate the butter with no doubt, plastic residue. So we decided it was safer to chuck the two out and I made a new pancake, which meant I sacrificed my fourth one to the bin.

We finished them and I must say it was a super way to spend the evening.Great to see WKWTTG and he was a great host!

Did you have pancakes. Do you remember going to school as a kid the night after and asking everyone how many they'd had. I'd always just have one or two but there would be a kid who'd had 7!!!!

xx

Thanks to the gif maker

Pretty Petworth

I look at my life sometimes and just think how blessed I am with the opportunities, experiences and friends I have. I have a dear, dear friend who I met at Music Camp (I have many dear friends I have met at music camp). She is 70 but she has a heart younger than mine. She is also one of the most generous people I know, she's stylish, funny, talented and witty and totally down to earth.  I was fortunate that recently, she got in touch to tell me she and her lovely, equally kind and talented husband were moving to Petworth in Sussex.  She sent me a parcel of clothes that I might like and said I was welcome to come and stay with CBC whenever I wanted and also offered to lend us her small barge if we wanted to go narrow-boating.

Duly, we chatted and she said that we could come and stay the bank holiday weekend as well as visiting the barge.  On Friday night, we braved the awful bank holiday snarl-ups on the M25 and other roads to go and see her.  Unfortunately, our phones died at the crucial stage of getting to her house- we knew the street name but not the house number and I was fortunate that when knocking at a door, despite the fact she'd only moved in a month ago, the people knew who she was and where she lived!

We turned up at 10pm at night where they welcomed us into their beautiful new home.  After a hearty dinner, we set off to bed.  The next morning, I awoke early and looked out my window to see the most glorious views of wonderful countryside.  She kept saying how lucky she is and how wonderful it is to now have a view and she wasn't wrong- it was glorious!

We had an explore of her gorgeous house (which has the most amazingly designed and immaculate 1970's kitchen) and had breakfast, then set out across the fields to Petworth's town.  It is a Medieval walled town/village with lots of original buildings and the wall, and there is so much to look at.

We walked through the town and admired the buildings:


This is the town/community hall.


Another fine building.

Picturesque cobbled streets.  Embarassingly, we saw a shop called 'Vintage tack'  which when I got into, thinking it was 'my sort of vintage' and it turned out to have lots of horse paraphenalia- I started to back out and accidently said out loud, "Oh no, it's just horsey things," which was quickly corrected by the proprieter who corrected me and showed me other items!


There are some lovely shops around.

Right, I won't be doing that then.


Apparently, my friend has been waiting to find a house here for about a decade.  Apparently, most houses in Petworth don't have gardens with a view but have walled courtyard gardens like this, so she was so chuffed to find her house right on the outskirts.



Here is the church in the market place

We found these cottages with these crazily low doors- I feel like I need a bottle saying 'Drink me' to go smaller!

The main market street with amazing wares.


A lovely cottage on the outskirts of town.






We enjoyed the market place with my friend.  That's her smelling lavender below.
Amazing turkey sausage seller- we bought some garlic and chilli sausages for our forthcoming canal trip and bought some Victoria sponge for the afternoon.

I was intrigued by the Dinosaur pasty and seriously tempted by the rainbow donuts but it was the huge bunches of asparagus (they supply Waitrose) that we indulged in.


After filling our shopping bags and having a quick explore, we headed to my friend's allotment to plant some seedlings she had purchased in the market and did a bit of fun gardening work.  Those strawberries were eaten the moment I took the shot!  I enjoyed the flora and fauna to be seen.


After this, we set off back to her house for a delicious lunch, the shifting and shelving of many, many boxes of books, before our afternoon adventures began.  More anon....

Suffolk day 2- Southwold and beyond

The next morning, breakfast at the Swan was epic!  Juice and tea/coffee to begin with homemade fruit slice buttered.  Then an enormous slate was brought over containing three types of cheese, chacuterie, brioche croissants (divine!), jams and ribbons of melon, pineapple and orange.

Then we were brought bacon and eggs on toast. The eggs were all mushy the way I like! By this point, I was fit to burst, so we went back to the room to pack and express more bemusement over curling!  Yay GB!


We decided to explore Beccles a little- the town has a few quirky shops which I purchased a metal heart in for a little Katie Hook line and sinkher- style evolving kitchen-art (aha Katie, can you guess which of your metal-backed crafts I am copying?!?!), an applique book (finally figured out how to spell that word- I've been typing appliche for ages!)  and a mustard polka dot headband.  The walk continued down to the river- start of the Norfolk Broads I believe. All sorts of sea-faring vessels sat moored, some of them looking very woebegone.


On the recommendation of the barmaid at The Swan and my Mum, we headed off to Southwold.  This is a beautiful, beautiful seaside town.

The beaches are sandy unlike Aldeburgh and I imagine gorgeous in the summer.  It boasts a lighthouse AND a pier.


Aside from the ugly front with the usual amusement arcade, the pier is still beautiful and you can walk along and imagine you are an Edwardian holiday-maker.

There is a beautiful water-clock and if you look back towards Southwold, you see the town from afar

and an impressively bright line of beach-huts.

In my head, I was picking them- "Char would like that one, Ang would like that one, Val would like that one etc..."



We walked along the beach for a long while, stepping over the groynes- they stretch for a while. Using my Cath Kidston umbrella, CBC traced a large line with a sand message saying Follow the line.  I wonder if anyone did?

Reaching the end, I had some tea and CBC had some haddock soup in a surprisingly busy seafood cafe (the breakfast was too much for me! Too much meat and general protein!).  We walked back along a marsh-flanked path to the town.

Southwold has an amazing array of independent shops.  We spent ages in the Serena Hall art gallery and I was seriously thinking of saving up for an amazing piece of art by Barry Marshall involving driftwood and treated copper- a shoal of fishes  (you can see it here or  here- scroll down to Barry Marshall)but luckily the £410 price tag put me off.
I skived off into a shoe-shop called Daddy Longlegs where I almost bought a pair of wedged-heeled teal leather ankle boots reduced to £30 but stopped myself last minute!
We ate amazing carrot-cake and chocolate eclairs respectively and stopped off at the Adnams brewery (this is where it is brewed) for a while to grab some Benjamin Britten beer!

Reluctantly, we had to leave beautiful Southwold but it was definitely the most special part of our trip! SUCH a place!


The drive to Mildenhall was horrid.  Nasty roads, dark and we got lost but eventually we arrived at our next B&B, The Walnuts Country House B&B which is in West Row, a little village outside of Mildenhall.

But it was worth it as our B&B was amazing.  It was a 17th century house and better still, we had been upgraded from our double room to the four-poster suite that costs over £40more per night.










The next day, we enjoyed a delicious English breakfast in our suite (they bring it to you- so lovely as we could eat as slowly as we wanted without the pressure of having to hurry) as well as juice, tea, coffee, cereals, fruit.  They had thought out the suite well.  The bathroom had an enormous bath, we had a kitchen with all the essentials you need, kettle, microwave, toaster, oven, sink, cupboards with crockery, glassware and cutlery. There was a fridge in the main room with a complimentary mini-bar- water, beer, juice, cokes, biscuits, fruit, cereals and a loaf of bread, red roses on the table, chocolate on the pillow, bathrobes and huge fluffy towels, DVD player and a pile of DVDs, our own 'woodburner-style' heater that packed a lot of heat, beautiful antique furniture and all the fittings were so romantic.  Mildenhall, the nearest town might be a bit of a boring place to visit but this place was an ideal location for getting to Ely (where we went on the last day), Newmarket or Cambridge.

Have you been to Suffolk? Where can you recommend?  I want to go to Framlington castle next time!xx