P is for Post-box

This photo of the post-box in the village was taken in October and I mentioned then how it was wrapped in plastic waiting for the 'automated system'. 

Thankfully it is now back in use and looks like this

There is still a slot for posting letters but now there is a way of posting parcels too, all using a QR code......there seems to be a QR code for everything nowadays! I have no idea how it works and if I want to post a parcel I shall go to our post office 100 yards up the road. Just hope this isn't a way of  getting rid of our village Post Office - which is in our village shop.

In youngest daughter's town near the Suffolk coast the Post Office was inside a hardware shop, which closed quite suddenly which left the whole town -extra busy due to  the building of Sizewell Nuclear Power Station - without a Post Office and anyway of  banking at all . Their Barclays bank shut earlier in the year. There are now 3 towns in the area without a single bank and just a couple of post offices to serve a population of over 20,000 people which will increase by a 1,000 more as the Sizewell building work continues.

I've no idea what businesses in the three towns do with nowhere to do their banking - yet another push to a cashless society.

Back Tomorrow

All Change in the Village

 The post box in the village has been wrapped in black plastic with this notice attached. Apparently we will get a super-duper post-box with solar power for an 'automated system', whatever that means! I'm sure most people just want somewhere to post their letters. Have to  hope this doesn't mean the end of the village post office - we are lucky to still have one.

This is the future of rubbish and recycling collection for us here in Mid Suffolk. 2 extra bins from next June. It's going to get jolly complicated! Every week, every other week or every three weeks. I shall need a list!

Back Soon

Fields Full of ?

 There are several fields not far from home growing a mystery crop this year.

It's very colourful with seed heads of red/purple, yellow and green.

 Is it a crop grown for Caribbean cookery? Seem to remember seeing crops like this on programmes about city allotments where people of all nationalities grow crops we don't often use here.

Must be grown for the seeds, there are plenty on each plant

Maybe it's Amaranth? or Quinoa?

The leaves are a bit like Fat Hen - a common weed here that was once eaten, so it's from that family.

Someone will know, but whatever it is, it's definitely not been grown around here before.

Back Soon

Saturday. Mid August.

The 4th heatwave of the year didn't seem to be as hot as predicted here in Mid Suffolk, although that might be because I didn't do anything much outside after about 10 in the morning!  I wondered what actually constituted a heatwave and found..........................

England has entered its fourth heatwave of the summer, with a number of places seeing temperatures higher than 30C on Tuesday. Areas in South West England, the South West Midlands, North West England and East Anglia met heatwave criteria, by having three consecutive days above a certain temperature.

Tuesday wasn't too hot early on and we managed to get through the exercises at the Keep Moving Group without melting too much and Wednesday there was a lot of cloud. On Thursday a bit of a breeze kept things comfortable indoors but on Friday things got hot, hot, and hotter.

One of these days I'll get a new outdoor thermometer and then I'll know exactly how hot it is.

Temperatures next week should be back to average for  August, many will be grateful.

 I've put 2½lb of the giant tomatoes into the freezer so far - that was just 5 tomatoes, there are  plenty more still to turn red, not quite as big as those first 5 but still a good size. The other things needed for my favourite chutney are red peppers, red chilli peppers, red onions and  red wine vinegar. I've got the vinegar and will buy the other things when I get around to making the chutney later in the year.

Some years I'm able to use my own peppers, but there are so few this year and some will be yellow anyway - when they eventually turn from green.

The climbing green beans have finished and I was going to pull them up but couldn't get them or the canes out of the rock solid ground. That job will have to wait until we get rain although  I did pull up the squash plants - they'd never done well and they had flowers that just hadn't set.

There's fireworks over the road in the churchyard tonight - the church have a Patronal Festival thing - something to do with The Assumption of Our Lady. They follow that with hot dogs/burgers and a specially brewed local beer! I've only ever seen the fireworks  once since being here as it was cancelled one year because it was so dry and another year because it poured with rain and last year I was away with the family.  Hope it's not too dry this year as I love a free fireworks  display!

Have a good weekend, not sure what I'm doing apart from standing on my doorstep at 8.45pm!.

Back Monday

Field Crops 2025

 I took a walk up the lane with the camera to see what crops were growing this year. No sugar beet this year but field beans on one side, barley on the other and further up the lane some very tall oil seed rape.

 

Field beans are an important part of many livestock feeds, being high in protein. 

Barley for malting and brewing or for animal feed. In some parts of the country it might be used for human consumption  but here we have one of the main maltings companies not far away and Green King Brewery too. Barley straw was the best for goat bedding. Wheat straw was tough and not so good.

Oil seed rape is grown for it's oil-rich seeds which are used for animal feed, bio-fuel or cooking oil.

The oil-seed rape seems extra tall, the flowers have finished and seed pods formed. The stalks after harvest might be baled and used as animal feed.  Other wise it seems a waste if only the seed pods are harvested, or maybe they'll be chopped and ploughed in.

Sometimes we had a bale of rape straw for our goats for a change but they preferred good hay.

It's no wonder really that some people say it would be better if we were all vegetarian, when so much land is used to produce food for animals that then in turn provide food for us. We could cut out the middle man  animal! The counter arguement is that lots of our land isn't suitable for crops anyway and it would be even more difficult to get anywhere close to national food self sufficiency and security if we were all vegetarian.

Back Soon

The Runners Run By

On Sunday I was just about to walk up to the post box to get a letter off when I discovered it was the Stowmarket Half Marathon. There were dozens of runners, running down the footpath and  heading past the bungalow just like last year. Last year they had horrible wet weather which was probably better for running than the lovely  sunshine of this year.

This year a few guys were dressed as colouring  crayons - long dress-like wear with pointy coloured hats. They looked a bit 'warm'. I was yet again surprised at the ages of some of the people - and all the different running styles.

It's organised by Stowmarket Striders running club but there were runners from all parts of Suffolk and on googling I discovered it costs the runner around £21 to enter if they are a running club member and up to £30 if not. There were around 270 runners who finished the race last year but there didn't seem as many going by this year.

As they go past my bungalow and up the lane they pass the 7 mile mark - so just over half way. Supposedly running is addictive - it's never been something I could do!

As I said last year - nothing much happens here so even a road race is exciting!

Back Soon

Sue

There and Going, Going, Gone

I'm always sad when I hear or see mature trees being cut down, but sometimes when they are very big and in among houses it's probably safer for everyone.

These were the huge Willow and Sycamore trees in the sunshine on Sunday morning. The Willow on the left is in the garden of the house over the back and the Sycamore is right in the corner of my next door neighbours garden.

Both neighbours came to tell me they'd got together to have the trees cut down, both trees getting too big for where they are. 

My first thought was 'Oh No' but actually I'll get a lot more sun light into the bungalow, greenhouse and garden and no more leaves to clear - the Sycamore dumps loads in my garden.

Abby next door said she hates having to have the Sycamore down but it's damaging their shed and cutting out all the light from their house and garden and is just way too big for the space between their house, the house behind them and my bungalow. This bit of the estate was built in 1983 and I guess both trees were planted back then with no thought on how big they would get in 40 years.

The willow was first to go.

Then they moved onto the Sycamore

The Sycamore has now gone completely but the willow still stands. I thought they were going to take it right down but perhaps not. It looks really odd but will sprout in spring.

I won't really notice the difference until summer, but now I'll get sun right through the afternoon and evening. I think the greenhouse plants will appreciate it. I might get fewer pigeons in the garden too as they won't be able to nest in the Sycamore every year.

Before and after

Back Soon

Sue

(and thank you for comments yesterday - I've replied to all now.)

More on Rubbish and Woods In November

Thank you everyone for comments about rubbish collection in various parts of this country and other countries. I just hope the council produce a handout with dates as it's going to get complicated with some weekly, some every other week and another collection just once in 3 weeks. 

I can imagine it all being far too complicated for some people to bother about and doubt very much that there will be a 58% drop in unrecyclable rubbish.

At the moment we only have two bins included in our council tax, collected in alternate weeks, for rubbish and recycling - but not glass - that has to be taken to a bottle bank in the village.

The waste food collection is probably the biggest change - but I'd rather use garden waste and food peelings in my compost bin. It would be quite good if we didn't have to pay the extra £62 a year for the garden waste bin which I use for stuff too big for my 'dalek' bin and most of the grass cuttings.

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 Most areas of woodland in Suffolk is privately owned and inaccessible, but since the millennium we have a bit of public woodland in the village, it's not very big but I'd not walked round for ages.  

It was one of the grey days last week, very little colour and no birds singing at all - no dog walkers either.

The way in

Some trees are bare

But the Sweet Chestnut still has many of it's leaves

These walls once surrounded a walled garden belonging to the house in the middle of the woods which  is still lived in.

The way out

Very few berries on the Hollies in the wood - hope I can find some in my usual holly gathering place

The Horse Chestnut in the village on the way to the woods is hanging onto many of it's leaves, quite often they get a disease early on which turns the leaves brown although it doesn't damage the tree.

Back Soon

Sue

Following A Tree 2024

 My walk up the lane to take photos of the Oaks happened right at the end of August, a beautiful sunny morning, blue skies all round. Things were starting to look Autumnal with acorns now a good size and the barley and  wheat all harvested.

Leaves were beginning to looks old, spotted with brown and some with mildew

In the hedgerow a few blackberries beginning to ripen and the red comes from the poisonous Woody Nightshade. Rose Hips are still mostly orange and very oddly I didn't notice any Hawthorn berries.

A few blackberries - my least favourite fruit so I leave them for the birds

Rose Hips

Pretty but Deadly!

The barley field is just stubble, probably to be ploughed later. Further up the lane the wheat field had been disc harrowed so maybe it's been sown straight in with something as there were bird scarer guns  set up on the other side of the field.

That green field in front of the houses, which is bigger than it looks in this photo,  will have houses  built on it very soon - a 'consultation' evening is being held for villagers to go and look at the plans. Complaints and comments won't make any difference as it's already been agreed by the Council!

Stubble field

The Sugar Beet field is looking well, several more months of growing still to come before it's harvested

I've never seen so many of these Robin's Pincushions on the Dog Roses before, there were so many. It must be a very good year for the gall wasp.

 "The Robin's pincushion is a red, round, hairy growth that can be seen on wild roses. It is caused by the larvae of a tiny gall wasp that feeds on the host plant, but causes little damage."

It really will be proper Autumn next time I go up the lane for photos

Back Soon

Sue

Following a Tree

 The end of May and time to take photos of the oak trees up the Quiet Lane for the Following a Tree 2024 posts

What a difference a month makes, this time in April the leaves were only just appearing, now they are all there, new green and lovely.

Was oak out before ash or vice versa? I think fractionally the oaks were first , but will the summer be a soak or a splash?  Jolly good question. I heard Monty Don at the Chelsea Flower Show, say twice that we are in for a very hot summer but I'll believe it when/if it's here, especially after the wash out of a Bank Holiday weekend we've just had.

What else is happening up the lane.

The field that had just been sown in April is now showing that it's sugar beet growing there.

Bet the farmer is glad he got the field drained, the water was running off after the huge downpours earlier in the week.

And on the other side of the road the Barley has ears

And dog roses are just appearing

Back Soon

Sue

The Early May Bank Holiday Weekend

For Star Wars fans........................ May the 4th be with you! - and if you aren't a fan then you'll wonder what the idiot woman is talking about!

I can't remember what Easter Bank Holiday was like weather wise without looking back on the blog, but it was probably cold and wet.

Hopefully  this Early May Bank Holiday weekend is good as there are several things happening in villages around that need dry weather to be successful. A bluebell wood open, a flower festival, a Tudor reconstruction day, car-boot sales (of course) and village yard sale. Not sure I shall get to all of them and after it poured with rain all day yesterday some might be a bit soggy underfoot.

Other than yesterdays wash out, this week has been a good week, much better than the week before when I felt a bit under the weather on a couple of days and missed the Over 60's meeting and wasn't able to look after the Grandchildren after school one day - very annoying.

The World Snooker Championship on TV has been interesting as so many of the top seeded players were knocked out, and only one - the 12th seed-  got to the semis. More importantly in the World of Sport is the chance this weekend for Ipswich Town Football Club to get automatic promotion to the Premier League - that means a lot for the Town in many ways. If they end up in the play-offs for the the chance to go up then I fear a match against our Norfolk rivals - Norwich City FC - in which Norwich will win, get promoted and be able to gloat for another year!

Thursday evening was eventful as a fire engine raced by the bungalow and then 30 minutes later two more with blue lights went through the village, then an ambulance went by one way and another a few minutes later going the other way. I wondered what on earth was happening. Heard later that the fire engines were for a fire in a commercial building  a few miles away but no idea what the ambulances were doing - don't think they were connected to the fire.

I've been grateful this week for.............

• Some good fine, sunny and warm days at last
• Being able to get the pots for the greenhouse plants filled and ready
• Planting out the two squash plants and getting them cat and bird proofed
• More leek plants found in the pet/garden shop in Diss, planted out and protected as above
• Getting the sweetcorn seeds sown in their peat pots in the greenhouse. 
• Lots of good reading
• Finding a church open to visit after finding one locked
• Getting a 'foot lady' to sort out a problem - no more info on that one - Ugh!
• Sorting more photos from their old albums into the new storage boxes.

Here's a favourite - me on my big trike aged about 4. I didn't have a two wheeled bike (and no such thing as stabilisers)  until quite late as there was nowhere to learn to ride it. Our house was right beside a busy A road and the back yard was a rough builders yard - as you can see in the photo.

I'm  shall return on Monday with some more old photos - you have been warned!

Have a good Bank Holiday Weekend for everyone here and a good ordinary weekend for those elsewhere.

Sue 

Running Race

 When you live in a village where nothing much happens, anything is interesting!

So seeing dozens of runners passing by on Sunday was kind of exciting - in a "phew, glad I'm not doing that" way.

Had to look up the who's and why's and found it was a half marathon running race over a new route, organised by a local running club  and according to their running vests there were people running from lots of different Suffolk clubs.

Lots of over 50's running as well as younger and the weather was awful. Not my choice of spending a Sunday. But what was worrying that two blue light ambulances also went by! might have had nothing to do with the runners but  I hope everyone was OK.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

From a Distance

 From my kitchen window I kept seeing a bird of prey over the road in the graveyard. It would jump down off the top of a grave stone then hop back up again. I thought it was probably a Kestrel (although I was hoping for something more exotic!), but they usually perch much higher on a wire or a telegraph pole before swooping down from a great height. Or they hover.

I've been trying to get a photo for weeks but it was too far from indoors...............

 and too wet for outside. Eventually a sunny day and I opened the front door very carefully and crept down the front path.

And At Last two decent photos and yes it is a Kestrel. I'm pleased with the photos because Kestrels are usually up on a wire making them difficult to photograph.

(And what a lovely sentiment on the gravestone)

Below is the illustration of  Kestrel from my book  "A Sparrow's Life as Sweet as Ours" by Carrie Akroyd. It's in the Autumn section of the book but Kestrels are around all year and very common. Seen more often now than even 20 years ago when we would get quite excited to see one hovering. In some parts of the country they are  known as "windhovers". Now they can be spotted on almost any walk or drive.  In the book it says their skill at hovering was tested and it was found they could hold their position within a centimetre for 28 seconds. They spot their prey - mainly mice and voles - because of being able to see the wavelength of ultraviolet and trace their urine trails.

There's a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins about the Kestrel - but I need a translator!

The Windhover

I caught this morning's minion, kingdom of daylights dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon,

in his riding

Of the level underneath him steady air, and striding

High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing

In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,

As a skate's heel he sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and the gliding

Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding

Stirred for a bird, - the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh air, pride, plume here

Buckle! And the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion

Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion

Shine, and blue beak embers, ah my dear,

Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

March Planning

 IF, and its a very big IF, the weather is good enough car boot sales will start this month and it's Easter at the end with events to go to.

I need a list of things to look out for at boot-sales this year but at the moment the only thing I can think of is a tray to stand the food-mixer on. It stood on a tray for years until the tray fell to pieces and now I'm pulling the mixer forwards and pushing it to the back which, since the mixer lost one of it's rubber feet years ago,  is not doing the wooden work top much good at all.

A bigger list is what NOT to buy! 

On the financial front the big expense of March will be the car service and MOT. There are a couple of birthdays later in the month and WI subscription is due but other things are just the normal expenses unless something comes up............which it often does.

During the  week I went to the Over 60's group in the village, I think the last time I went was July 2022, I got fed up with the old men interrupting the speaker! Now, because of the Keep Moving group, I've got to  know two of the people who attend so decided to give it another try. 

The speaker's subject was 'Romania beyond Dracula' and it was an interesting talk by a man who travels on his own to out of the way places. He had an English speaking guide/driver to show him around and translate. They mostly stayed in homes of local people who provided them with rooms and meals.

He had slides of all the places he'd been - lots of wide open spaces - Romania is a similar area to the UK but with a third of the population -  and amazing buildings especially the churches and castles .

 He said they seem to eat huge meals and lots of meat and soups. Horses and carts are still used for many jobs and some villages still look very medieval. We didn't know that King Charles owns property there - but perhaps doesn't go there as often as he did when he was Prince Charles.

In March a lady is coming to speak about making TV and Film costumes so that will be interesting. I'm a bit concerned about the May Speaker - a lady once known as Miss Whiplash , who owned a specialist B&B that provided "extras". No idea what the old men will say about that!

Have a good weekend, I'll be back Monday. My car is still mainly with Son and DiL so I probably won't be going far.

Sue

The Builder's Radio, A Free day, Books and Other Stuff

Why do builders always have those chunky Makita radios that go thumpity thump all day? My neighbours are having new fencing between me and them and having their patio re-laid and oil tank moved. The bloke who's doing it is the same man who laid a big patio through that very hot spell of summer two years ago for my neighbours the other side. 

That neighbour moaned a lot about this builder who he reckoned only did about 4 hours work a day.  I'm not sure how many hours a day he is doing this time but at least it's cooler for working (he said he got really ill working through that heat of 2022) and his radio is definitely thumpity thumping through the walls of my bungalow on the few fine days we've had - I'm glad this sort of noise always has an end date!

(Things like this never bother me now - once you have lost the most important person in your life there's not much else to be bothered by!)

I hope the man who's supposed to be sorting my patio later this year remembers he's doing it as I've not heard anything since I accepted the quote and got a message to say he'd taken on a labourer so it might be done sooner than May, which was original date. Hope he doesn't have the normal builders radio too.

Plans to go across to the coast to visit YD and the EGD on Wednesday were cancelled when we both looked at the weather forecast which said several hours of heavy rain were due over all of Mid and East Suffolk. YD is working with people who are travelling from Mid Suffolk to the coast everyday and they have been having real problems getting there - having to frequently detour - and after Son's experiences with flooding last Sunday it seemed much more sensible for me not to even try although the rain turned out to be not as heavy as forecast so I might have been OK getting there and back. No way of knowing.

That gave me a free day, so I baked cakes for the freezer instead! (and isn't it silly to say "baking for the freezer" when what is really meant is baking cakes for me!)

The flowering cherry in the garden suddenly turned pink this week as the flowers began to open, if only the sun would shine on them and we had blue skies they would look even better and I could take a photo.. The big magnolia looks as if the buds will open soon and there are tulip shoots popping up here and there but still on the whole not a lot of colour yet.

While staying at home in the dry I've been watching Snooker - The Players Championship from Telford while at the same time much reading has been done.

These books are on their way back to the library.

 

 I feel a bit guilty about the one on the bottom as I suggested the library buy it but found it a bit heavy going so it's going back un-read, which is a shame as I really wanted to enjoy it.

The last to be finished was ' A Venetian Reckoning' by Donna Leon which was originally published in 1995 and is the 4th of the Brunetti series set in Venice. This story starts with a terrible accident in the mountains when several girls from Eastern Europe being smuggled into the country are killed. Then an important lawyer is found shot dead in a railway carriage and as usual Guido has to find the answer to the murders while avoiding upsetting the high and mighty of Italy and his boss.

I'm glad the library have bought quite a lot of reprints of her books because for a long while they only had the most recent. I counted up and found I've now read 24 out of the 32 published - with another due out in July.

Details about the others read are on the Books Read 2024 page.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

 

Floods Again

 I'd planned to go to an Antique Fair just for a look around on Sunday but when I looked out of the window at 8am and the water was running down the hill completely across the road I changed my mind. It had obviously been raining all night  and sure to be flooded again here and in many places on the back roads between me and Woodbridge.

And sure enough when it stopped raining and I wandered down the road to look it was like this. AGAIN! Cars were going through very slowly and this is the shallowest part, it gets deeper further along where the water is running down off the main road as well as out of the river.

There was an hour or so dry and then at 2pm  it started raining again. This is getting silly!

Hope I can get over to the coast to visit YD and EGD later in the week as it's half-term here so a chance to see them but it's a cross country journey and many spots that often flood.

Later in the day Son rang up to say they had gone out, through a deep unexpected flood that they couldn't see as they turned off the main road onto a small side road and their car had promptly stopped and will possibly be written off! Oh my goodness. And thank goodness for BiL and his 4WD truck who rescued them after a frantic phone call from son to his uncle when the RAC said they don't rescue people from floods! 

There were several photos on the local facebook group pages of many villages and roads that were flooded in the area. Some are spots that have always flooded (often called Wash Lane!) but many are places that flood where new houses have been built making lots of extra run-off. Years ago all farmers would have had their men clearing the ditches each autumn, now most farmers don't have farm workers.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Village Houses

 My village isn't famously interesting like some.  It's a typical Suffolk village that has grown and grown, although it still has a church,  primary school, pub, shop and post office, fish and chip shop and a doctors  so we are very lucky - and perhaps not so typical after all!. 

It has two small meeting places - the little United Reformed Church and the even smaller Old School Room. When enough money has been raised it will have a new Community Hall too and the Scouts are raising money for a new Scout Hall after theirs was condemned. 

 It also has lots of houses, from the very old..........(which my Great, Great Grandparents would have known when they lived in the village  in the second half of the 1800's)

 to the new estate of 28 homes being built at the other end of the village and houses have been built on all small pieces of land. Where once there was a coach company there are houses, where the old village hall was in the 1980's there are houses, where a big orchard belonging to one of the villages 'Big Houses' once was, there are very smart houses with a private road to them.

The very Old Fire Station is a house

As is the Old Telephone Exchange

and the Old Post Office

Eventually - when the housing market improves -  another estate will be built on most of this field at my end of the village.

A small piece of overgrown land has just been cleared - I'm guessing whoever owns it is planning on applying for planning permission to build here too

But in the middle of the village is  something much older than all the houses . A glacial erratic, supposedly used in the C15 for outdoor preaching by wandering friars and later by John Wesley.

Back Tomorrow

Sue