Walks With Elinor – Halesworth

Tags

crinkle-crankle wall, Halesworth, Halesworth Town Park, Halesworth Town River, Suffolk, walking

During the spring Elinor and I decided it would be good for us both if we could go out for walks together.  The restrictions had recently eased a little so that we felt it would be fine for us to drive somewhere different to walk instead of just walking the usual lanes near our house.  Elinor had been stuck at home for months and was becoming more fearful and anxious.  We though she should see that the world was still functioning albeit in a rather muted way.

Please click on this link to access a map of the town centre and more information about the town  https://www.halesworth.net/townmap/towncentremap.php

Our very first walk was on an extremely cold and gloomy day at the beginning of April.  We drove to Halesworth, one of our local towns and parked in the central town car-park.  It was so gloomy and cold that I took hardly any photos and most of those didn’t come out at all well.  We entered the Thoroughfare from the car-park and turned left towards the church and the Market Place.

Here is Halesworth Market Place a few years ago during the Day of Dance

We walked through the Market Place and down Chediston Street until we reached Rectory Lane which has a lovely crinkle-crankle wall down one side of it.

The Crinkle-crankle wall in Rectory Lane

Rectory Lane is also still known as Parson’s Lane as it cuts through the back of the town from the Old Rectory towards the Parish Church of St Mary. The Rector of Halesworth no longer lives in the enormous rectory which was sold to private buyers many years ago.  The lane meets the Town River a little further on and used to be a place where people went to sit and chat and share their sandwiches with the numerous ducks that lived on and near the river.  However, the town’s-people have been dissuaded from feeding the ducks because this apparently encouraged rats and bread wasn’t suitable food for ducks anyway and now the ducks have disappeared as well.

The Town River

It was all looking a little sad and run-down.  The water is clear enough but there are no reeds or rushes growing here and the retaining walls are crumbling.

There were a few plants growing and beginning to flower on our side of the river.

Green Alkanet (Pentaglottis sempervirens) with its blue forget-me-not flowers and Common Nettle (Urtica dioica)

Yellow Archangel (Lamiastrum galeobdolon subspecies argentatum)

This Archangel is a cultivated form of the wild flower and has sliver splashes on the leaves.  It usually flowers much earlier than the wild plant.

We turned right out of Rectory Lane into Rectory Street and then rejoined the Thoroughfare.  We turned left past the library and crossed the road at the roundabout next to the United Reformed church and entered Quay Street.  Just then it began to rain so we decided to cut short our walk and return to the car by way of the Town Park.  When I used to live in Halesworth many years ago there used to be a yard with a builder’s merchant’s a little way up Quay Street.  I used to walk through the yard to a path that led to the park.  The builder’s merchant’s was knocked down some time ago and in its place a large quantity of houses and apartments have been built.  We walked through this little estate and found that the path still led into the park.  The park is well laid out with plenty of grassy areas with spring bulbs and a few flower beds.  Lots of mature trees give shade and shelter and there is a play area with swings and slides and other equipment.  We crossed over the river by the bridge and continued through the park until we had regained the road by the carpark.

Though we had only been out for about half an hour we had enjoyed our walk and decided we would walk together again as soon as we could.

 

Day of Dance, Saturday 30th March 2019

Tags

Border Morris dancing, Day of Dance 2019, folk dance, folk music, Folk Traditions, Halesworth, Molly dancing, Morris dancing, Mummers, Suffolk

Those of you who have kindly followed my intermittent ramblings for a few years might remember that Richard and I have attended the Day of Dance a couple of times before.  One of the local Molly dance sides (teams) wished to celebrate an important anniversary in 2015 so invited other Morris and Molly dance sides to join them in Halesworth for the day, as a one-off.  This was so successful that the Day of Dance has taken place each year since then and it has grown!  Not only Morris Dancers, Border Morris dancers and Molly Dancers take part but also steam punk sides have joined in, belly dancers, buskers and mummers!  Please follow the links if you are interested in finding out about Mollys and Mummers!

Below is a slideshow of some photos I took on the day.  The Morris side wearing blue and white is Rumburgh Morris, our local team who were featured in Episode 4 of Alice Robert’s series ‘Britain’s Most Historic Towns’.

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Here is a very short video I took of one of the sides.  I have no idea of their name or where they came from but I thought they were fun.

Here follows a video I found on Youtube of the procession round the town at the start of the day.  Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog!

 

Morris Dancing in Halesworth

Tags

Halesworth, Halesworth Day of Dance, Molly dancing, Morris dancing, Mummers

Richard and I both enjoy folk music.  We grew up singing folk songs at school and then we met when we were members of a choir that often included folk songs in it’s programmes.  We also love watching folk dance, especially Morris dancing.  I published a post last year about Halesworth’s Day of Dance which you can see here.  This year we turned up to watch but were unable to get a programme so I can’t tell you the names of most of the groups we saw.  Richard made a few short videos of most of the groups and I have included some of these in this post.  The weather was better than last year – it was bright and mild and everyone appeared to be enjoying themselves.

Pedant’s Revolt dancing outside The Angel

The Hobby Horse from Golden Star Morris

Golden Star Morris chatting with the musicians from Chelmsford Ladies Morris in the Market Place

Some of the ladies from the belly dance group who were also taking part in the day of dance.

There was a trio of Mummers – Mad Moll and her husband Old Tom who had a visitation from the Devil.

Poor Old Tom is taken down to hell by the Devil but Mad Moll rescues him by using cunning and guile.

The Ukulele Band from the University of the Third Age who played while everyone was having a break for lunch.

We never discovered the name of this group of women dancers outside The White Hart.

Oxblood Molly teaching the women’s team a new dance

The drummer in this group has a crocodile head.

The last group I have included is another one of the few I know the name of.

Chelmsford Morris Ladies side dancing in the Market Place

I hope you have enjoyed our Day of Dance.

Thanks for visiting!

Two Evenings Out

Tags

Aquarelle Guitar Quartet, Brian Patten, Halesworth, Halesworth Arts Festival, music, Neil Innes, Poetry

Richard and I hardly ever go out in the evening but this week we managed to go out twice!  At the end of October each year the Halesworth Arts Festival takes place in The Cut, an old maltings that has been converted into an entertainment venue.  The Cut takes its name from the lane it is in – New Cut – which refers to new cuts made to the river when a lock was built in the 18th century and the River Blyth was made navigable from Southwold on the coast to Halesworth.

The Cut

Last Sunday night we went to listen to a poetry reading by Brian Patten who made his name in the 60’s with the publication of the ‘Mersey Sound‘ anthology.  (The other two poets featured in this anthology were Adrian Henri and Roger McGough).  We enjoyed the evening very much.  Patten not only read many of his favourite poems but spoke about why and when he wrote them.  When I was in my very early 20’s and living in Liverpool I went to hear Roger McGough at a ‘Pubs and Pints’ event.  A nice re-connection, I thought.

We discovered Brian Patten had known and read with many other famous poets apart from Henri and McGough;  Robert Graves, Philip Larkin, Stevie Smith, Pablo Neruda, Allen Ginsberg, Laurie Lee and Robert Lowell.  He had shared a house with Brian Eno and had been friends with among many others, Keith Moon and Neil Innes.   Neil Innes was in the audience and joined him in a few reminiscenses.

Neil Innes?  He is the minstrel in this clip.

He is the singer here

My father who was a cabinet maker, once did some work for Neil Innes in the 70’s when Innes was living in Lewisham.  My father had no idea who Innes was and felt sorry for him and so undercharged for the work.  ‘His jeans were split at the knees and he was obviously short of money’ said Dad.  I think we were the ones who were short of money – always.  My mother explained who Dad had worked for.

The other performance Richard and I attended was a concert by the ‘Aquarelle Guitar Quartet’.  I don’t think I could describe them better than the blurb in the programme so please click on the link to read it and see the programme of music they played.  There is also a recording of them playing.

The programme included classical – old and modern, jazz, folk and film music.  I loved ‘Opals’ by Philip Houghton who is Australian and uses the Australian landscape as inspiration.  ‘Folia’ by the American composer Ian Krouse was amazing.

The four young men, who had met when they were at the Royal Northern College of Music, were charming, amusing and very talented and I would urge you to see them in concert if they play anywhere near where you live.

Thanks for visiting!

Autumn in a Suffolk Lane

Tags

amphibian, autumn leaf colour, church, common toad, Edith Cavell, Elder, field maple, Fish Slapping Dance, fungi, Great Tit, Halesworth, Herring Festival, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, mezzo-soprano, Monty Python, nest, Norwich Cathedral, picture-wing fly, shaggy inkcap, sunset, trees, wild bird

This post and the next will have assorted photographs of things I have seen.  I’ll also mention briefly a few things I have done.  The photos are inserted in chronological order as I can’t think of anything better!

Toadstools on the lawn at the surgery.

A couple of weeks ago I had to attend the doctor’s surgery a few times in one week.  I collected my medication, I had my usual monthly blood test with a test for cholesterol which meant fasting from 10 pm the evening before, and I had my flu injection.  All on different days.  I noticed these toadstools after my blood test but unfortunately I had left my camera in the car.  The following morning I took these photos after my flu jab.

These are Shaggy Inkcaps (Coprinus comatus) also known as Lawyer’s Wig and unfortunately most of them are past their best.

The early morning light made it difficult to photograph them and they had deteriorated significantly overnight.

The white fungi are emerging Inkcaps but I can’t identify the dark brown mushrooms.

Some of you may remember that our parcels box was taken over by Great Tits in the spring and we had to seal it shut so that the birds were not disturbed.  I believe the brood was successful.  Richard dismantled the box last week as it was rotting and we had a look at the nest inside.

Great Tit (Parus major) nest.

We looked closely at what had been used.  Please click on each photo to get a description of the materials used.

Dried grass and lots and lots of moss

Bits and pieces of anything soft. I recognise lint/fluff from two of my pullovers here.

Sheep’s wool

Feathers

The work that went into constructing this nest is astounding.

This is a Common Toad (Bufo bufo) that I saw crossing our drive.  Fortunately it took it’s time and I was able to run indoors and fetch my camera before it disappeared.

Common Toad

Autumn colour.  A Field Maple (Acer campestre)

Last week was a week of sunny warm days and cool nights.  The trees and plants began to show autumnal tints.

Elder (Sambucus nigra) leaves have turned pink

A wonderful sunset seen from the back of our house

A ‘picture-wing’ fly. Possibly from the Herina group.

This little fly was in our kitchen some nights ago.  I took this photo when it landed on the window blind.  It was only a few millimetres in length.

Richard and I noticed posters up in Halesworth announcing the Herring Festival.  This is to take place in The Cut, the centre for the arts in the town.  The herring industry has been in decline for some time and Richard and I wondered what went on at the festival (not ever having gone).  We remembered this……

I haven’t been able to attend our local churches very often recently.  I have been taking my mother to her church once a fortnight to enable me to go to church with Richard every other week.  We took Elinor to the morning service at Norwich Cathedral a couple of weeks ago as she enjoys these services.  The Cathedral was preparing to hold a number of services to commemorate the life of Edith Cavell.

My music choice for this post is one of my favourite arias sung by my favourite mezzo-soprano, the late, great Lorraine Hunt Lieberson

Thanks for visiting!

Day of Dance 28 March 2015

Tags

Day of Dance, Folk dancing, Halesworth, Halesworth Day of Dance, Morris dancing, Suffolk

Poster for the Day of Dance

The weekend before Easter Richard and I took Elinor in to Halesworth so that she could go to the hairdressers.  We had a couple of things to buy and had arranged with Elinor that we would meet her back in the car park.  When we got to Halesworth we discovered that a Day of Dance was taking place in the town.

Oxblood Molly, a Molly dancing team were hosting their first Day of Dance in Halesworth and had invited a number of other dance teams to come along and take part.  Richard and I were delighted, as we love to watch Morris, Molly and Sword Dancing.  Elinor isn’t so keen and we got a couple of messages from her telling us about the difficulty she had in getting into the hairdresser’s salon past a large group of dancers, musicians and also a man wearing a horse’s head ( the Hobby Horse).

This is the Oxblood Molly side (or team) dancing in Halesworth Thoroughfare. All the dances were performed outside the pubs in the town.  The pub here is just out of shot on the right – The White Hart.

Molly Dancing originated in Cambridgeshire and is traditionally danced on Plough Monday, the first Monday after Epiphany when the agricultural workers went back to work after Christmas.  A decorated plough was dragged through the streets and the farm workers accompanied it with blackened faces asking for pennies to help the poor plough boys.  They disguised themselves so that their employers wouldn’t recognise them.  During harsh winters the farm-workers were often close to starvation.  The dance team went with the farm-workers; one of the dancers (all male) would be dressed as a woman, hence ‘Molly’.

This is Molly.

 

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Here is a selection of photographs of Oxblood Molly.

Danegeld Morris dancing in the yard of the White Swan pub.

There are six main styles of Morris Dance – Cotswold Morris, North West Morris, Border Morris, Longsword Dancing, Rapper and Molly Dancing.  There is another less well-known style called Ploughstots (or Vessel Cupping, or Plew-ladding!) from the East and North Ridings of Yorkshire.

Danegeld Morris dance in the North West style and wear clogs on their feet.  This style was developed during the 19th and 20th centuries and came from the mill towns that had sprung up during the Industrial Revolution.

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This side is called Pedant’s Revolt and they dance in the Border Morris style.  This is also the White Swan pub yard.  Richard filmed a few of the teams on his phone.  He only filmed short excerpts of three dances.  The video below is of Pedant’s Revolt.

Here they are again outside The White Hart.

I like the pheasant’s feathers they wear in their hats

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This is Chelmsford Morris Ladies, another North West Morris group dancing in the White Swan pub yard.  Below is another video.

Kenninghall Morris side – a Border Morris dance team relaxing after having performed outside the Swan.

They traditionally blacken their faces, though some of them had whitened their faces instead!  A couple of the Oxblood Molly side are with them here.

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This side is Bows ‘n’ Belles and they are dancing outside the White Hart.  They are another North West Morris team and their video is below.

We weren’t able to see all the groups dancing that day as we had promised to visit my mother that afternoon.  It has made us want to go to more events like this!

Thanks for visiting!

 

An Appointment with the Dentist

Tags

Brewery House, dentist, Halesworth, Hooker House, Joseph Dalton Hooker, William Jackson Hooker

Before I begin this post I must apologise for the confusion about my last two posts, both of which I published on Friday.  I have started looking back over my photos from last year and because I am not taking many pictures at present I thought I would write posts about last summer and autumn and use old photographs.  In looking back over past posts I realised that I had started writing up my summer holiday but hadn’t finished, so I wrote two catch-up posts on Friday.  I continued to use the series title I had started using last summer, but this meant the titles were virtually the same so some of you have read one post and some of you have read the other and very few of you have read both, probably thinking that I had posted the same one twice.  I am also having trouble posting onto Facebook.  Some of my posts get there and some don’t – heaven knows why.

Hooker House – situated right next to a busy roundabout in the middle of Halesworth.

Richard had a dental appointment on 2nd January.  His dentist’s surgery is in Halesworth in Hooker House.   Many people will think this a strange name for a house until you find out that it was named after two famous men who lived there.   Sir William Jackson Hooker moved into the house in about 1809/1810 after his marriage and lived there for eleven years.  His second son, Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker was born there but moved with his family to Glasgow when he was four years old.

The rear of Hooker House

 

William Jackson Hooker was born in Norwich on 6th July 1785 and went to Norwich School.  He was encouraged in his interest in botany by James Smith, a Norwich doctor who also founded the Linnaean Society.  He inherited in trust the Jackson estate in Kent when he was eleven years old.  William studied estate management and then became a partner in Halesworth Brewery.  He took a quarter share for £8000 and moved into Brewery House (as Hooker House was then called) so that he could be near to his work.  The house had a large garden and a heated greenhouse in which William grew exotic orchids.  He also devoted himself to the formation of his herbarium – his collection of dried plants.

The front door

 

In fact the house then was about twice the size it is now and the gardens stretched down to the river.  Probably the town park is all that remains of the magnificent garden.   He was appointed Professor of Botany at the University of Glasgow in 1820 where his career really developed.  He retained his partnership in Halesworth Brewery but sold the house to Patrick Stead, a maltster from Halesworth whose maltings were the largest in the country.

Sign on the wall of Hooker House. I’m sure you’ll understand why I didn’t call it a ‘plaque’

William was dubbed a Knight of Hanover in 1836 and then in 1841 he was made the first Director of Kew Gardens.  He held this post until his death in 1865, enlarging and transforming the grounds into one of the world’s leading botanical gardens.  He built the Temperate and Palm Houses.

Sign commemorating Sir Joseph Hooker

Sir Joseph’s education was more specialised than his father’s.  Joseph travelled and worked as a surgeon and botanist on a voyage from Antarctica to the Himalayas.  He sent home the first Rhododendron and Sarcococca Hookeriana (Sweet Christmas Box) was named after him.  He was a great friend of Charles Darwin and encouraged and supported Darwin when he wrote ‘The Origin of Species’.  Joseph’s work on the distribution of plants seems to be in support of Darwin’s theories.  By the time his father died Sir Joseph Hooker was already Deputy Director of Kew Gardens and so succeeded him as Director.

Staircase inside the house.

When I first moved to Halesworth in 1988 when Alice was three years old and I was newly divorced form my first husband I used this dentist.  I was very pleased to find that such eminent men had lived there and the unpleasant duty of going to the dentist was made more palatable by being able to look round the house.  There are information displays on the walls in the hall.

Information board on the Hookers

Information board on the Hookers

Information board on the Hookers

Richard and I met and we found we attended the same dentist.  As Alice got older she became unhappy with the dentist at Hooker House as he wasn’t very good at putting children at ease.  I took her to a different dentist in the town but continued going to Hooker House myself and started taking Elinor as soon as her teeth came through.  We both eventually left the dentist after an ‘incident’.  When Elinor was about two years old she started to become very nervous about going to see doctors and dentists.  During an examination Elinor became quite distressed and kicked the dentist!  He was very good about it considering the discomfort he was in but I just couldn’t go back again!

Richard took these photographs on his phone.

 

 

 

A Gentle Day

Tags

Christmas preparations, Christmas Tree, Christmas Wreath, crinkle-crankle wall, Halesworth, Rectory Lane

A beautiful sunrise on Tuesday of this week.

 

Term has ended and E managed to attend every day for six weeks!  We are so pleased with her and she is very proud of herself too.  She has found a really nice group of friends and is starting to relax and enjoy life.  She is on track with two out of the four subjects she is studying and just needs to do a little extra work to catch-up in Art.  The one subject that needs a lot of work is her Maths but I am hoping that R and I can persuade her to get on with that during the Christmas break.  She is going into college next Tuesday for an Art catch-up day which will be a great help.

I have got most of my present-buying done but I haven’t started on the card-writing yet.  I must clean the house properly as it has only had a lick and a promise lately and then we can put the decorations up.  I must also start baking and freezing food in advance to save time later.

R has one more week at work and then has two weeks annual leave.  He had a hospital appointment during the week for a bone-density scan in case he has started to get osteoporosis.  This is part of the investigation he has to under-go because of the tumour on his pituitary gland.  He has two separate hospital appointments next week, one to see if his adrenal gland is working properly and the other at the eye clinic.  We are not sure if the eye clinic appointment is to do with his pituitary problem (the gland is very close to the optic nerve) or whether it is a routine check-up.  He has keratoconus (conical corneas) and has to wear special contact lenses.

My eldest daughter Alice, will be coming home on Christmas Eve and will stay until New Year’s Eve.  My sister is visiting on Monday and I hope to be seeing my brother sometime soon too.  Mum seems to be fine at the moment.  I took her Christmas shopping in Norwich on Tuesday and then we did her usual grocery shopping on Wednesday.  I will take her to church tomorrow. She hasn’t been for weeks, sadly – I haven’t been able to take her as I’ve had other duties and there is no-one else around it seems, who could do it either.  This is very unfortunate especially as she takes great comfort from her church attendance.  Mum and Dad, when he was alive, give and gave so much of their time and skill to that church that I am surprised that she can be forgotten so easily.  Mum got a phone call a couple of weeks ago from a lady at the church asking if Mum could provide a cake for the Christmas Bazaar.  Mum said she was happy to but had no means of getting the cake to the church.  She was told that that would be no problem.  Someone would come and collect it and as there was a funeral of an old friend of my father’s on the same day as the bazaar, Mum would get a lift to that as well.  Mum made two cakes and phoned and left a message to say she had made them.  She phoned on the day of the bazaar and left another message.  No-one came and no-one has been in touch to apologise.  She is 84 and has very little money to spare and very little energy to spare either.  I am hoping that she will get an apology tomorrow.

I have become very tired because of the extra driving I have had to do lately.  I have driven over 11,000 miles since the beginning of September, spending on average 4 hours a day in the car.  The days I take Mum out as well as doing the double journey to Norwich and back I spend nearer to 5.5 hours in the car.  I have bought a lot of petrol, filling the tank every five days.  Fortunately the price of petrol has gone down recently – at the moment it is 118.9 pence per litre here.  I am still trying to do my household chores but I have had to give up my gardening.  I haven’t even had time to feed the birds for weeks and weeks.  Tiredness has made me grumpy, prone to upset stomachs, prone to tears and a  ‘Scrooginess’ comes over me when I have to think about Christmas.

Humbug!

Today, however, has been such a pleasant one.  We woke to another clear and frosty morning.  R and I enjoyed a relaxed breakfast and then I drove us to Bungay so that we could collect the Christmas wreath I had ordered a week or so ago.  We haven’t been out together for some while so this walk through the town made a nice change.  R bought a newspaper and we returned home.

Our Christmas Wreath

E had a hair appointment to go to in Halesworth at 1.00 pm so this time R drove us.  We walked with her to the hairdressers and then went to buy some dried ingredients for R’s soup-making from a delicatessen in the Thoroughfare.  In most English towns the main street is known as the High Street but in Suffolk many towns call their main street the ‘thoroughfare’.  We called in at a café and had coffee and then, as there was still about a quarter of an hour until E would be finished we walked up Rectory Lane back to the Market Place.  This is a narrow alleyway that runs behind the Thoroughfare from the north of the town to the south.

The lane goes alongside the Town River, a tributary of the River Blyth.

A few weeks ago when we had nearly two days of heavy rain, this little river was very close to breaking its banks and flooding the town.

A view down the river from the bridge.

The crinkle-crankle wall. There are twice as many crinkle-crankle walls in Suffolk than in the whole of the rest of the country

A small door in the wall. It is only about 5′ tall.

The end of Rectory Lane just before it emerges into Chediston Street.

R walking up Chediston Street

Halesworth is quite a busy market town but as you can see, even on a Saturday afternoon less than two weeks before Christmas some peace and quiet can be had.

We returned to our car and almost immediately E joined us looking lovely with her neatly cut and straightened hair.  We drove to Holton, a village on the outskirts of Halesworth where we usually buy our Christmas tree at a farm.  We quickly found a suitable one and took it home with us.

Our well-wrapped Christmas tree.

R will trim a little off the base of the trunk and a couple of the lower branches and then fit it into the tree stand after we have soaked it for a few days.  We will bring it into the house in a few days time and then decorate it.  This is the first year that Alice hasn’t been here to help us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Archdeacon’s Visitation.

Tags

aquilegia, Archdeacon's Visitation, Easter cactus, Halesworth, hare, lilac, newts, rowan, St Mary's church, woodpigeon

I am amazed at how lucky we were with the weather on Monday!  Since then the weather has been ‘changeable’ as the forecasters say. Tuesday had showers in the morning but a sunny, breezy afternoon, Wednesday had light showers in the early morning, a very fine middle of the day and then heavy showers from late afternoon onwards and today, well, yuk! is all I can say.  Light showers this morning, heavy showers by midday and persistent rain this afternoon and evening.  What makes it worse is that I have a nasty cold in the head.  I had hoped to go with R to the Archdeacon’s Visitation service at St Mary’s church in Halesworth this evening but E needed to see her doctor and the only available appointment time was 6.30pm.  I drove her home afterwards and saw R driving past us in the opposite direction on his way to the service and there wasn’t enough time for me to drop E at home and join him.  And anyway, I think I’m better off at home not spreading germs about.

An Archdeacon’s visitation, as far as I understand it, is when all the Churchwardens (R is a Churchwarden) in the Deanery get together for a special service once a year with all their priests and the Archdeacon.  They hand in their annual reports and accounts if they haven’t already done it on-line and also their Declaration.  Churchwardens are supposed to serve for six years at most, I think, and then a new one is voted in.  However, it usually is a case of ‘once a Churchwarden always a Churchwarden’, as no-one wants the job.  The Churchwardens are ‘sworn in’, for want of a proper phrase at this special service and take their oaths to do their duty.  A few hymns are sung and this sounds lovely as only large churches are chosen for this service and they are always full.  The Archdeacon has his or her say and maybe some of the priests will give a talk too.  This year there will be an extra item.  Our Rector and the priest in the Benefice next to ours will be licensed to each others Benefice.  This will mean that they will be able to serve in each others Benefice without having to get special permission each time from the Bishop.  Our Rector looks after a Benefice of eleven churches with a couple of retired priests, one Reader and two Elders to help him.  The priest in the Benefice next to ours looks after three churches one of which is in a town.  It will make life much easier for our Rector especially, once this is done.  Our Rector is due to retire in a very few years and we don’t know if we will get another priest to replace him.  We think there will be a lot of changes and not for the better and our priests are preparing the ground for us.  To add insult to injury we haven’t even got a Bishop at the moment and haven’t had for some time!

I wanted to go to the service, not only to support R and our church but to go into St Mary’s church again.  When I first moved to Suffolk in 1988 I lived in Halesworth and attended St Marys.  I was made very welcome at the church and made a number of friends.  I also met R there and he asked me out while drinking coffee after a Sunday service.  We had our Marriage Blessing Service there too.  R has just returned and tells me the service went well and the refreshments afterwards were very good.

I have been able to take a few photos round the garden during the past few days.

Our Rowan or Mountain Ash tree is flowering.  It has grown well in the last couple of years and this is the best it’s ever looked.

Rowan blossom.

Rowan blossom.

 

A very poor photo of the newts in our front pond.

White lilac.

White lilac blossom.

White lilac blossom.

Pink and purple aquilegias.

This the best photo I have of the hare that has been visiting our garden recently.  Back view only!

Woodpigeons having a bath in a puddle in our drive earlier today.

Indoors now.  This is my Easter cactus which is just coming into flower.  Unlike Christmas cacti these flowers shut during the afternoon and re-open next morning.

Easter cactus flowers.

Easter cactus flowers.

Preparations for a Journey

Tags

'Julius Caesar', Diss, fir tree sapling, flood warning, greylags, Halesworth, Harleston, Norwich, Sheffield

I have only spent a little time in the garden during the past two days.  I won’t be at home for the next couple of days so I have been doing housework and shopping to make sure E and R will be alright while I am gone.  I am going to Sheffield to see A, my eldest daughter and to watch her perform in her dramatic society’s production of ‘Julius Caesar’.  A is playing Portia and I am really looking forward to seeing her and watching the play.  I won’t be staying with her this time as she is now in a shared house and there isn’t the room.  I am staying in a hotel in the centre of the city close to the Cathedral.  I hardly ever go away on my own – in fact the last time I did was just over three years ago when I attended A’s M.A. graduation ceremony in Sheffield.  She has been studying for her PhD for the past three years and it is nearing completion.  She is also looking for work and running out of money!

E, my younger daughter, has been looking after a little fir tree sapling in her room for a year since my mother gave it to her.  It is growing quite well but looking a little pale.  I have been suggesting for some time that it ought to go outside and get some fresh air but she has been reluctant to let it go.  I think she remembers the ones I grew from seed a few years ago that were doing very well until I put them outside only to be eaten by something.  I have put her little tree in the greenhouse with other trees I am growing – a yew, two beeches, two oaks and a couple of laburnums.  In the spring they will go outside but somewhere where the deer and pheasants can’t get at them.  While I was in the greenhouse yesterday I checked all the plants in there – tidied them up and gave a little water to most of them.

  The geese are making themselves at home as usual.  They wander about over the garden leaving ‘little messages’ all over the place.  They join next door’s chickens in pecking up spilt seed under the feeders and bird tables.  The female especially has started following me about when I am outside in the hope that I may give them something to eat.  They were around this morning but when I got home about 3pm they had flown off somewhere less windswept.  I spent most of today with my mother helping with shopping, going to Harleston and Diss with her and then collecting her medication from the surgery.  We had a nice chat over a cup of coffee when we got back to her house and then I had some shopping of my own to do in Halesworth and my own medication to collect.  I also remembered, at last, to call in at the church and change the church colours;  the altar frontal and the cloth on the pulpit have been white since Christmas but now that we have had Candlemas the green cloth and frontal must be put up.  The colours will stay green until Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, when all changes to purple.  R usually does this as he is one of the Churchwardens but he has been very busy this week so I offered to do it.  He had to take his car in for a service today at the recommended garage in Norwich.  In total he has driven about 140 miles today just for a car service!  Thirty miles to Norwich, probably over forty miles to his place of work, the same distance this afternoon back to the garage and then thirty miles home again

.  I didn’t spend long in the garden this afternoon as the weather was so wet and windy.  I saw more molehills, more wood down off the birch tree and all the ponds have risen again.  R tells me that the there is a flood warning on the Waveney and the Beck today – this does not surprise me though we have had less rain here than most other places around the country.