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A Suffolk Lane

~ A diary of my life in rural north Suffolk.

A Suffolk Lane

Tag Archives: quiz night

Wednesday 12th to Sunday 16th March

17 Mon Mar 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in churches, Gardening, plants, Rural Diary, Uncategorized, walking, wild birds

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Tags

alder, ambulances, brimstone butterfly, chaffinch, church, cowslip, daffodils, dog violet, Eye, fields, figs, greylags, Harleston, hazel, heartsease, Lent, mallards, moon, moorhen, nesting, pond, prayer, pussy willow, quiz night, rooks, Rumburgh, silverlace primula, sunset, tortoiseshell butterfly, trees, Wissett

Wednesday began with frost and mist.  This soon cleared and the weather was then lovely for the rest of the day.  I did my usual shopping trip with my mother with a detour to a free-range chicken farm at Eye where Mum buys her eggs.  I had a little shopping to do for myself, so called in at Harleston on my way home.  I arrived home just after 2pm for a late lunch and had time for a few household chores and a quick walk round the garden to feed the birds, tidy up a couple of things and take some photos before R came home.

A moorhen and a chaffinch at the front of the house.

001Moorhen and chaffinch (640x480)

 

The moorhen again.

002Moorhen (640x480)

 

A couple of photos of the daffodils that have come up round the big pond.

003Reflection of daffodils on pond (640x480)

005Reflection of daffodils on pond (480x640)

Some violet leaves that have struggled up through the dried mud round the pond.

007Violet leaves on path round pond (640x480)

 

And some cowslip leaves too!

008Cowslip plants on path round pond (640x480)

 

Reflection of trees and cloud in the pond.

009Reflection of trees and cloud in pond (640x480)

 

Afternoon moon.

011Afternoon moon (640x480)

 

I had decided what we should have for an evening meal and was about to start it when R offered to cook and I gladly accepted his offer.  I didn’t have time to eat anything as I had to go out at 6.45pm to collect Mum and take her to Eye to attend a Lent course.  The course in her area is a deanery course.  A deanery is a collection of benefices and a benefice is a collection of parishes.  In rural areas to have benefice and or deanery meetings or courses means that there will be more people attending and any speakers kind enough to visit will have a good audience.  The only downside is that the distances to be travelled by many parishioners is very great.  This year’s course is on prayer and Wednesday’s talk was on ‘Prayer with Words’.  The speaker was the Precentor from the Cathedral at Bury St Edmund’s; a really pleasant man who gave an interesting talk.  He introduced us to poets and poems that were new to us as well as reading from old favourites.  My journey home was very difficult because of thick fog.

Thursday.  I was woken just before 6.00am by the rooks!  I had remembered to bring in the sunflower seed feeder but the rooks were trying to get the remains of yesterday’s seed off the bird-table and were tapping loudly on it with their enormous beaks.  I have a cage round the bird-table which is supposed to prevent large birds from getting on it. However, it doesn’t stop the birds from clinging on to the edge of the table with their claws, flapping their wings for balance and pecking food through the mesh!  Another lovely day.  Went in to Halesworth for a haircut and to get yet more shopping (I always manage to forget something each time I go!)  My usual hairdresser is on maternity leave so her Mum did my hair and we chatted about babies.  Both her daughters are having their first babies in the next two weeks and they are getting a little apprehensive.  On the way home I saw a tortoiseshell butterfly and an enormous brimstone butterfly.

I spent the afternoon gardening as well as having a short (for us!) conversation with my sister who was planning to visit Mum at the weekend.  The geese have been very argumentative this week.  The gander of the pair who have claimed the island has been spending most of his time swimming in the pond and seeing off any other goose/gander who dares to come anywhere near the pond bank.  He must be exhausted as he doesn’t seem to have eaten anything either.

A couple of photos of the mallards in our front ditch.

001Pair of mallards in ditch (640x480)

005Mallards in ditch (640x480)

Miniature daffodils in the grass.

004Miniature daffodils in grass (640x480)

 

Goat or Pussy Willow.  Salix caprea.

006Goat willow or pussy willow (640x480)

 

When R got home he wanted to go out for a short walk across the fields.  The wind had got up a little and it had got cloudy but R managed to take some decent photos while we were out.

003Evening walk over the fields (640x427)

006View across the fields (640x427)

008Path by the fields (640x427)

009A ploughed field (640x427)

010Distant trees (640x427)

Alder catkins and cone-like fruits from last year.

012Alder catkins and fruits (640x427)

 

Hazel catkins.

015Hazel catkins (640x427)

 

More fog overnight.

Friday.  A cooler, cloudier, breezier day.  I did some more gardening and lots of ironing.  The geese seemed to have resolved their differences.  The resident pair came to sit near me while I gardened and whenever I looked up they gave gentle honks.  I knew they were asking for food so when I had got to the end of my weeding I fetched some special goose and duck feed I have for just such an occasion (to quote Foghorn Leghorn) and cast it on the grass near by them.  Of course, the gander then hissed at me while the goose ate the food.  He is a very protective mate and even though I have provided the food he has to warn me off and so I do keep my distance!

Saturday.  A quiet morning and another beautiful one.  Still very breezy but much brighter than yesterday.  Did some housework and spoke to A on the phone.  We drove to Mum’s in the afternoon to see my sister F who was visiting with her eldest son and her dog Ben.   We had a lovely couple of chatty hours and we then had to leave to get our evening meal before going to yet another quiz night.  This one was in aid of Rumburgh village hall.  I think it was the noisiest event I had been too since going to dances when I was young.  The hall had just been insulated and redecorated but there were no curtains or blinds at the windows yet and I think this was the reason it was so noisy.  The two farmers on our team were both a little deaf (caused by driving noisy farm machinery) and they were finding it really difficult to hear anything above the hubbub of loud chatter.  Our local Member of Parliament was taking part too.  He lives in Wissett, the next village along on the way to Halesworth, and is very good about taking part in local events and is a truely supportive MP.  He had been out all day on the ambulances as there has been an enquiry about the time it takes for ambulances to get to emergencies.  He was talking to R and one of our farmer friends and said he was very sympathetic towards the ambulance crews, as he had seen for himself the great distances they had to travel and also how many wasted journeys they had to make.  R told him about my sister’s job as a paramedic in Kent and some of the problems she has to put up with too.  Unfortunately we came ninth today but R won a picture of a tree in the raffle.

Sunday.  There was a Morning Prayer service at Rumburgh today but I couldn’t attend as I took Mum to her church.  She hasn’t got anyone to give her a lift at the moment and as she doesn’t usually see anyone at all during the week except me, and all her friends are at her church, I think it only right that I take her there.  I got back home at 1.00pm and had lunch before doing some chores, putting a loaf on to bake and then back out into the garden.  I fed the birds which took nearly an hour – all the feeders were empty, I have a number of them scattered about the garden and the garden is well over an acre in size.  I had noticed this morning when I looked out of the window that the goose has started sitting on her nest on the island.

003Goose on nest (640x480)

 

005Goose on nest (640x480)

A dog violet in flower.

006Dog violet (640x480)

 

A silverlace primula.

007Silver Laced primula (640x480)

 

A heartsease flower.

013Heart's ease (640x480)

 

Figs are starting to swell on the tree.

014Figs (640x480)

 

Lots of pictures of this evening’s sunset.

015Sunset (640x480)

016Sunset (640x480)

017Sunset (640x480)

021Sunset (640x480)

018Sunset (640x480)

019Sunset (640x480)

020Sunset (640x480)

The rookery in the sunset.

022Sunset (640x480)

 

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March

04 Tue Mar 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in churches, plants, Rural Diary, Uncategorized, walking, wild birds

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

bacon onion potato sauté, blackthorn, cattle, chickens, Coffee morning, common reeds, cooking, ditching, Dog's Mercury, electric fence, farmyard, good food, greylags, Italian alders, ivy, lesser celandine, Lords and Ladies, marble galls, narcissi, nature, phone box library, photography, primroses, quiz night, rookery, Rumburgh Church, sheep, snowdrops, St James South Elmham, St Margaret South Elmham, St Michaels South Elmham, stinging nettle, the Beck, trees

A wet start to the month.  R and I went off in the rain to the benefice coffee morning at the Rector’s house.  We could find nothing to bring with us this time and, as usual, I had not done any baking, so we just took ourselves and a little money.  We bought raffle tickets, a classical music c.d., a jar of the Rector’s home-made lenten three-fruit marmalade (i.e. without whisky) and a jar of plum jam.  After indulging in a bit of chit-chat and getting the local gossip (no raffle prizes this time!) we left to go shopping in Halesworth.  Boring groceries shop in the Co-Op and then, while R read the paper in the car, I walked in to town to see if I could find some flowers for the church.  I eventually found what I was looking for in the third place I visited – some really pretty multi-headed narcissi, some in yellow and some in a creamy-white.  The individual flowers very tiny and delicate;  I bought two bunches of each colour.

The rain was easing off a little by the time we got to Rumburgh church but the path to the church was very puddly and muddy.  The snowdrops were still looking good and the primroses were just starting to come out.  The churchyard will be a mass of wild flowers very soon.  We found a suitable vase in the cupboard and just put the poor flowers in water.  I cannot attempt anything more than this and even this made the flowers look as if ashamed to be where they were.  They all huddled in the middle of the vase and faced inwards and no matter what I did they twisted back and hid their faces.  I eventually gave up,  put the vase on a ledge and checked that the other flowers in the church were all o.k.

I went out to feed the birds later that afternoon after the rain had stopped and the sun had come out.  Something, probably a squirrel, had pulled the top off one of my fat block feeders and had removed and taken away a block that I had only put in the day before.  I mended the feeder, replaced the block with a new one and wired up the top to prevent it being pulled apart so easily again.  We shall see!  I took a couple of photos of the geese and some of next door’s ****** chickens in the garden again.

020Next door's chickens (640x480)

 

 

022Pair of geese in garden (640x480)

I discussed with E what she would like for her evening meal and we decided on one of her current favourites – fried bacon, potatoes and onions.  I added some diced eating apple as I thought that might go well with it.  E was of a different opinion!

024Bacon, onion, apple and potato (640x480)

 

R and I set off for the quiz at St James at 7.00pm.  We had become quite reluctant to leave our nice warm home and get into my very cold, damp car.  It was just 1 degree celsius outside and it took the whole journey to de-mist the windscreen.  I drove most of the way bending forward and peering through the only clear bit at the bottom.  Fortunately, we met no-one on the journey but the real danger is in the deep ditches at the sides of the road.

The quiz was great fun and the six of us on our team all know each other and get on well.  We eventually came second which was very pleasing.  R and I also won two prizes in the raffle.  The food provided by the village hall committee (I suppose) and cooked by two ladies from the village was really good.  A pork casserole or a vegetable bake with a baked potato and a little pot of butter for the first course and then a choice of four or five (I can’t remember how many) desserts with cream or custard for the second course.  This was followed by tea or coffee with a chocolate mint – all for £8.00 per person.  There was thick frost on the cars when we left just after 11.00pm.

A lovely bright morning and hardly any wind the next day.  We went to church at St Michael’s.  This is a very small church in the middle of fields and has only recently had electricity put in – only a couple of sockets though.  There is no electric light, I think, and no heating except for an enormous very old gas heater at the back of the church.  If they have evening services they have oil lamps which makes it look so lovely.  The lane is very narrow and there aren’t many places to park.  R squashed up as close as he could to the electric fence and had great difficulty in getting out of the car.  The fence might not have been switched on as there weren’t any animals in the field – we weren’t going to take any chances though!

058St Michael's Church (480x640)

 

 

057Electric fence at St Michael's (480x640)

By the time we had had lunch and washed up the sun had disappeared and the wind had got up again.  R and I went out for a walk in the lanes near our house.

There is still a lot of standing water about.  This water is as the base of a hedge on St Margaret’s common.

025Water under the hedge at St Margaret's common (640x480)

 

In the village of St Margaret South Elmham is the old phone box which they have converted into a mini library.

027The phone box library (640x480)

 

The rooks are busy in the rookery near the old rectory.

029St Margaret's rookery (640x480)

 

The geese who live at the old rectory were resting for a change!

030Cordelia's geese (640x480)

 

The churchyard is full of pretty flowers.

031St Margaret South Elmham churchyard (640x480)

 

Lots of common reeds in the ditches at the side of the lane all waving in the wind.

033Common reeds in ditch (640x480)

 

The tributary to the Beck at Froghall.

034Tributary to the Beck at Froghall (480x640)

 

Some lovely silhouettes of trees on the skyline.

035Trees on horizon (640x480)

 

Blackthorn just starting to come out in the new hedge.

039Blackthorn (640x480)

 

Marble galls.

040Marble galls in hedgerow (480x640)

 

The top of our lane.

041Top of our lane (640x480)

 

The fields in St James have very few hedges.  It is very windswept here and very cold!

042View across fields (640x480)

 

Primroses at the side of the lane.

043Primroses (640x480)

 

And lesser celandines.

044Lesser celandines (640x480)

 

A lot of work has been done here at the bridge to dig out the ditch again and lay new drainage pipes.

045Newly cleared ditch (640x480)

 

A row of Italian Alders with catkins.  Not a very clear photo because of the wind and my lack of skill.

046Italian alder trees (480x640)

 

The farmyard with sheep wandering about freely and cattle in the barn feeding from their manger.

047Farmyard (640x480)

 

Our lane again – muddier now.

048Muddy lane (640x480)

Even worse!

049Muddy lane (640x480)

 

More primroses.

050Primroses (640x480)

And these are ‘weeds’ in our garden.  All lush green plants – the arrowhead leaves of Lords and Ladies, ivy, dog’s mercury and stinging nettles.

051Lords and ladies, ivy, dog's mercury, stinging nettle (640x480)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I talk about what it's like living in a quiet part of Suffolk. I am a wife, mother and daughter, a practising Christian and love the natural world that surrounds me. I enjoy my life - most of the time!

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