Suffolk Open Studios at Blackthorpe Barn

Blackthorpe Barn is much easier to get to these days - it's just off the new A14 Rougham junction. I cycled past it yesterday and discovered an Art and Craft Exhibition was on, so I went back later when it was open to have a look. It was well worth going to - lots of great Arts and Craft work, very well laid out. And I found something to buy for my sister's birthday, too.

Suffolk Open Studios started in 1991 when a group of artists decided to open their doors and invite people to see them at work in their own studios. This year they've got 100 members from all over Suffolk (including one or two from just outside the borders).

This is their Showcase Exhibition, which officially launches the 2006 SOS experience. All the artists who are opening their studios are taking part, giving an opportunity to see examples of their work and decide which studios you would like to visit next month.

As their Directory says:

Visiting studios is FREE and will prove not only a cultural experience, but one that will take you around our beautiful county in high summer and in good company.

That sounds very tempting.

Toy Story

I promised I would tell the story of the "Whizzo Toys"...

In 1999 our client had just appointed a new IT director Tim H. My boss, Martyn L, had a regular meeting with him to discuss innovation and IT Strategy. One day he came back from his meeting and said, "Get your thinking caps on, guys. Tim wants us to come up with some ideas on technology we can provide for members of the board. He wants to impress them with what IT can do for them".

Interesting challenge. I thought I'd enlist the help of others using the company's Request for Assistance (RFA) database - a company-wide bulletin board for raising job-related questions. Now responses to questions on the RFA can be a bit variable - sometimes you can get nothing at all, sometimes you can get ten or more, and sometimes they can generate an interesting thread of discussion. So I thought I would try and grab attention with the title and make the question interesting, so I could get as many ideas as possible...

Whizzo Electronic Toys for Travelling Executives

A new, young, enthusiastic IT Director of an international organisation asks his IT strategist "What super whizzo gizmo stuff can you give me?"
(Well I admit I have paraphrased the question somewhat). The question is how can he earn brownie points by equipping his fellow board members with the latest and greatest technology. What would you suggest a travelling executive might find useful?

That should do it. I posted it. Little did I know what I had unleashed! Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised; there had been a couple of threads that had got quite interesting at the time - one about International English and another about navicular disease. Yes, I did want more than just a couple of answers, but I wasn't expecting what I got...

After 3 or 4 days, I had quite a few responses. Actually, in retrospect, it's interesting how accurate some contributions were about predicting the future - the convergence of computing, multi-media and mobile phones, satellite navigation, wearable computers are all now reality, and some are still to come, such as head-up displays while driving. Mind you, there were also a few less reverent answers, including furbies, etch-o-sketches and Star Wars light sabres. After a week or so, though, I had enough to put together a pretty good answer.

But then something strange happened. Some of the responses generated sub-threads that went off in their own directions. For example,

Better than your common or garden tacky electronic agenda, might I suggest a Directly Integrated Active Rich Yuppie device or DIARY

...led to a whole string of clever acronyms for BOOK, COMIC, MAGAZINE and ADVERTS.

I started having to make a cup of tea before reading the daily updates. After about two weeks Martyn asked how it was getting on. I showed him. "B****y H**l, John. You'll get sacked!", he said, jokingly (I hope!). But then I started thinking about how many people had been contributing to the discussion and how much time it must be totalling. I decided I'd better try and stop it, by posting the answer we had put together for Tim. But it was no good, it had taken on a life of it's own. Denis G said...

Please don't amend your request. It is helping me get through the day, or hopefully many weeks to come.

Topics covered included US Euphemisms (with a whole sub-thread of lavatorial humour), Science-fiction, Shakespeare, Anagrams, Children's television programmes and "the best thing since sliced bread".

Then people started competing for the deepest nested and last message. One response to the question "Who is going to get the last word in this thread"...

erm .... Just to say that this is the 300th message in the thread. Here's to the next 300?

...wasn't too far out. In the end it totalled about 700 messagesand kept going for over 2 1/2 months. Along the way to finding a "last word" we learned, among other things...

... "zyzzyva" - defined as "Any of various tropical American weevils of the genus Zyzzyva, often destructive to plants."

But the best sub-thread of them all, to my mind, was the one discussing mobile phones. About 7 levels in we got...

About a year ago, down here in Plymouth, the buses were advertising a mobile phone shaped and coloured like a Cornish Pasty, aka Tiggy-Oggy. I understand they sold many of them.

Well. Being a global company, not everybody knows what a pasty is...

In America, a pasty is something worn by an "exotic" dancer.

..said Ralph M in the US. After some explanation, Kevin C in the UK chipped in with...

In Bedfordshire, where I live, the traditional meal is called a 'Clanger' which is a pasty with meat and vegtables at one end and a sweet filling like jam ( or jelly for our American friends) at the other end. Never tried one sounds too disgusting especially in the middle where the gravy meets the jam YUK!!!!!

I never knew that. But it was the response to that from Bob N in Australia that made me laugh so hard that I spilt my tea all over my trousers...

And now, of course, I am forced to ask - "Where does the exotic dancer wear her clangers ?"

Competition on Flickr

I did enjoy trying to solve the Lantern Puzzle.

So, rising to Running in Suffolk's challenge, here is a picture of something else in Bury St Edmunds for people to try and identify. The winner gets to set the next object to find.

I think this one is quite easy. But be sure to get the right one. (Hint). Post your answers to the Flickr original.

Freedom

It hasn't quite sunk in yet, but it feels weird. Officially, of course, I'm just on annual leave at the moment, but I no longer have to consciously avoid thinking about work and all the things I have to do when I get back, like I normally do when on holiday. I got out of the car when I got home and it struck me - where did I put the mobile phone? Oh, I don't have one any more. And no need to bring the laptop in and connect it up. That has gone too.

Physically, I managed to sneak away without much fuss. It's kind of impossible to have a leaving do when 99% of the people you work with are not based at the office where you have the occasional use of a desk. But I got a great Virtual send off. Many thanks to all for the kind messages.

Thanks, especially, to Lance for administering the last rites and for taking on all the things I've left behind. Good luck to you and the rest of the team.

So what to do next? Well today I put together my initial "To Do" list. It's quite long! A trip into town was called for, not least to take some pictures for the new Bury Mystery Object challenge. That was fun. We'll see how long it takes people to guess.

I also had to take some flower photos. The missus was watching the Chelsea Flower Show coverage and said - "Hey, there's a competition. You should enter". The Blossoming Britain competition is for flowers photographed this week. You have to send 2 photos - one of your flower and one of the same flower with the day's newspaper (to prove the date of taking the photo). I decided to go back to Bradfield Woods and photograph the mystery flower in close up. (Yes that's it with this post - Anybody know what it is? I'm still stumped).

As for tomorrow...

Farewell CSC

Well this is it. My last working day at CSC. I'm a bit lost for words right now. So many kind messages from soon-to-be-ex-colleagues. But I'll send them all a link to this blog so they can still contact me. And of course I've a huge list of people to stay in contact with. Good luck to you all!

Now I must get round to describing the "Whizzo Toys" saga before the end of the week.

Light? Camera - Action

Running in Suffolk posted a picture on Flickr - Lantern asking where in Bury St Edmunds it is. I thought I knew, so I changed my usual early morning cycle ride to check.

But then I discovered several candidates, so I had to take a few photos and come back and look at the picture on Flickr again. There are those on the New Shire Hall, but there are several stories of building above them, so they don't fit. There are the two on the Police Station, but the glass in those is dark blue, so it's definitely not one of them. And then there is the Suffolk Record Office. I originally thought it was the lantern round the corner in the car park, but I reckon it is this one above the front door. Am I right?

Goodbye Vision Park

Whoooooo. Time is running out!
Tomorrow will be my last day at work, then I'll be using up my outstanding holiday until my offical leaving date of 31st May. Before I go I'll have to visit the office, my base location for the last 9 years, in Vision Park, Histon. I've hardly been there for the last 5 years or so, but they still let me use a desk when I do go there (thanks guys!). Somehow they have managed to just forget to delete me from the security system, so I can still get in. I'll have to go there tomorrow to hand over my laptop, phone, ID card etc. I hate goodbyes. I'm starting to get twitchy already.

It wasn't always called Sovereign House, you know. When we first moved in it was shared with Acorn Computer Group and was called Acorn House. They became part of Olivetti in 1985, but no longer have a separate identity.

That reminds me. I've a number of little stories accumulated over the years, which I should write down and share with whoever cares to visit. I think I'll start with the "Whizzo Toys" saga. It's a wonder I didn't get sacked for that!

Meanwhile, here is a picture of Vision Park taken from Nadia's, purveyors of fine sandwiches and cakes. Ham and Emmental baguette was my favourite. Yum.

On yer bike

Oo er, it's coming soon. My last day with the company. Did you know that if you buy a bike through your employer, you can get tax relief? This article explains how. It was introduced as part of the Green Travel Plan (GTP) in 1997. A bit late for me now. But my existing not-so-sturdy steed does me fine.

I suppose that, after taking a bit of time off, it will be on my bike to follow the advice of Norman Tebbit in 1981. As it says in the Wikipedia entry

In the aftermath of urban riots (Handsworth riots and Brixton riot) in the summer of 1981, Tebbit responded to a suggestion that the rioting was caused by unemployment by saying:

I grew up in the 1930s with an unemployed father. He did not riot. He got on his bike and looked for work, and he went on looking until he found it.

This exchange was the origin of the attribution to Tebbit of the slogan On yer bike!. Tebbit is often misquoted as saying directly to the unemployed "get on your bike and look for work" as a consequence of his speech.

Well, never mind that. Here are some pictures from my ride this morning. I loved the wisteria on this garage in Thurston.

Beyton's All Saints Church is really unusual, with its funny round tower. It looks like it has had its top chopped off (like the poppies I was mourning the other day).

Just up the road in Hesset there are some lovely old houses. Look at the decorative plasterwork here. Amazing (if I dare use that word - yes we watched the Eurovision Song Contest last night). I love the peacock. (You might need to click on the picture to expand it to see it).


This signpost near Rougham is not so easy to get directions from. Fortunately, I knew which way I wanted to go.


This quintessential Suffolk farmhouse just begged to be photographed.


Near Rushbrooke, is a typical Suffolk sight. Pigs. They looked pretty happy.


Oh that reminds me. I better check on the lunch. We're having roast pork today.

More Rubbish

The council is rightly proud of the Blue Bin Recycling Scheme. St Edmundsbury Borough Council is officially top of the league when it comes to recycling. But there has been some confusion recently about new advice on what you should put in the bin.

"The blue bin is for "dry" recyclable material - plastics, paper, cardboard and metal."

...says one web page. But an apparently contradictory leaflet was recently circulate. The official answer is that, not only should you not put your waste into bags before putting them into the bin, but you should not even put plastic carrier bags or clingfilm in the bin either. Hmm.

Anyway, recently we accumulated too much rubbish to fit into our blue bin, so I took a trip to the revamped Rougham Hill Household Waste and Recycling Centre

It's really well laid out now. But beware - it has separate skips for plastic, cardboard, wood and metal. So I found I had to take my bag of blue bin overflow and sort it by hand at the site. Grr.

Actually, it was when I did an Internet search a few weeks ago looking for bottle banks, that I first came across the famous Ruby's Blog. But if you prefer, you can find where your nearest recycling points are more directly using this Bank locator.

Swim scheme

Saturday mornings are swimming lesson time. I rather missed the routine and meeting familiar faces among the watching parents when the swimming pool was closed after the fire. But lessons started again half way through last term and we are back into the routine. The West Suffolk Swim scheme takes children from Aquababes through to ASA National Swim Awards level 8. They also do adult classes.

We go to the earliest session - 8 a.m. Well it gets everybody out of bed. I've now got a "tiddler", "newt" and "dolphin" to watch in the training and main pool at the same time. Conversation is still a bit sparse in the crowd (well a lot of the mums and dads are still only half-awake anyway at the early session), but the girls in the "newts" seem to enjoy a good natter. That's typical Little Miss for you!

Off with their heads!

This is one of the bollards on the new National Cycle Network Route 51 path that I go along on my morning ride. They look quite smart, don't they? I got a bit of a surprise, though, when I got off my bike to take a photo and leaned it against one of them. It moved. They're bendy bollards! They look like they are stone or concrete, but they're actually made of plastic!

Anyway, this was what I wanted to photograph after my discovery yesterday (when I didn't take my camera). After our foray to Bradfield Woods, I've become more aware of the lovely variety of wildflowers beside the path. Here you can see some of the poppies that have just come out in the last week or so. But where you get to the bit where the path crosses Mount Rd at the far corner of Rougham Airfield you see this... Oh no! Where the path runs right beside the road, they've cut the verge. All those lovely flowers have had their heads chopped off! What harm were they doing anybody?

Where's the Bin?

I spotted an article in Ruby's blog's February Archive (the whole blog's really worth reading, by the way), where she says that Bury St Edmunds has rather nice bins. I agree. I spotted this one at the weekend. It made me wonder what this "Women's Gas Federation" is (don't get me started on apostrophes - go and see Eats Shoots & Leaves instead) and why they have a plaque on a bin.

Well, according to Wikipedia

In 1953 the Women's Gas Federation was founded, providing a social forum for women where the use of gas in the home could be promoted.

How quaint. How Bury St. Edmunds. According to the National Archives the Suffolk Record Office Bury St. Edmunds Branch hold records of the BSE Women's Gas Federation from 1954-1993 - it would appear that British Gas withdrew funding in 1994. Fair enough, I suppose. 40 years is long enough to learn to use any new technology, to my mind. But, how about a Parents Internet Federation then? No, I just can't see myself (or the missus, for that matter) sitting around drinking cups of tea and debating the merits of Blogger. Anyway, the Women's Gas Federation seems to have been condemned to the bin of history. Well, why else is the plaque there, then?

Oh, I nearly forgot - the answer to the question in the title is...
..opposite the Corn Exchange...
... unless you live in somewhere like Leeds, for example ;-), where the answer might be "I's bin to Huddersfield, where's thee bin?".

More flowers

I failed to photograph any Oxlips at Bradfield Woods yesterday, so instead, here's a cowslip from Moreton Hall's Cowslip meadow, as featured on the Bury in Bloom website.


Here's a worms-eye view of the park opposite W's nursery. It's a good year for daisies!


Getting up off the ground you will see this clematis montana "Elizabeth" all over the Moreton Hall area - most noticable at this time of year when all the plants burst into bloom at the same time.


Is it a local thing? Why is there so much of it? I know it's a fast grower, but why is it in what seems to be just about everybody's garden? I think we should be told.

Bradfield Woods

There was a TV documentary a couple of months ago whch I only saw the tail end of, looking at Bradfield Woods. (You can find a summary of it on the BBC
Hands On Nature website). The woods are about 8 miles south-east of Bury St. Edmunds near the village of Felsham -here is a link to a map of the area. There is a car park and 3 signed walks of from 1/2 mile to 2 miles. We had been there in the winter and had a very muddy walk and decided to go back in the spring.

Today was just the day to do it. We got there by driving to Thurston, then to Beyton and on through Hesset towards Felsham. There is a right turn just before you get to Gedding.

This is one of England's finest ancient woodlands, and has been continuously managed at least since 1252. In the middle ages it was owned by Bury St. Edmunds Abbey. It has been a National Nature Reserve since 1994 and is now managed by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust.

There is a fantastic variety of plants (about 370 species, apparently, which us a sign of how old it is). We went on the longest walk (C), which took us about 1 1/2 hours. There are great swathes of Wood Garlic...

...in places. But it was only towards the end of the walk that we came to large expanses of bluebells.

Along the way, we came across a number of flowers, some of which are shown on the bluebells picture - Early Purple Orchids, Yellow Archangel(?), Lord & Ladies, Unfurling ferns, Wood anenomes (mostly finished flowering - must go earlier next year to see them) and, hmm, this one has me stumped, some sort of fritillaria, I think.

Utter Nonsense

The banners are out and the Bury St Edmunds Festival is well under way - here is what is on today.

I took the terrible trio to see "Utter Nonsense" at the Corn Exchange. £3 for me and £1 for each of them. Pretty good value. As were the jokes - "How do you make toast at the zoo?" (Answer later).

It was a great one man show. Little Miss and Mr sat on the floor, along with about 45 other kids, while Big Miss sat with me and the other big kids on the seats. It was fun for the grown-ups too - we thought the man behind us was going to laugh his head off, not least when Sigmund Freud the puppet tried to sit down and fell over - "Oh dear! A Freudian slip".

Effects included confetti and bubbles, requiring some of the little ones to be restrained from chasing the bubbles over the "stage". The story had a moral - friends being more important than fame and fortune or working too hard (Hmm, I have to agree with that).
Excellent entertainment.

We headed on to the Abbey Gardens afterwards, stopping to get one of those yummy hotdogs from the famous Barwells' cart on the way down Abbeygate St, to find the street theatre under way.


The Jones & Barnard Variety Show ...

treated us to striptease, escapology and the juggling of machetes while drinking a glass of beer balanced on the top of a head. Great fun!


We saw some wildlife in the gardens too. Quite a brood of little ducklings!


As for what these piglets were doing, I think I'd rather not know, but it was something called the Whalley Range All-Stars Pig.


Oh, by the way, (if you're still at all interested), you make toast in the zoo...
...by putting your bread under the gorilla, of course!

OMG - Now I've done it!

After nearly 19 years with the company I applied for the Voluntary Redundancy scheme and they are letting me go! Well fancy that. Most of my colleagues can't believe my luck. They are offering me 10 months salary to go and find a new job. And there are plenty out there. So I've accepted. Gulp. But it will give me a chance to have a couple of months in the sun, and explore a few places while I get fitter, and do some blogging as I go. And I've had two job offers from colleagues in Australia already!

Oh. By the way. The picture is not from around here, it's the company's European headquarters in Aldershot. Rather a nice working environment actually, on the site of a former Royal Pavilion. The smell of the lavendar when it is out is wonderful. But one thing I'm not going to miss is the day trips to Aldershot (5 1/2 hrs in the car yesterday) or the mostly pretty crummy hotels in the area (I must have stayed in them all - drop me a message if you need any recommendations). Possibly my last trip there yesterday, but I haven't got an agreed leaving date yet.

I think the fitness thing must be working. When I got back I had the urge to go for a ride. I only went 3/4 way to Thurston as it was getting dark, but 9 bunnies and a partridge crossed the cycle path in front of me. I enjoyed that. Much better than slumping in front of the TV with a glass of whatever.

Brandon Country Park

The missus was tackling the Ironing Mountain. Not her favourite chore. "KEEP AWAY FROM THE IRON - IT'S HOT!!" was being shouted for the umpteenth time. I'd got the chicken in the oven and the timer set and the vegetables all prepared. I approached the dragon's lair. "Whatever it was you were about to ask me, the answer is no!". That was before I'd even opened my mouth. "Well, what I was going to say was, would you like me to take the kids out somewhere?". "Ah. In that case, the answer is yes."

As you may have noticed it was a bit wet today. What I needed was somewhere that would not be too muddy. (Coming back with a complete set of clothes for the washing machine and subsequent addition to the Ironing Mountain would not be popular). Preferably somewhere where it would be possible to escape to a cafe or visitor centre if the heavens opened. Somewhere that, including car trip, would take a couple of hours and get us back just in time for lunch, by which point, hopefully, erosion (or the missus) would have conquered the Ironing Mountain...

Brandon Country Park - the very place. We hadn't been there for a while. The Breckland soils are very sandy so the paths shouldn't be too muddy. And there's a visitor centre. (Oops. I had a bit of a Senior Moment here, forgetting that it was being rebuilt and there was only a temporary portacabin until the work was finished). So off we went. And it even stopped raining. (That was lucky!)

If you like trees, Brandon has an amazing variety, thanks to Edward Bliss - you can read about him on the Brandon Heritage Project website. But it also has some natural heathland areas too. It is great in the autumn for mushroon hunting - one of the best sites around.

I rather like the walled garden with its well and snake maze...
By the way, that green hedge-like thing is also a snake, and if you are small enough you can walk along its inside.

We went along to the lake in front of Brandon Park House...
...to look for tadpoles. Last year, when we went one time, we saw zillions of little frogs hopping around the edge of the lake. Sure enough, the water was full of them.

We then went in search of the bamboo, which we found, but we couldn't find any pandas. There weren't any there last time either. I'm told that they are quite shy, though - that must be it. I wonder where the one that Eats, shoots and leaves lives?

Alternative Swimming Around Bury

The Bury St Edmunds Leisure Centre was closed for an awfully long time after the fire, so that drove us to look for other places to swim. Waterworld at Thetford is pretty good, but you have to keep hold of little ones ifyou go anywhere near the rapids, as the current can suck them out of their depth quite easily.

But for a really family friendly leisure pool in the area you can't beat The Kingfisher Leisure Centre in Sudbury, next to Waitrose and the water meadows (which are a good for a picnic on a sunny day). With there being no swimming lessons yesterday, and Big Miss going to town with Mum for some new shoes, and it being rainy, and the house had just been cleaned and I didn't want it messed up again (or I'd be in trouble), I said to the little ones, "Anyone want to go to the pool with the waves and the rocks and the slide and the froggy floats?". A unanimous "Yeeeay!" was the reply.

Wet and Wild runs from 2-4pm on Saturdays. We must have been in for nearly 1 1/2 hours because we got the waves 3 times before we came out, wrinkled as prunes. Great fun, apart from when little W was pushed off his perch on the yellow dome and had to be fished out spluttering. "Hey, that was really good underwater swimming", I said, and he stopped crying and looked quite pleased with himself.

Where's the Pear Tree?

Usually Saturdays are Swimming Lesson day (more anon). But today there's a swimming gala on, so lessons are cancelled. Nevertheless, for some reason the missus was up at the crack of dawn (something to do with falling asleep on the settee before 9 p.m. last night, perhaps). At least she brought me a coffee in bed to compensate for waking me up. And it gave me the chance to go for a ride before the terrible trio awoke. So out onto Route 51.

It really is the best time of day to be out and about and see the wildlife. I was a bit slow getting off the bike to photograph the cute bunnies, but I did manage to catch one of a pair of birds trotting about beside the path along the edge of Rougham airfield. "I think they might be a brace of Partridge", I thought to myself. On comparing my photo with images on Google, I think I might be right. But I didn't see any pear trees, so I might be wrong :-).

Swimming in Bury St Edmunds

As part of my get fitter campaign, I thought I'd start doing some regular swimming too. The Bury Leisure Centre has recently reopened and has a great new pool. So I checked out the Swimming Brochure and saw the main pool was open on Friday mornings. "Big Splash 10am to 12noon" it said. Perfect. I'd taken the day off work to go to the Beer Festival, what better penance than getting some swimming in first? So off I went.

It wasn't very busy - in fact the staff seemed to outnumber the swimmers. They smiled and said hello and I set off to do some lengths. Coming to the end of my second length the lady in charge came up to me and asked if I'd like to use any of the equipment. Somewhat puzzled, I replied "No, I'd just like to do some lengths, thank-you". "Oh", she said. "You do realise this is a session for disabled, don't you?". No I didn't. Perhaps the brochure should have explained. "Did they just let you in?". "Yes I said". "Oh dear. They shouldn't have done that". "Well I'm here now." I was thinking maybe I should get out. "You don't suffer from arthritis or anything, doing you?" she asked. "Well, I do have a bit of asthma." "Oh that's all right then!". And I was left to do my lengths.

Hot in Bury St Edmunds

Ruby says it was hot yesterday and would be hotter today. She was right (although some commenters seemed a bit sceptical). Today Little Miss arrived home from school and said "Dad, please, please can we have the swimming pool out. Mummy says we can." So out came the paddling pool. And when Little Mr came home from nursery just before 6pm, he stripped down to his pants so he could go in it too. And now he's refusing to come in for his tea!
P.S. And now I can smell the first barbecues of the summer.

Taking Up Cycling Again

It was an article in the Times, Spring into Summer, a few weeks ago that spurred me into action. We'd just returned from The Frozen North visiting both sets of grandparents and being well and truly overfed. I decided it was time I did something about being increasingly "Huggly-Buggly Daddy" (as Little Miss says) and unfit. Time to start doing more exercise. Well actually it's not hard to do more when you do as little as I had been doing!
So I got the bike out. The milometer said less than 400 miles - that's in the last fifteen years. And to think I used to do over 20 miles a day...

I'd noticed a sign like this just at the end of my road. It indicates a National Cycling Route (number 51), and I wondered where it went. There's a new cycle path, Thurston Cycle Track, just recently opened which is part of it that runs alongside Mount Rd, past the new Abbotts Green school and housing developments, the Flying Fortress and along past Rougham Airfield towards Thurston. An excellent place to start.

Cycle Routes of Britain

The National Cycle Network is being developed by SUSTRANS. Their site includes an excellent facility for putting in a town or postcode and getting a map of cycle routes in the vicinity. Here is what it produces for my postcode.

It turns out that NCR 51 goes all the way from Lowestoft to Oxford - I think it might be some time before I'm fit enough for that!
In reality, some of the cycle network doesn't yet exist and there are only small stretches of such dedicated cylceway as that at the end of my road, but mostly it uses quiet back roads.

Incidentally it is interesting to compare the county council's Bury Cycle Map with the Sustrans one. It shows a route, not on the Sustrans map, that doesn't actually exist as a complete cycleway (you have to get off and push along a windy footpath through some trees to get to the path that runs behind Jermyn Avenue). Still, it is good to see the routes around the area (although I'm not sure all the ones in town are that great).

As I start to go further I must remember to take my camera and show what I find here.

East Anglian Beer Festival 2006

One of the highlights of my year is the East Anglian Beer Festival, held in the Corn Exchange in Bury St Edmunds. This year's was Weds 26th - Sat 29th April. As usual it was excellent and had 60 beers and 7 ciders, all from East Anglia. There seemed to be more lighter beers (less than 4% alcohol) than usual, which is good as you can taste more without falling down. Those I particularly enjoyed included:

Iceni Celtic Queen and Raspberry Wheat

Old Chimneys Great Raft Bitter

Tindall Ales Liberator

Waveney Brewing Company Lightweight and

Wolf Brewery Straw Dog

One beer I was looking forward to wasn't there, though - I was hoping to being able to say to workmates that I had spent the Friday afternoon enjoying a tasty Essex Blonde.

But my personal Beer of the Festival was St Peters' Grapefruit. Absolutely delicious!