Windy Family

Cousin Katrina last year set the precendent - you will all remember the hurricane of the same name and the devastation it wrought. Now I've just seen on the National Hurricane Centre website that my generation are featuring this year. Hurricanes John (me) and Kirsty (my sister and Katrina's mum) are currently active in the East Pacific off the coast of Mexico! I wonder who will be next?

Woolpit Children

On my Mid-Suffolk Villages cycle ride a couple of months ago I passed through Woolpit. The village sign, as you might just be able to make out in my picture of the information board in the centre of the village, depicts two children. This is because of the legend, from the 12th century of two 'green' children who were found nearby. I recently accidentally came across this account on a site about UFOs, Aliens and the paranormal - here.

Sometime during the 12 century, a monastic chronicler in England by the name of "Gervase of Tilbury" recorded a strange account of two "children" who suddenly appeared near a small town near Bury St. Edmunds, England. The account was also recorded in the writings of several other chroniclers who lived at the time or sometime afterwards. These include: William of Newbury -- HISTORIA RERUM ANGLICARUM, written in Yorkshire, England (1136-1198?); Abbot Ralph of Coggeshall -- CHRONICON ANGLICARUM; and also the chroniclers Giraldus Cambrensis and Walsingham. The account was more recently related in FLYING SAUCERS UNCENSORED, by Harold T. Wilkins (Citadel Press., New York, N.Y. 1955., pp. 97-98). From their combined accounts we can piece together the following bizarre story which the chroniclers swore to be true: One warm, sunny day in the 12th century some farmers and other residents of the small town of Wolfpittes, England (some seven miles distant from the larger village of Burry St. Edmunds) were startled to see two young children wandering around, as if disoriented, in some ancient 'pits' or 'trenches' known to the locals as the 'Wolf-Pitts' -- after which the small village had taken it's name. These excavations were ancient, but no one seemed to know when or by whom they were dug, but the consensus was that they were at least partly artificial, and very ancient. The most shocking thing about the children, which the residents of Wolfpittes encountered, was that they had skin which was olive-green in colour, yet the rest of their features were as human as the average Englishman.

The villagers attempted to communicate with the children but were unsuccessful, as they soon discovered that the young boy and girl spoke a language which was completely unfamiliar to the villagers. The townspeople had compassion on the children and took them to the village and offered them various different kinds of food, all of which they seemed unfamiliar with and which they refused. However, when they were shown some beanstalks, they took them greedily, but instead of opening the bean-pods, the children attempted to open the stalks themselves, as if they had been accustomed to opening stalks in this way (apparently a practice they had learned in the land from which they emerged). Upon finding nothing in the stalks, the children began to weep. Unfortunately, the shock of entering our world was too much for the young boy, and even though he became partly acclimated to other forms of food, he nevertheless became weaker and weaker and finally died as few years afterwards. The young girl, however, adjusted quite well to her new surroundings. In fact she eventually grew into a mature, beautiful woman, and later married a gentleman from the nearby town of Kings Lynn. As time passed, her husband patiently instructed her in the complexities of the English language, and soon she was able to communicate fairly well, and the story she told of where she had come from and how she had arrived in our 'world' with her brother was even more incredible.

She told her husband that her people all had skin similar to hers, or rather similar to what her skin had once been like, as over a period of years and exposure to the outer elements the greenish tinge had left her. She described her world as a cavernous, subterranean country of enormous size, a country which went by the name of "St. Martin's Land." The land in which she lived was described as 'twilight' in nature, yet there was a large underground river, on the other side of which there was another land more brightly lit. One day, she and her brother were herding some type of underground animal when they heard something like the sound of 'bells' emerging from one of the cave passages or tunnels which lined the perimeter of this underground land. Out of extreme curiosity, they entered this tunnel and followed the passage upwards for what could have been a few days, although in their underground land it is probable that they did not have any concept of what 'day' or 'night' was. After their long and weary journey up the steep incline they suddenly emerged into the brilliant sunlight of the British countryside. The change from their twilight world was dramatic, and the children walked around in the pits or trenches starved, half-blinded and disoriented. They shortly afterwards attempted to re-locate the small opening through which they had emerged, but were unable to do so, because of the blinding light. At about this point the farmers found the children and took them to the village.

I hate to be a party pooper, but I'm afraid I don't believe in all that twaddle. As feralchildren.com says in their comment on the story, the children were probably victims of civil strife, suffering from anaemia. But it's an interesting legend, nonetheless.

Natterer's Wood

Natterer's wood, as the sign says, is a site maintained by Woodland Ways, the Moreton Hall wildlife group of volunteers. It is literally just down the road from us, running alongside Mount Rd on the way into Bury St Edmunds. Until a couple of years ago it was just a bare field, but the group have been creating a new woodland.

The street lights along the Mount Rd cycle path beside the site are a curious design.

They were modified a couple of years ago to reduce light spillage away from the road, footpath and cycle path so as not to disturb the bats living the other side of the field. The colony includes Natterer's Bats - hence the name of the site.

In the new design for the site there is a wild flower meadow. It contains this peculiar ditch.

It isn't all straight. Here's a funny little corner...

Have you guessed yet what it is? There is a clue in the placename. And if you go to the Woodland Ways website, all is revealed...

Yes it is a giant bat! With a wingspan of about 200m! Here is the story in the Bury Free Press at its opening in March.

And now, according to last week's BFP, it has been nominated as 'wackiest project' in a national competition - The Environment Agency Action Earth Awards. It is on the shortlist and the winner will be announced on September 13th. I hope they win. It looks wacky enough to me.

Street Crime

Suffolk has one of the lowest crime rates in the country. But, here is a Street Crime reported in last week's Bury Free Press...

A bag of plums were the downfall of a pedestrian as he was standing on the side of the road in Coney Weston last Tuesday. The 65-year-old pedestrian was floored after the plums were thrown from a passing vehicle. Police are on the lookout for a silver car with a rear spoiler. The unfortunate victim suffered a bruised knee.

Monstrous!

Flatland

Yes we are back from our holidays in Holland. We were staying in Friesland, in the north of the country, near Sneek. It's sort of like the lake district in England, but without the hills. And I mean without any hills whatsoever. Not even the teeniest slope.

The journey was easy - from Bury St Edmunds it is only about an hour to Harwich, where we took the Stena Line High Speed Ferry to Hoek of Holland (crossing time 3 hrs 40 mins). Then it was another 2 1/2 hours to where we had a Landhuis holiday home at
Landgoed Esinga State between St Nicolasgaa and Langweer.

The former farm buildings, in the centre of estate, have been transformed into a restaurant. The seats outside are a reminder what Friesland is famous for...

... its Friesian cows.

There are lakes and canals everywhere. I'm sure there must be many times more boats than cars as a result. Here's the harbour at Hindeloopen, for example.

In Joure, the nearest town of any size to where we were, we found a rather charming "Shanty Festival" taking place in the main street.

Each of the choirs had their own nautical uniform. We got to the festival just in time to hear the last item on the programme - a singalong with all the choirs together (and audience participation too), including a rousing rendition of "John Brown's Body", sung in English, but with rather less reverent lyrics than the original!

We got to see and do all sorts of interesting things, kayaking, kite surfing (no we only watched that!) and, of course, cycling. Wow, they sure are bike-friendly. Dedicated cycle paths go alongside all the major roads and in the villages, where cycles share the road with vehicles, the speed limit is only 30 km/hr. And there are no hills!

We visited several of the "11 cities" - Sloten, population c1000, was the most charming, but the best thing we went to was the National Model Railway Museum. Here you can spend hours playing with the trains. And we did.

But for one small boy, his favourite thing was...

... the tractor in the play park on the holiday estate! I think he must be a natural Tractor Boy.

You can see loads more pictures from our holiday here.

Coming Soon - Interred Below Sea Level

Yes we are off to the Netherlands for a holiday. Watch this space.

National Horseracing Museum

Newmarket is just along the A14 from Bury St Edmunds, on the border with Cambridgeshire and is known as the home of British horse racing. The countryside all around is (if you will excuse the expression) studded with studs and there are not one, but two racecourses. (Er, yes, I did manage to go to the wrong course once one a company night out to the famous July races which are, not surprisingly, held at the July course).

The town has a unique environment consisting of the world's most extensive training grounds (situated on the world's largest expanse of tended grassland), over 2500 racehorses, some 70 licensed trainers and more than 60 stud farms where the racehorses of the future are bred. It was the original home of the Jockey Club, remains the headquarters of many national and international racing organisations and boasts two totally separate, dynamic and contrasting racecourses where some of the world's best flat racing takes place each year.

says the Newmarket Racecourses site.

Little Miss loves horses (and unicorns) so yesterday I took her and Little W to the National Horseracing Museum in Newmarket.

Just at the entrance we found this picture...

...which she claims is really a unicorn.

Anyway, we did the tour of the museum, taking on Special Agent Jockey Joe's mission, collecting clues along the way. It is aimed at those a bit older than our 6 and 4, but they enjoyed it nonetheless. It includes tasks like finding the grooming tools in the stable and drawing your favourite picture in the art gallery.

Our favourite had a black and brown horse, one either side of a fence.

The highlight of the visit, though, is the Practical Room. Here you can do some colouring in, find the microchip in the horse, see the different horsefeeds, weigh yourself and, best of all, go riding. A jockey is on hand to dress you up in silks and get you on the horse simulator. Here is Little Miss having a ride.

She loved it, as did Little W when he had his go (they have a minimum age of 4, so he was just old enough).

We finished with a visit to the tearoom, where there's an entertaining mural of horseracing characters.



We were only there for the afternoon, but next time we must go in the morning to watch the horses exercising on the heath.

No prizes for guessing what activity Little Miss has at the top of her list now for when we go away on holiday!

St Edmund's Curse

We noticed when we went into town that work has started on the controversial new development on the site of the old cattle market in Bury St Edmunds. The council says "We Listened" and explains Why Develop, but many people, myself included, aren't convinced.

In response, the Knights of St Edmund invoked the Curse of St Edmund.

In an attempt to prevent the desecration of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, one of England's most historic towns, the Knights of St Edmund have decided to unleash a 1,000 year old curse against Centros Miller Ltd., Miller group and Debenhams. These companies, in the face of overwhelming local opposition, want to construct a huge £80 million shopping development in the town which will fundamentally alter the character and lay-out of the town. The curse of St Edmund and St Edmund's reputation for extremely supernatural violence against those who threaten his Liberty, abbey, town or shrine, was familiar to everyone in medieval England....

The ancient curse of St Edmund has not been used for over 500 years, but with the determination of developers to destroy the whole character of a town laid-out almost 1,000 years ago, leaves the good people of Bury St Edmunds with no other option.

The curse was invoked 268 days ago, but it hasn't stopped the development yet. Will the curse succeed?

Splosh

The missus liked the sound of our King's Forest Walk and was miffed that we didn't bring her back any of those delicious raspberries, so we went back for a Sunday morning walk and took her with us this time.

Now, on Saturday we had more rain than the last three months put together and it showed. Little W and Little Miss couldn't wait to splash in the puddles with their wellies on.

The welcome wetness brought out the wet-loving wildlife. We saw loads of these little frogs jumping across the path.

And the snails were loving it too.

There were still lots of butterflies. Here is a Speckled Wood I managed to catch with my camera.

But what about the raspberries? Alas the had nearly all gone - eaten, picked or gone black, so we only managed to pick 3. But there are masses of blackberries that will be ripe soon. We'd better bring a bucket or two next time.

Enterprising Ideas again

Time to explain some more Enterprising Ideas

#8 Microbrewer

One of the things that impresses me about the local beer festival is the number of good ales from small breweries. It's years since I made some home brew, but, as my recent tour of the Greene King brewery reminded me, it is a pretty straightforward process. Maybe I could start my own. But with all the chillis I haven't the room without finding some other premises. And besides, could I compete with the wonderful Old Cannon Brewery? I think we'll put that on hold.

#9 Home PC Man

We were having christmas drinks at a friends where we introduced to some of their other friends. "What is it you do?", I was asked. When I mentioned computing, I got a common reaction - was I any good at fixing PCs. Well maybe I could do that as a business? But then I remembered how competitive the managed desktop services are in the outsourcing market and, looking at the Moreton Hall Directory, there's already somebody doing that locally fornham.net.

#10 Cult Leader

Now this one has got to be possible. Think how many TV evangelists or mystics have made a fortune. As Cult Success Secrets says...

Have you ever dreamed of being worshipped and adored?
Do you have the courage and brashness of character to lead an army of human sheep in a religion of your own making and earn thousands, perhaps millions of dollars? Would it delight you to be worshipped by a bevy of devotees who would die for you, their messiah?

Now how about a new age pagan cult making use of chillis (of course - that's got to be a USP) and chocolate (let's snag a few chocoholics) in its arcane rites? Something that involves supernatural powers, like Sung Chi-li, for example. And look here - I've found a helpful checklist of characteristics my cult should display.

First to recruit some members. Little Miss and Little W are up for it (providing they don't have to eat the chillis)....

What we need to do is to think of a name (how about Knights of the Mole Poblano - any other suggestions, anybody?), create a web-site, invent some spoof followers, a few rituals and publish. Big Miss is into building web-sites. The missus can be my High Priestess. Does anybody out there want to help set it up?

Yes! This is it! I think I've found my new career!

Meanwhile, I have to admit, I'm making some progress in finding work doing what I know already. Just in case this cult thing doesn't work out, of course. More anon.

Melford Hall

The weather was threatening, but the kids needed to be got out of the house. We hadn't been to the Elizabethan Melford Hall for a long time, so that's where we went. It is only a short trip from Bury St Edmunds - down the A134 towards Sudbury, then turn right into Long Melford.

The house and grounds are open 1:30 to 5pm each day in the summer.

We did the tour of the house, Little Miss doing the kids' King of Spain spy quiz, and little W looking for the original Jemima Puddleduck, and headed into the gardens for some exercise.

We didn't find any frogs in the pond, but while Little W was looking, his sisters disappeared.

They were hiding inside this tree!

The walls of the garden are covered in fruit trees - grapes on the wall by the flower beds, and apples, plums and pears along the side of the house by the agapanthus.

It was very tempting to pick some.

We hadn't been on the Park Walk before, so we did that too. You get a pleasing vista of the hall.

The walk is only about a mile, but beware of the sheep - their droppings are everywhere.

Dinosaur Hunt

Moyse's Hall Museum, overlooking the Market Place in Bury St Edmunds was awarded Small Attraction of the Year 2005 (under 100,000 visitors) by the East of England Tourist Board in October 2005.

We were in town and while the girls shopped, Little W and I had 45 minutes to spare after getting our holiday money at the bank, so we went to the museum for a little explore. When we signed in (it is free to residents of the borough) we found we could do a dinosaur hunt - 9 little dinosaurs are hiding around the building. And now little W has a "I hunted the dinosaurs" sticker!

Bressingham Steam Museum and Gardens

Little W loves trains. "Dad, can we get your train set out and play with it, please? Please!". But my Hornby 00 3-rail set (second-hand when I was given it 44 years ago) only comes out when we are stuck indoors for a few days. Instead we made a picnic and took a day-trip to Bressingham.

It's about 20 miles from Bury St Edmunds - up the A143 to Stanton, left onto the B1111 to Garboldisham then right along the A1066 towards Diss.

There is lots to do and, in high season, they have all three narrow gauge railway lines running. We started on the Garden Line, pulled by "Alan Bloom". Some soft toys have escaped and can be found around the track. We counted 21 animals in total.

We had our picnic in the Dell Garden.

You can see the Garden Line train going along the side. The flowers in the garden were very colorful, especially the Crocosmias.

You are allowed three rides on The Gallopers, a fantastic Victorian steam roundabout with jolly steam organ. Here's Little W with me on Clare (that's a coincidence having been in the place of that name the day before).

Big Miss was behind the camera.

The exhibition centre, which has a "Dads' Army" exhibition in addition to various model railways and railway memorabilia, has now acquired an "Only Fools and Horses" set and Peckham omnibus. Then there's the locomotive shed with the standard gauge engines and royal carriages (very plush).

We had fun in the Raydon Wood Signal Box changing all the signals.

The equipment comes from the Oakington Signal Box in Cambridgeshire.

We also visited the Foggy Bottom Garden, which is excellent for hide and seek. We lost Little Miss for 10 minutes.

But, at the end of the day, what we were really there for were the trains. Toby the Tram Engine took us around the Nursery Line.

But this engine, called Mannertreu, built by Krupp of Essen in 1937 for use in an exhibition park at Dusseldorf, was little W's favourite as it went the fastest.

We finished by visiting the garden centre and got a rather pretty Celosia Caracasto take home to Michelangelo Mummy. You can find more pictures from the day in my Flickr set.

Clare Country Park

Missus Michelangelo was at it again. "We're going out", I said to the kids. "I want to go to the play park", said Little W. "Me too", said Little Miss. Hmm. I had in mind something a little further afield. "I'll take you to a park you haven't been to for a long time". So we headed off to Clare and its Castle Country Park.

Clare is one of those large villages/small towns that Suffolk does so well. It is worth a visit for much more than just its childrens adventure park. We got there from Bury St Edmunds by driving down the A143 and taking the B1063 at Stradishall. We parked at the Country Park. "But, where's the play park?", asked Little Miss. "You'll have to find it", I answered.

The Country Park is situated in the old motte and bailey castle alongside the River Stour. It contains the old station...

closed in 1967. (There are no other known stations within the ramparts of a castle). The Visitor Centre in the old goods shed has a display and leaflets for 5 trails - Castle, Railway, Sensory, Nature and Heritage. But we did our own - hunt the play park.

You can climb a winding path around the motte to the remains of the keep. You get a good view of the town here.

But what the little ones really wanted is at the north end of the park, just inside the outer bailey.

Rather sneakily, I had got them to do an interesting walk around the park on the way.

We then went into the town to look for ice-cream. We got our lollies at the Co-op and had a little walk while we ate them. There is a town trail with 15 boards along the route describing some of the interesting buildings.

This is the Ancient House Museum, just by the church and town sign.

But ice lollies weren't enough for the grumbling tummies, so we didn't get to do all the trail. Instead off we went home for tea.

P.S. Summer holiday Events at the Country Park include the Chivalry in the Park combat re-enactment, on August 12 and 13, and a Castles and Dragons Day on August 24.

Nowton Park Quiz

Here's an update to a previous post about the Nowton Park Maze.

The have got a new quiz on for the summer holidays based on wildflowers. It is only 50p - get your map and grid to fill in from the rangers' hut by the car park. They will even lend you a pencil. There are no prizes, though - it is just for fun. We did it last week and enjoyed it just as much as last time.

By the way, it is worth mentioning that Nowton Park recently picked up a prestigious Green Flag award. Here is the press release. "Over 250,000 visitors a year". Wow. That includes us at least a dozen times - it is a lovely green space to have on our doorstep in Bury St Edmunds.

Interred Out West

We've had a few days visiting Aunty Kirsty and co. in Yate, near Bristol. We had 3 great days out.

We had a beach day. But instead of going to Weston-Super-Mud, we went a bit further - along the M4 into Wales to Rest Bay at Porthcawl.

It is a super sandy beach, next to the famous Golf Course and is reknowned for its surf. Indeed there were quite a few in while we were there. It is not at all commercialised, with just a small cafe and toilets and a well-staffed lifeguard station. If you want to check on the waves before you go, there is even a surf webcam.

We hadn't come equipped for surfing, though, so went rockpooling instead.

Our haul included only one crab, but lots of shrimps.

Our next day out was to the famous Bristol Zoo to see the mother-in-law.

Although on a fairly small site, they cram a lot in. Little W liked Bugworld, Little Miss liked the aquarium and Big Miss liked the penguins and seals. We all liked the baby gorilla.

They've just opened a new monkey house. Here is one of the inhabitants.

We were very tempted to leave them five more - our terrible trio and their two cousins, but we couldn't find where to book them in.

Our final day out was to Woodchester Mansion near Stroud.

Set in a lovely valley, owned by the National Trust, it is an unfinished gothic revival Victorian building. It is being restored to the state it was in when building stopped. We went on an excellent guided tour and got all of the history plus some interesting insight into the architectural innovations and building techniques. It is also a Site of Special Scientific Interest, mainly due to the presence of Greater an Lesser Horseshoe bats, who roost in the building. They have a webcam with microphone, adjusting the frequency so you can hear them echo-locate.

Thank-you Aunty Kirsty and Uncle David for a great stay. But now we are home we have to catch up on the washing and housework.

Best Ever Leaving Speech

Yesterday was the last day of the Bury St Edmunds cattle market Tea Hut. As you can see it was pretty busy.

It reminded me that when I left my job I said I would put some reminiscences on my blog. So here's one about last days...

About 20 years ago I was working for Britsh Gas at their Engineering Research Station in Killingworth, just north of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In those days they still had a typing pool. (Gosh that seems like another world, these days!) Anyway, one of the girls in the typing pool was leaving. So there was the usual gathering in reception and the handing over of leaving card, present and appropriate words from a senior manager. Her speech in response was the funniest I've ever heard...

I'd just like to say I've never met such a bunch of boring old f**ts in my life.

Cue embarrassed giggling all round. Nice one!

Update: I've spotted that a lot of visitors are coming to this blog via this post. Welcome! Do have a look around while you are here and leave me some comments if you like what you find.

And then there were 5...

...Bikes.



Fully loaded, I can get 4 bikes on carriers on the roof of my car. So, for us all to go on a ride together, Little W's goes in the boot.

On Tuesday we went to Ickworth Park again - this time to do the advertised "Family cycle ride", which turns out to be pretty much where we walked before. And not all on a proper road/cycleway surface...

Now, as you may be able to see from the picture, Little W is still using stabilisers. No problem on a proper level surface, like at the start and end of the ride, but once we got onto the footpath it was a little more tricky...

Naturally he aimed his front wheel down the centre of the path, which was a little rutted in places. So, every few yards, he would grind to a halt even though pedalling furiously - his stabilisers were lifting his rear wheel off the ground. It was funny, but he did get a bit fed up with it. "I don't want to go on the bike anymore", he said, and left me to carry it for the last 200 yds back to the metalled surface.

Hmm. Must bear that in mind for our next all-family biking expedition!

Enterprising Idea #7

#7 Photo Digitisation Service

Like many people who have taken lots of photographs over many years, I've got a large pile of 35mm slides from the 70's and 80's. I've often thought of digitising them, but having done some experimentation with my flatbed scanner and adapter, I wasn't overly impressed with the quality of the results and the time it would take to do each slide individually by this method is horrendous.

I'd noticed that people were advertising a service to digitise your slides for you. Current going rate is about 35p/slide minimum. Maybe I could set up a service to do that myself?

I did a bit of research. I could get scanning equipment and software for between £400 and £1000 (*Here* is a review of some of the options) - better speed and quality costs more. DigMyPics have a really good description of how they do it, with links to good reviews of their equipment.

But there is always a tradeoff. Quality costs time and storage space, but automated batch processing could give disappointing results. No I don't think I could sustain interest in doing it after a few weeks.

Oh, by the way, the picture is of the lake at Kilpisjärvi in the far north-west of Finland (near the point where Norway, Sweden and Finland all meet) from a 35mm transparency taken in September 1979. I scanned it at 2400 dpi on my Epson Perfection 1260 scanner.