Felixstowe Beach

The quickest trip to a beach from Bury St. Edmunds is to head straight down the A14 to Felixstowe. Yes it's a big container ship port, but the sea front is fine. Although not as pretty as Southwold (have I really not mentioned yet it is my favourite Suffolk seaside town?), it does also have some pretty beach huts. They were still parked for the winter here.



After 1/2 an hour walking south we had got quite a way from the town centre. The beach is sandy and goes on and on...


We brought our buckets and spades, but where has Big Miss gone? She was more interested in clambering on the piles of boulders that make up the sea defences!


The beach goes on in the other direction too.


At the pier there the usual amusements. We didn't go in, but Little Miss wanted to - she wanted one of these horses.


It was a good morning out, leaving the oven to turn itself on for the Sunday roast while the Missus caught up with her schoolwork.

Broadband?

I've been having trouble with my broadband connection. My Freeserve, then Wanadoo, and now Orange connection had been working fine for the last couple of years, but suddenly it died,. It took me weeks to persuade Orange to send me a new Livebox - the old one just wouldn't synchronise although my old Speedtouch modem worked fine.

No I wont rant, but even now it's not right...


The speeds seem to be the wrong way round. Shouldn't download be faster than up? There appears to be some congestion at the exchange. This site says there is a problem with Virtual Paths. Lets hope they fix it soon. Anyone else have problems around here?

Eclipse

It was a total lunar eclipse last night and we had a great view of it from the back garden. I thought I'd see if I could take some photos of it, but discovered I had lost the shoe that connected my camera to my tripod. Grrr!

Instead we had to make do with a kitchen chair and some books to prop the camera up. The Missus joined in to take some of the pictures as she is teaching science classes and it would make a good topic. Getting the exposure and focus right was pretty tricky and the chair on the back lawn wasn't really a steady enough platform for some of the lengthy shots, but we got a few decent ones. Alas sleep got the better of us and we gave up before the full moon was returned, but we got enough for the Missus to use in a presentation at school. Here's the result...

Not bad, but it's a pity I couldn't use my tripod!

West Stow Statues

West Stow Country Park is a regular spot for us to walk. Generally we walk along the nature trail, around the lake and/or along the River Lark, but it is also worth going in the other direction - east past the playground and away from the Visitor Centre. Look out for the statues along the way.

The path goes parallel to the road to start with. Watch out out for this on the ground.

At the far end turn right towards the old redbrick pump house. This area used to be a sewage works until the 1950s. By the pump house you can find this cheerful chappie.

Follow the path on down to the river and you will find a bird hide with good views over Lackford Lakes.

Walking back, parallel to the river you come to my favourite...

Easter Island in Suffolk. To give you some idea of the size, here is Little W inspecting it.

What is it doing there? I think we should be told.