Where is Everybody?

The Abbey Gardens in Bury St Edmunds has some lovely benches around the flower beds - great for stopping to admire the view, watch the people go by, and/or get a bit of a breather with your shopping on the way back to the Ram Meadow car park. They are generally pretty well occupied, especially at lunchtime, and even more so on market day, but look a this picture taken yesterday...

1:10pm on market day, and nobody to be seen? Where is everybody?

There they are! Yes it was too hot even for mad dogs in the midday sun.

Further Enterprising Ideas

#6 Home Inspector

Here's one that has just died. From 1st June next year, all home sellers have to provide a Home Information Pack (HIP). One of the main components of the pack is a Home Condition Report - an objective report on the condition of the property that can be relied upon by buyers, sellers and mortgage lenders. It is designed to be similar to the current Homebuyer Survey and Valuation - not as detailed as full structural survey but a lot more extensive than a mortgage lender's valuation inspection.

These reports are to be produced by trained Home Inspectors, and it has been estimated that about 7500 of them are needed. Companies like HomeInspectors.co.uk have sprung up to provide training and over 4400 people are currently undergoing training. It could be a useful niche job, with reasonable income prospects - I've seen suggestions of maybe £300/survey, and that you could expect to do 2 a day. Yes. I think I could do that.

I'd got as far as looking at what training was needed, although I suspected it was not really for me. But it has just been reported that the plans have changed - see this Times Online Article. Home Condition Reports are now no longer going to be mandatory when HIPS become compulsory on 1st June next year. It remains to be seen if they ever will.

I'm glad I'm not one of the 4400!

My Regular Bike Ride

It's a bit hot to be going far on my bike at the moment, so I've just been doing my regular ride. The short version is about 8 miles - the optional extension adds about 2 1/2 more.

I head up National Cycle Route 51 up to Battlies Green where it crosses Mount Rd at the turning towards the new A14 Rougham junction and turn down the road towards Great Barton, going over the railway, past Great Barton Place to Shinham Bridge. There are some rather nice cottages there.

I then turn right onto Green lane and turn right again when I get to Thurston Rd (the road from Great Livermere). Passing Barton Mere I get to the drive for The Grange Hotel.

One day I went along to have a look.

It was bit too early, otherwise I might have been tempted to go in for breakfast. It looked very peaceful - it is quite secluded. A plaque on the wall says it was built in 1895, but it is in a tudor style. The confetti on the patio showed it gets used for weddings - it looks a fine venue for a reception. I must go in some time.

Anyway, from the Grange Hotel I follow the road into Thurston, turning right onto Heath Rd. I am now back on NCR 51, which I follow back home, crossing the railway at a pedestrian crossing. I even had to wait for a train, once! (We don't get many round here).

For my optional extension I go past Heath Rd and turnleft just after the railway bridge towards Beyton. There I turn right onto Bury Rd, turn left just before the A14 towards Rougham, and turn first right into Church Rd passing Rougham church and primary school. At the T-junction I turn right towards Blackthorpe Barn, right again at Blackthorpe, under the A14 and back to the cycle path at the corner of Rougham Airfield where I left it.

It all fits on this map.

Some nice countryside, not many slopes and not much traffic. Better than using the cycling machine in gym any day - unless it's blowing a gale!

Bradfield Woods Butterflies

There is something refreshing on a hot day about going into the woods. I was all for going to Lynford Arboretum today, but that will have to wait for another time. Instead we returned to Bradfield Woods to search for butterflies. We had noticed there was a butterfly glade signed on our last walk there, so, leaving Big Miss to tidy her room, we set off for an hour or so's walk before lunch to see what we could find.

Sure enough, there were loads of insects on the wing with all sorts of different butterflies, and not just in the "butterfly glade". But they are tricky things to photograph as they flit about so! I managed to catch only 3 different sorts with my camera. This one landed underneath a leaf.

It turned out not to be a butterfly at all, but a moth - a Brimstone Moth.

We recognised this one straight away as a Comma.


The pretty little rings on the wings of this one are a clue to its name - a Ringlet.


Bradfield woods are actively managed and we passed the store of freshly cut logs on our walk.


This pile was particularly neatly stacked.


A nice cool walk on a hot day. And was Big Miss's room tidy when we got home? What do you think?

'Twere a beautiful day for a battle

It's strange how things pop up from your memory, but I couldn't help of thinking of this phrase today, which turns out to come from the poem The Battle of Hastings as told by Stanley Holloway. There wasn't a cloud in the sky all day.

Yes, today was the East Anglian Mediaeval Fair and Battle at Rougham Airfield, just East of Bury St Edmunds, and it lived up to all our expectations.

We went early so as to watch the Full Contact Sword Fighting Tourney. This was pretty impressive stuff. 16 knights (not all male) in a knockout tournament of 3-minute duels in armour that could, we were told, weigh 7 stone. Firstly, they were all introduced and we were invited to pick a favourite to cheer on. Naturally, the girls chose Matilda de Montfichet, but little W was supporting Sir William of Ely and I picked Sir John of Lancaster. No "Conan the Librarian" to support this year, unfortunately - he was our favourite last year.

The fights were judged by a panel of 4 with 2 marshals to intervene in the case of illegal blows or injury. The wacks were pretty ferocious at times - the armour had plenty more dents afterwards and the blows elicited plenty of Oohs and Ows from the crowd, who shouted encouragment like: "Come on, the bumblebee" or "Cut his legs off".



Matilda beat Sir John of Lancaster and made it through to the semi-final, where, I think she took too many 'bops on the head' from the black knight, Sir Julian of Bouffant (no not Bad Sir Brian Botany). He himself lost in the final to the quick and terrier-like Sir Edward of Norton.

After that, the raucous Schelmish gave the first of their sets.

They have acquired a third percussionist since last year, so are louder than ever. The shoes are pretty impressive too. (Not to mention the pink frilly underwear and codpiece revealed in the second set later).

Destrier then gave us a competition of hunting games on horseback. The two teams each had a foreigner on. Sir Wolfgang was the nasty german and Sir Guy the nice frenchman, and we were encouraged to cheer to determine who won. Naturally, the Schelmish fans were cheering for the german, but they were outcheered.

The Paladins of Chivalry...
gave a dancing display while we sat in the food tent. The girls had each got something from a trade stall, so eventually we had to relent and buy little W the new sword he had been clamouring for. The little ones were then taken home and I was allowed to enjoy the delights of the beer tent, with its fine selection of local ales.

My camera battery was running low, so I didn't get any pictures of the jousting, which was done in full armour...
Plenty of broken lances ensued.

Then, after the artillery demonstration, came the Battle of the Flags re-enactment. Like most battles it was rather confusing, but looked like a good melee to finish the day. Great fun! And so I walked on home mediaevalled out for another year.

If you would like to see more of my photos of the event, you can find them here on Flickr.

And, finally, one thing we noticed in the programme is an event coming up at the same venue on October 21/22 - The feast of Samhain - the original Harvest Festival.

A fun filled fantastic event for the whole family to enjoy, with Fireworks, Bonfires lit by Flaming Arrows, Games, Traditional Fun Fair, Competitions, Dragons, Falconry, Story Telling, Theatre, Have a Go Archery, Face Painting, Spectacular Displays including Fire Performers, Sword Fighting, Kite Stunts, Model Aeroplane Aerobatics, Dancing, Punch & Judy, Music, Sword Fighting, Burning the Wicker Man, and a Medieval Witch Trial! Plus Trade stands, Crafts, Fine Food and Drink marquee, Quality Caterers, and a Beer Tent featuring local beers and real ales.

We can't wait!

Do Frogs eat Onions?

...asked the missus looking out the kitchen door. "What?", I said. "Something has been eating my onions. I bet it is that frog." I've not managed to catch it on camera yet, but, yes, we have a frog living among the chilli pots and tomato and aubergine grow-bags. The watering they get must make them a bit of a haven in this weather. And yes we also have some onions there too, and something has been nibbling them.

But do frogs eat onions? Well of course they do. The french are famous for their onions, aren't they?

Poetry

Big Miss was very excited. She had a letter from the USA. In the window of the envelope was her 16 line poem "The foamy sea in your eyes" that she had submitted to poetry.com - the International Library of Poetry. (I refuse to provide a hyperlink, for reasons that will become apparent).

After carefully reading and discussing your poem, our Selection Committee has certified your poem as a semi-finalist in our International Open Poetry Contest. Your poem will automatically be entered into the final competition held in July 2006. As a semi-finalist, you now have an excellent chance of winning one of 104 cash or gift prizes--including the $1000.00 grand prize...
And that's not all...
..In celebration of the unique talent that you have displayed, we also wish to publish your poem on its own page in what promises to be one of the most highly regarded collections of poetry we have ever published...

Immortal Verses

The letter went on to say she was under no obligation to do anything, but she could reserve a copy with a small deposit.

I was suspicious. How much was this book going to be? The enclosed leaflet explained it would be high quality and she could get it for $49.50 - a $20.00 discount on the 'Publisher's List Price' of $69.95.

Now I really was suspicious. No she couldn't get the book. Still she was really excited. "I'm a semi-finalist! I'm going to be published!" She rushed off to tell her mates.

I did a bit of a search. Poetry.com Scam says

Poetry.com is a fraud publishing organization that features it's online writing contest. It literally accepts 100% of applicants as 'Semi-finalists' in their 'international poetry competition' and sends a letter to the poor victims. The letter is full of flattery saying that you are a wonderful poet and the 'sectional committee' or 'panel of judges' has decided your poetry is good enough to be published.

Oh dear. And Poetrynotcom goes into more detail. The amazing thing is that poetry.com has been going for years, despite concerted attempts to get it removed from the web. There is nothing actually illegal about what they do, which is why they are still going, but I think they should come clean about publishing the poems only of people who offer to buy the book, and that they only sell the book to those people.

The missus went to fetch her and tell her. Poor thing. Still, she got a good laugh out of the Making Light review of attempts to write the worst possible poems to be accepted as semi-finalists. (Apparently nobody has yet succeeded in writing one bad enough not to be accepted). Flubblebop is my favorite:

flobble bobble blop
yim yam widdley woooo
oshtenpopple gurby
yip yip yip
nish-nash nockle nockle
opfem magurby voey
Ahh! “Wurby tictoc?”
“quefoxenjib masaloouterp!”
bim-burm nurgle shliptog
afttowicky wicky wicky
erm addmuksle slibberyjert! …
ILP declared it a semifinalist, and published it in their Promises of Love anthology

Our plan is to submit an acrostic poem and see if we can get it published. We've only written the first letter of each line so far:
p
o
e
t
r
y
.
c
o
m
i
s
a
s
c
a
m

"I beg your pardon...

...I never promised you a rose garden." That probably dates me.

One of my favourite places in Bury St Edmunds at this time of year, is the rose garden in the Abbey Gardens.

About a year ago, a new rose, the St Edmund Rose was planted in commemoration of the completion of the cathedral tower and visit of Prince Charles and Camilla. All the roses in the picture below were snapped in the rose garden on Saturday. The question is, can you spot which one is the St Edmund rose?

Hmm. I can smell the divine scent just looking at the picture.

Plumber?

Not me...

There is no reason why anyone should have to call out a plumber to service a WC cistern.

So says the Collins Complete DIY Manual. Maybe I'm not just anyone.

The cloakroom toilet flush has been getting worse and worse. And now it is hardly ever working. Diagnosis - torn diaphragm in the cistern syphon. (Doing OK so far!).

At Marlows the other day I picked up a new syphon (for £4 less than at Homebase), and today I tackled doing the replacement. Easy-peasy? Err...

I had instructions from the Ultimate Handyman. (It's amazing what you can find on the web). Unfortunately it didn't go quite to plan:

The WC had been installed and then the pipes enclosed. This meant the connection to the water supply could not be undone without removing the (nicely painted over) wooden housing. OK so I pulled it off. Yes I'll have to do some painting later.

Similarly the connection to the overflow pipe could not be undone without cosmetic damage. Well I undid the cistern from the wall first which meant I could undo it without ripping the rest of the housing apart.

One of the screws holding the cistern to the wall was so rusted it had no discernable slot. This one took me ages! Eventually the rawlplug gave up gripping the plasterboard and I was able to saw the screw off.

The nut holding the syphon in place was too big for any of our spanners or wrenches. OK. So I went out and bought a bigger pipe wrench.

But I got the cistern off, removed the old syphon, (yes the diaphragm was in tatters), put the new syphon in its place and put everything back together again. I turned the water mains back on....

Woosh! Water spurted out from the connection between the water supply and the cistern. Ooops. I redid the connection and made sure it was tight. I turned the mains back on...

The ball valve was getting jammed. OK I can sort that later. Lets try a flush...

Woosh! Water spurted out from the joint between the cistern and pan. Ooops. At least the toilet flushed OK. But I have a leak when I flush.

So I took it all off and put it back together again. Lets try a flush...

Woosh! Water spurted out from the joint between the cistern and pan. Again. Aargh!

Time to get a new rubber seal. OK. Got that. Try again tomorrow....

No. Becoming a plumber is not a good Enterprising Idea.

Laundryman

I didn't get as long in Lavenham on Monday as I would have liked. I had to dash back to be in for the nice man from GCR Appliance Spares who was due to come and look at the washing machine. It had stopped working on Saturday - the motor just wasn't turning.

The prognosis was not good. The brushes on the motor had worn out, but after replacing them the motor still wouldn't work. It was also possible that the circuit board had been damaged too. At a minimum of £150 to repair and possibly more than £200... It was time to get a new one.

Now there are plenty of places to buy washing machines in Bury St Edmunds. We visited Currys and Powerhouse (next to Homebase, in Easlea Rd, off Bedingfield Way) on Monday evening to get and idea of what was available and then did some research on the web. Yesterday it was my job to go and find us a machine.

As well as Comet, I thought I'd look in on Peter Watts in Risbygate (GCR shares premises with them there) and they gave me a very good price on a Hotpoint Ultima machine - as they are just across the road from Comet, they have to be competitive with them.

I had a quick look around elsewhere, but couldn't find anything better for the price, so I went back and bought it*. I would rather support a local business than one of the chains anyway. And, unlike other places, not only was delivery free, but the charge for removal of the old machine was only £10. And, what is more, it was delivered by 3:45pm the same day! The missus is dead chuffed. It looks cool too, don't you think? Lovely job!

So today it is my job to catch up on the washing. Ho hum.

*For the curious, if there are any, we got an end of line model, the Hotpoint Ultima WT940P, which takes a 7kg load, has 1400 rpm spin, and does a "Super Silent Wash" plus loads of other features. It is made in Britain.

Healthy Living Pays Off!

Yes, I have been running a healthy living campaign. But I didn't expect it to have this big an effect...

Do you seek long life and happiness? Go east, to the Moreton Hall housing estate, on the edge of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.

Breathe in Moreton Hall's rejuvenating vapours of flowers, fresh-cut grass and, if the wind is right, the odd whiff from the nearby sugar beet factory mingling with hops from the town centre brewery.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that Moreton Hall (population 6,000) has the longest average life expectancy of all 8,000-plus council wards in England and Wales.

In results suggesting a correlation between long life and prosperity, Moreton Hall, with an average life expectancy at birth of 93.4 years, pipped the Lake District village of Greystoke (91.3) and Didcot Ladygrove, Oxfordshire (90.3).

Read all about it in this Daily Telegraph Article.

So another 45 years for me yet. Off to the Moreton Hall Health Club now for my Tuesday morning session.

Lavenham by Bike

On my ride on Friday evening to Bradfield St Clare I got as far as Cockfield Great Green, where I was surprised to see a sign saying it was only 4 more miles to Lavenham.

Lavenham is a lovely place to visit, so yesterday I did a bit of longer ride to Lavenham and back. I plotted a route that avoided all major roads and set off. [From Great Green I headed along Felsham Rd then turned right to Thorpe Morieux, then turned right towards Hill Farm and Manor farm, but took a wrong turning that meant I was on the A1141 for about 1/2 mile, before turning off to go down to Frog's Hall and then into Lavenham].

As I was hurtling down the hill to Frog's Hall I saw a 'Ford' sign. Oh-Oh. I hadn't spotted that on the map. Fortunately it was dry!

I locked my bike to a lamppost just across the road from Little Hall.

It was only 11:45, but this school trip were having their lunch already...

One place I just had to photograph, is the famous Swan Hotel.

It features on some place mats we got as a wedding present in 1990 - long before we moved to Suffolk.

I was tempted to call in at the Greyhound Inn, but I was a little short of time. Surely these hanging baskets wouldn't be allowed in Bury St Edmunds?

Instead I got some liquid sustenance from a grocery shop and set off back home. [I headed back towards Preston St Mary, then on toward Brettenham, turning left at Mill corner about 1/4 mile past Old Buckenham Hall School towards Felsham, thence Gedding, Hessett, Beyton and Blackthorpe].

I was home in just over an hour, which is not bad going, but I did have a good following wind most of the way. In total I did about 33 miles - yes my legs are feeling it a bit today!

Sebert Wood School Ofsted Report

Little Miss had her picture in the BFP on friday...

...in amongst the other 300 or so pupils at Sebert Wood!

At least I think I can see her, but the missus isn't convinced.

I tried the online version of the article High Praise for School
but the picture is a too low resolution to help.

Anyway, the news is that the report from the Ofsted inspection last month has been published, and it's one to be proud of - at least 'good' in every category and 'outstanding' in Personal development and well-being and Care, guidance and support. Well done Mr. Rice and all the staff!

You can read the full report here - Ofsted report on Sebert Wood CP School, but don't take too much notice of the map if you are trying to find the school - the circle should be up at the top left hand corner, I think. Unless, that is, they've built some classrooms in the apple trees along Bedingfield Way that I don't know about.

Ickworth Park Walk

Yesterday morning Little W said he wanted to go for a long walk. So instead of going to the gardens, we thought we would do an extended walk in the Park at Ickworth House. The Park was created by Capability Brown, and, in all is about 1800 acres.

Coming out of the car park, we turned in the opposite direction from going to the house, along the the road towards the Dower Cottages and Kings Meadow. This takes you right up to the northerly end of the park, coming down the hill to the River Linnet near the south corner of Mordaboy's Wood.

I do love these trees that are left standing in the fields.

The River Linnet is barely more than a trickle at the best of times.

We followed the path south along the west side of the river. This stump, near the White Houses just asked to be climbed.


The Canal is covered in lilypads. From here you can see the summerhouse, vineyard, church and Ickworth house itself.
We walked through the vineyard (the grapes are barely the size of pips yet) and back up the hill, just in time to head home for lunch. It took us about 1 1/2 hours in all.

So Little W (4) got his long walk, but his sisters (6 and 11) both complained it was too long for them!

White Hot Chillis

After my Infra-red Bury St Edmunds post, Andrew from down the road suggested in a Flickr comment that I try using the white colour balance feature of my camera in conjunction with the IR filter. So here's the result on looking into the greenhouse at the chillis.

White hot plants!

And while we are here, let me give you an update on the "Chilli Farm". Here's a normal colour picture of the greenhouse and surroundings...

It's a bit of a jungle, with all those tomato plants and a few aubergines in among the chillis. We've got them all along the back of the house too.

The guajillo chillis are coming along nicely...

You might be able to make out a few fruits in the picture, if you expand it by clicking on it.

We also have fruits on the Fiesta, Habanero Orange, Chinese 5 Colour, Tokyo Hot and Medusa plants, but not yet on the Fatalli or Black Pearls. The Medusa chillis do look strange...

You can see how they got their name.