2^nd February 2020

Dear All,

We were down in Hove for grandparent duties Tuesday and Wednesday with good journeys both ways. On Wednesday we took Albert to Brighton to visit a few places from “The Secret Brighton” book. These included the “Loaves & Fishes” sculpture, the Toy Museum and the Jewish quarter.

The Toy Museum is not large but packed with vintage toys including vast numbers of trains and displays of iconic names like Meccano, Dinky, Corgi etc. To make it more interesting for small children they had included a number of Lego men amongst the exhibits and Albert was very sharp in spotting these.

 Loaves & Fishes sculpture

 

Toy Museum

Jew Street

 

Jew Street

On the Bus

 

Gull with lunch

Amelie demonstrating the Yoga method of putting your shoes on!

We walked on the beach after and spotted a gull eating a baby shark.

On returning home we found that the thermostat in the fish tank had misfunctioned and cooked all the tropical fish which was especially disappointing as several babies had been born recently.

The swimming pool was still sparsely populated on Monday with our car load of four providing half the occupants. In the evening I had a garden talk at Wickhambrook about 40 miles away on a cold damp evening which made me ponder how much longer I wanted to continue turning out especially in the winter. To make things worse there was a a 5 mile queue on the A14 so I had to take to the villages to make it in time.

Biographies this week featured “T. E. Lawrence” of Lawrence of Arabia fame. He was a complex character as described in one biography entitled “Hero or Charlatan”. According to the presenter the famous film “Lawrence of Arabia” got a lot of things wrong but captured his character quite well.

T.E. Lawrence

This week’s walk started at Ingham north of Bury St Edmunds on light sandy land so we escaped mud for the first time for several weeks. The route took in Culford school grounds where some pupils were having a golf lesson – just like our own school days! It was a good walk including the River Lark with a good collection of water birds. On the downside it was very odiferous with the smell of Bury Sugar beet factory blending with numerous piggeries and an odd bonfire.

Culford School

Egyptian geese

Culford Bridge on the River Lark

We were on the streets Friday night and it was busy being pay day and Brexit but well behaved with little trouble. We had two ambulance incidents, one a large lad completely comatose with wide dilated pupils suggesting ketamine indulgence and a severely sick girl for whom a helpful passerby had ordered an unnecessary ambulance.

We watched Over at West Wratting yesterday in very exciting game where Over were 2 up in 6 minutes but West Wratting equalised for 3 v 3 in injury time.

With love

Mike & Kate