23 September 2016 Onehouse Lakeview Camp, Stowmarket, Suffolk

Another beautiful October autumn day in Suffolk! We spent the early part of the morning chasing emails; sometimes I think that the so called speedy online dealing with business matters is a prize joke. Finding one’s way through online forms and waiting for confirmation is a minefield.

It was a relief to find distractions by way of collecting Chris’s sister from her place in Stowmarket and heading up to the crematorium, that we stalled near three days ago. Chris was highly organised with water, bleach and the dish brush from my little kitchen, ready to attack the mould on their parents’ tombstones. Here in this corner of Suffolk, this crematorium operates like a factory line, one funeral lining up after another, and we had to find our way back through a crowd of mourners to the car.

Lunch out was a good idea after such a task, and even better because we stopped by the Rose & Crown, the public house that Mr & Mrs Clarke ran through the early and mid- 1950s. We sat over the day’s special of “fish, chips and peas” (with the amazing option of baked beans!) and mildly alcoholic drinks, the siblings reminiscing and debating the whereabouts of the dartboard, the juke box and the snacks offered back in the day when pubs were less of a restaurant than they are today. Although I have to say, after my limited experience of English pubs, this particular pub on the corner of a busy part of the town seems to epitomise the classic English pubs of old.

"Children" of the Rose & Crown

We asked Margie to direct us back to Stowmarket via charming villages taking the scenic route, and so we set off in the first instance toward Moreton Estate and there as we slalomed through the roundabouts, we heard the most ghastly knocking. A flat tyre? Chris pulled over and we got out, did the circuit to check the tyres and peered in a most secular and amateur manner beneath the car, and found nothing untoward. On a little more and it seemed even worse, so we turned into the Industrial Estate where we knew there to be a Kia dealer. 

The workshop manager was at lunch but we could wait, and so we opened the windows and sat doing exactly that. Seasoned driver Margie suggested that we give the wheels a wiggle with our hands, which we duly did. While Chris was checking the front passenger wheel, he happened to notice a wheel nut loose, and another, and another. All but one were about to drop off, as would the wheel had we travelled too much further. Out came the brace and the loose nuts were duly tightened, the garage staff advised the problem seemed to be remedied, and we set off yet again, stopping a couple of times more to check the wheel nuts had remained tight. It seemed we had diced again with death; first the rusty and rotten rear axle and now a loose wheel! (Thinking later about this, we decided that the mechanic who had checked our brakes at York must have removed the wheels as part of his inspection and failed to secure the wheel again.)

We returned to Stowmarket via Thurston, Beyton, Tostock, Elmswell, Wetherden, Haughley and home, past newly ploughed and harrowed fields, rowan trees laden with red berries and the occasional equally laden apple tree. After finishing our delightfully social day with cups of coffee and more family gossip, we retrieved one of our suitcases from Margie’s spare room for minor repairs. 

Back at camp we found a dozen or so caravans had arrived for a little weekend rally, and the suitcase which we knew to be mildly bruised from its journey in April, to be in a far worse state than expected. The interior wall had disintegrated, first with age, then the rough treatment it had received en route. In fact there was a strange loose mass inside the lining which required immediate identification. Thank goodness it was just a thousand pieces of broken plastic rather than planted illegal substances. It would seem that we will need to buy a new suitcase for our return, and the worst of that is the fact the suitcase belongs to my parents; we do not carry suitcases in our motorhome home in New Zealand.