We arrived here on Friday having had a relatively uneventful trip
across from Oxford on the A40 and M40, joining the M25 before heading north and
across into Suffolk on first the A11 then the A14. We decided that this route
via major motorways, although longer than the alternative across a maze of
roundabout-ridden A-roads, would make for a more straight forward trip,
something we would not have decided to do had we consulted Chris’s sister
first. She subsequently told us a horror story of delays when delivering one of
her daughters to Stansted Airport just
the week before.
After packing up camp
on Home Farm, our hostess came over to wish us well whilst carrying a cherry
pie over to the gate sale table. She sells jars of jam and baked items as an
aside to the little camp, supplementing their pensions and any income that
might be generated from the small land holding behind the house. I asked if she
made crab-apple jelly from the fruit laden trees which formed our privacy
hedge; she told us she never had but that the birds arrived in January to feed
on the apples, still hanging on the tree after a further two months of autumn
winds. However she said she did make apple pies with the Bramley apples of which
there had been a heavy crop this year. In fact one of those pies was there on
the table having been cooked earlier in the morning. I remarked that we loved
apple pies and committed to the purchase before learning her price. The £2.80 was somewhat heftier than the £1 we have
been regularly paying at all of the main stream superstores. Chris was appalled
and reckoned it would have to taste three times better to warrant the
exorbitant price; I can report that it was certainly twice as good, but I shall
try to be a little less spontaneous in future. Chris was also concerned on
another level, having seen the interior of her kitchen.
On arrival
at our new “home” for the next week or so, our host was pleased to see us
again, and was happy to chat; something he excels at. He explained the problems
he has been having with moles and showed Chris his traps. These seem to have
been occupying his time more than the progress on the bathroom block; I had
been hoping he might have got around to installing the promised washing
machine. Sadly, not.
Today we
have been spring cleaning the van; Chris up on Ivan’s ladder on the roof before
washing the outside of the van whilst I crawled into cupboards scrubbing and
vacuuming, not necessarily in that order. Over the past couple of days we have
caught up with Chris’s sister and one niece, as well as securing a date for a
family dinner the week after next. Tomorrow we will check out garages in Bury
St Edmunds for an annual service and other like matters. It looks like a fortnight
of bits and pieces ahead, although I have managed to interest Chris in a few places
around the county I wish to check out before we leave.
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