In the last days of September, we went on a five day voyage of discovery to see aeroplanes at Duxford, Sutton Hoo, Ely cathedral, Wicken Fen, the Tide Mill at Woodbridge and the castle and oysterage at Orford. Fen country. Somewhere we had never explored. And I forgot to take my camera. Bof … but the quinces made up for it.
Sutton Hoo has wonderful circular walks, a 1930s house just as Edith Pretty left it – even with graffiti (bad!), carved into the mantelpiece by the Land Girls during the war. That day, as we walked through into the sitting room, a very cultured lady was playing the grand piano, (as to the manor born) …
Don’t forget to visit the potting shed – the nostalgia is palpable. Enter and jot down your memories (if you’re old enough!). Otherwise, you have a time capsule to wonder at, which was not so long ago. But a very different world from today.
Sutton Hoo is a delightful site, with a much recommended museum, and a well run National Trust shop. I was hurried on past the café, so can’t report on that … but bought damson jam – tart and fruity. Many of the treasures found here now fill a room in the British Museum but there remains a small bejewelled room, full of especially exquisite objects.
The magnificence of Ely cathedral is not to be missed. The fabulous Toppings independent bookshop is nearby, where we were offered coffee and biscuits, and later lugged a weighty Taschen tome of Dali’s work back to the car. Also couldn’t leave without a Woody Allen retrospective by Tom Shone and published by Thames and Hudson. Ely, Dali, Woody and later on at our very upmarket B&B, a welcome by Cindy and Snowy, the dog.
Two rather knowledgeable and enthusiastic gentlemen accompanied us around Woodbridge Tide Mill – and then we sat by the railway, which follows the shoreline, eating malted ice creams. The train, extraordinarily, chugs along regularly – all the way from Liverpool Street!
There’s something out on a limb about this part of the world. We saw a signpost to Wicken Fen. It was almost five o’clock but we drove on just in case it was still open to visitors. The National Trust shop closes at 5.30pm but we were told the fen is open 24 hours. Boardwalks snake mysteriously through the reeds and as the sky began to flush pink at the end of the day I felt we might encounter a medieval peasant with his scythe as we struck deeper and deeper into the marshy fen – we didn’t. Small birds flittered here and there, frogs lurked in the watery depths, and goodness knows what would have emerged if we had stayed until dark. My head was filled with the peace of solitude and evening birdsong.
On our way back, we passed by a pub called ‘The Unruly Pig’, which was undergoing alterations. “Back on our trotters late November” it read …
We found our night’s sojourn through the Alastair Sawday site – Melton Hall is somewhere to return to. Cindy had bucketloads of beautiful, lumpy, yellow, giant quinces and packed me a bag to take home. These are my only photos of our trip. Quinces are truly magical. They are woody and jolie-laide but their perfume, even without cooking, fills the kitchen. I want to grow quince trees. It could become an obsession – something that is both lumpy and beautiful … irresistible!
Magical 1
Magical 2
Then it was the castle tower at Orford and a lunch of plump oysters at Orford’s famous Butley Oysterage, followed by a walk along a banked up path bordering the estuary opposite Orford Ness. Old, creaky fishing boats tugged at their moorings, the tang of salty waves slapping at their sides, grizzled old men immersed over their pots and ship’s tools, meditatively, joyously, pottering. I jotted down some of the names of the boats. Sea Pearl, Moonbeam, Lady Mildred, Riverbird, Mary Ann, Jitterbug.
It could have been the 1950s. We spotted an Agatha Christie character in tweed skirt and beret, walking her black and white dog purposefully across the field below us. ‘Oh, why do you walk through the fields in gloves …’ … and all the while that melancholy feel of the last of summer, seeping, like the incoming tide, through the landscape. A cool evening draught catching at your neck, the possible need for a warm scarf – still in the drawer at home.
Magical 3
Yellows – fragrant quinces, bottles of mead at Orford castle, reeds at Wicken Fen, malted ice cream, yellow painted bi-planes and sunshine still radiating through the trees as we broke out of the slow pace of a dream filled landscape onto the motorway. Heavy duty lorries in convoy were grinding remorselessly on towards the city lights. I shut my eyes and breathed in the fragrance of the quinces as John continued to drive westwards.
A bowl of quinces