Farewell my lovely Hymer

SADLY, this will be my last entry in this blog for the foreseeable future.

We have sold the Hymer to a lovely couple from Devon, and wish them many happy holidays in it.

Early in the summer we acquired a cottage and we have been spending so much time renovating it that we haven’t been able to use the motorhome. It was costing us money to store, tax and insure, so we reluctantly decided to part with it. We hope to resume our travels in a smaller van in a couple of years’ time.

On the road again

We're just back from a great week in East Anglia. Read all about it below. Scroll down to April 22 to start.

Thetford Forest, and a few of life's little mysteries

April 29, 2013

WE decide to halve the distance to our next scheduled stopping point, my brother-in-law’s house in Hertfordshire, by breaking our journey at Thetford Forest overnight.

The Waveney Farm Shop off the A413 proves a happy hunting ground, and we emerge with Gloucester Old Spot bacon for our breakfast.

Signs to Grimes Graves tempt us off track, and how glad we are. We discover it’s the site of a Neolithic flint mine, now cared for by English Heritage. We wander across a wonderfully peaceful landscape, pockmarked by filled-in mineshafts, with no sound other than the song of the skylark, then don hard hats and descend 30ft into the gloom of a large central pit, surprisingly untroubled by my usual claustrophobia.  Really interesting.

Next stop is Weeting, where we pull in at the nature reserve and are lucky enough to see two stone curlews sitting on nests scraped out of the rough ground.

By the way, does anyone know why, after you’ve gone over a level crossing, you often see a sign saying “Park here and use phone at crossing”? A bit late by then, isn’t it? What for, and why go backwards?

We stay on a very calm and neat Camping and Caravanning Club site near Wretham, with a network of woodland walks alongside. The air is full of birdsong, and the crowning glory is a nightingale singing right outside the van at dusk.

Our trip’s at an end, but our homeward journey throws up two of those questions that are destined to remain forever unanswered.

1)      Why was there a lone bagpiper standing in a field by the side of the A11, right in the middle of nowhere, shortly before the A1303 turn-off?

2)      2) Why does Hertfordshire dub itself ‘County of Opportunity’ on its signposts? Given the potholed state of the roads, it’s an opportunity to be shaken to bits, according to David.

A stray starling at Orford

April 28, 2013

AFTER a lazy morning we’re off to Orford, where a rose-coloured starling has been seen over the last few days.

Passing the Friday Street Farm Shop we decide to drop in for some supplies, and are very glad we did. Delicious russet apple juice, free range chicken and pork, and smoked chilli cheese are just some of the delights we bagged. Unfortunately we forgot to go back round to the veg aisle, limiting our options for tonight’s menu quite severely.

Again, it’s bright sunshine but freezing. Blackthorn is coming into blossom along the lanes as we head into Orford. There’s no trouble at all locating the starling, which ought really to be in eastern Europe. Because as we approach the village there are a gaggle of men in camouflage jackets with massive cameras and telescopes on tripods, all trained on a suburban-looking garden.

The owner of the garden says he’s surprised the poor bird’s lasted this long, as he has two cats. But there it is, perching very obligingly on top of a TV aerial where even I can make out its distinguishing features.

The village, with its pretty redbrick cottages and its black shacks on the beach, is looking very springlike as long as you don’t venture out of the warm van into the bitter wind for more than a couple of seconds.

We park and buy ice cream – why?

Then we sit in the Hymer on the quay eating lunch, watching a cute little river cruise restaurant boat berthing right in front of us, and David points out the derelict atomic weapons research establishment across the water.

He also points out a refuge on stilts, built to protect National Trust nature reserve wardens in the event of flooding, which makes me wonder why you’d build an atomic research facility in a flood zone.

We head back to Aldeburgh, where David drops me for a little window-shopping while he has a nap in the car park. The town has a very attractive mix of quirky old buildings, and I drop in for a quick tour of the Thompson’s gallery, where I’d like to linger longer.

Another stop-off on the way back to our Lowestoft site, for a look at the substantial ruins of Leiston Abbey, which must have been hugely impressive in its medieval heyday but which I found a bit unnerving, for reasons unknown.

The world outside my window

Later that same day ………..

DOGGER, North Utsira, South Utsira .. as I sit sipping wine and gazing out over a flat calm evening sea with big ships on the horizon and little coloured lights blinking on and off in the distance, I know it’s all going on out there.

The thing I find quite strange about camp sites is that there are people parked quite close on either side of us, but we don’t know them and we might not even like them if we did. I can’t quite kid myself that I’m getting away from it all.

Also there seem to be rather a lot of orders to follow on this site, and too many health and safety posters warning us that we can slip on wet floors, or that the hot water from the hot tap is hot. There’s even a door code to the loo. The place is beautifully maintained, but there is such a thing as being too well-ordered.

Having said which, the position of this site takes some beating.

We’ve been tucking into some brilliant pork and apple burgers from Southwold farmers’ market, with spring onion crushed potatoes and what David calls asparagus and courgette surprise, stir-fried. I’ll have to get him to write down how he does all this.

Snape - a great place to shop

April 27, 2013

STRAIGHT off to Snape Maltings, where I expected to spend a couple of hours looking at art exhibitions but ended up whiling away half the day.

“Another retail opportunity” was how David summed it up.

It was bitterly cold outside, which helped persuade us to stay under cover. But how lucky a chance that was …

There was a huge and very high-class home and garden shop, and there were little shops attached to each art and craft exhibition, so a great deal of present-buying was done.

Plus there was a food shop with cake and wonderful cheeses, most of which disappeared immediately after we returned to the Hymer for coffee.

Outside, there were Hepworth and Moore sculptures to admire.

Sadly, given my interest in buildings, we didn’t see inside the auditorium, because of signs saying ‘Ticket holders only’. Maybe we should have pushed our luck and just wandered in.

“I’m all shopped out,” I groaned as we put down our bulging carrier bags on a seat in the Hymer.

“Then this is a truly jaw-dropping moment,” replied my long-suffering other half.

Fresh air was the only thing that would do. So we droved to Aldeburgh – one of us making a mental note to save the shops there for another day – and parked up by the absolutely lovely Maggi Hambling shell sculpture on the beach.

Impossible to resist climbing up to sit on it and survey the sea in front of me.

Thorpeness beckoned on the horizon, with the House in the Clouds and the Sizewell power station poking up above the trees, so we decided to walk there with Glen. Bracing is probably the word for it.

But by way of compensation there was a great white egret on the marsh just across the road.

How nice it is, too, in East Anglia to see fields full of free-range pigs, having fun as pigs are meant to. Piglets racing each other for the sheer joy of it. Why on earth does anything think it’s right to keep pigs in sheds?

We’d pre-booked a Caravan Club site at Lowestoft because I fancied a nice hot shower and a few home comforts. And we got there in time to bag a perfect pitch overlooking the beach.

We couldn’t help recalling our camp site at Tarifa, on our Spanish expedition this time last year.

Time for a gin and tonic … or two.

PS We thought we’d ask readers of this blog for their suggestions for the best birdwatching and seawatching sites, preferably with dog-walking close by.

A foodie paradise

April 26, 2103

TODAY, as David put it, the Riddles saved Southwold from a triple dip recession.

It was time to stock up the fridge and move on. But a quick trip to the shops turned into a bit of a spending spree.

Amazed by the ease of parking the Hymer for free on the seafront, we lingered in the butcher-cum-deli, the farmer’s market, and the Adnams Wine Shop – a great place to find gifts for foodie friends.

We bought fantastic apricot and white chocolate bread-and-butter pudding at the Two Magpies bakery, pies at the Black Olive deli and cheese, teas and pheasant pate from Nutters.

Walberswick was our next destination. This pretty, upmarket village has equally pretty gift shops and plenty of space to park the van alongside the creek by the dunes, where we started to make inroads into all that food.

Sunny but with a chilly wind again, it was a perfect day for a walk on the beach, with the light glittering off the waves, and the golf ball of Sizewell B on the horizon.

Wheatears hopped about on the shingle as the dog chased a Frisbee we’d found among the flotsam.

Back on board, we made a quick detour so David could point out Westwood Lodge, a big house that was deserted back in the late Seventies when he and a couple of mates had dossed down in sleeping bags on the floorboards during a birding trip.

“There was a pentagram someone had chalked on the floor,” he remembered.

“Weren’t you scared?” I asked him.

“No, we thought it was a bit strange but we just ignored it,” he replied.

Looking down over the marshes from alongside the ‘No Caravans’ sign that’s there now, we saw two marsh harriers.

Saxmundham was our last quick stop of the day, a little town with two mega supermarkets that must have just about killed off everything else.

Tonight we’re staying on a Caravan Club certificated site nearby, at Iken. The proprietor is very friendly, and there are chickens, and ducks in a pond.

It’s turned very chilly and was hailing as we drove out here past Snape Maltings – a destination for another day.