Last day in Suffolk :-(

I haven't had as much of a chance to take pix of signs as I would have liked, but this one, inviting prospective guests to "pop in,"  tickled me.

I must say the food here has been terrific.  Of course, Maggie is an excellent cook - but dinner at the Fox was outstanding and today's lunch at one of the National Trust houses was also very good. Here's the plate of starters (or what we in the U.S. call appetizers) we shared.

A trio of mixed olives, ciabatta & balsamic, sun blushed tomatoes and chilli broad beans. Yummy.  A far cry from Wimpy burgers and Lyons Corner House fare I remember from 1963 when I was doing Europe on $5 a Day.

Today's activity was lunch at one of the National Trust homes and then a run through to look at the china, silver, and paintings. On the way home, everything looked so GREEN.

And then, as a bookend to yesterday's pigs -- today we saw sheep.

Much nicer, I think.  They looked as though they had recently been sheared.

Dinner at home tonight with large quantities of wine and much laughter.  The three cousins, who have the same great-grandparents, were last together in 2005. I think it is unlikely they will be together again -- although you never know.

Before dinner we filled in some family history blanks and I discovered they have three more cousins(who are siblings) who are alive and well -- and one of them lives in New Jersey.  Whether they will have any interest in us is another question, but I now have somebody else to contact.  Ironically, it is Maggie and I who married into the family, who are the researchers and are most excited about all this family stuff.  Why is that?

Tomorrow we say goodbye; Norman goes home to Nottingham and we get on the train to London to see the other Cohens (no relation to these Cohens). And I think we've got theatre tickets for outside in London so I hope it stops raining.  Stay tuned.

Day two, Bury St. Edumuds

Pronounced "berry." After the guy at the Apple store made my life sunny again, Maggie and I did some errands in town. 1) Marks & Spencer for their tea, which I can't live without and can no longer get in the U.S.  2) Waitrose for McVities wholemeal digestive biscuits - ditto.  3) Barclay's bank ATM machine for GBPs.

After the errands we happened upon an art exhibit in the local gallery and I was delighted to see that there was quite a bit of textile art included.

This was a costume or skirt of some kind that had been altered interestingly. (the radiator behind the piece was not part of the exhibit)

The pleated part (which actually is not that out of sync with the radiator, come to think of it) has segments of a paper map between the pleats.  And around the perimeter of the bottom skirt, photo transfers. A bit strange but this was a juried show, so who knows?

There was a lot of textile/mixed media among the works on paper, photos, and paintings.  I was happy to see this.

This was monotype on book.  I wondered what the other pages looked like and whether they, too, had been altered.

Thread on paper.  On this next one, I couldn't get a picture without the reflection but it is a fabric and paper collage, stitched. Honestly, I have seen much more interesting stuff right here amongst us.

The label on the next piece said "batik and machine." I thought that was a rather odd description but when I looked closely, I saw that it was a collage of batik on a paper ground, then stitched with decorative (and automatically set) stitches. Hmmm.

Plastic wire wrapped with thread.

On the way back to the house I prevailed upon Maggie to stop at the pig farm so I could take pictures of these large creatures. Imagine!

Tomorrow in the predicted rain, who knows what adventures we will have?  Today, McVities and art were enough to make me as happy as these pigs.

hello from merry olde

We had a lovely flight on Continental from Newark to Heathrow.  After sandwiches at the central bus station in the airport and one of the most divine cappuccinos I have ever had (Caffè Nero - which should replace every Starbucks in the U.S.), we climbed onto a National Express Coach to Newmarket, where our cousins Alan and Maggie met us.

Alan's grandmother and Marty's grandmother were sisters and I  found Alan 6 years ago on the Internet when I was doing a geneaology search.  This is our third visit with them and we just adore them!  Tonight, another cousin is coming to join us and will stay here till Sat, when we all go our separate ways.

After lunch, Alan and Marty took naps and Maggie and I went out for a long walk around the village of Pakenham. 500 villagers, a post office, and a pub.

We had eaten at this pub, The Fox, last time we were here but now it has been bought and they only serve dinner on weekends.  So we went to a different The Fox in another town for last night's dinner.  No relation; apparently this is a very common name for a pub.

I thought this bush in front of the house was a blueberry bush, but it is something else, the name of which I can't remember.

The cottages are charming - here is Maggie, clowning in front of one and I don't think she realized I captured her on camera. 

This is a day late getting posted because when we got back from dinner at The (other) Fox, my battery had died.  I was quite upset because it had been plugged in and I could not figure out what had caused it.  Oh, NO! I thought the difference in current had done it, and I finally thought maybe it was a bad outlet.  But Maggie said she plugs her computer in the same outlet - no problem.

Fortunately,  there was an Apple store in Bury St. Edmunds, so we headed over there this morning.  They plugged in the computer and it started to charge immediately.  Turns out that apparently in England, outlets have on/off switches and if nobody is using an outlet, they turn it off. Someone had switched off the outlet and of course, never having heard I such a thing, how would I know?  Problem solved - thank goodness!