A Three Day Birthday

This seemed like a good year to have a three day birthday so we started today with a trip to the seaside. First to Southwold, which was heaving with people so we moved on smartly to the harbour entrance where the tide was rushing out of the river. I took a little video on the beach.

We bought lunch from a stall at the harbour and then drove on to Dunwich. We popped into the car park at Dunwich village. It was full of people, as was the café veranda. I'd forgotten that just because it's the middle of the week and the schools haven't broken up yet for retired people it makes no difference - and that's who was filling these places.

So on again to Dunwich Heath, a National Trust site. Now this was a lot quieter, possibly because non-members have to pay £4 to park there, possibly because the tea room was shut. Argghhhh! I was just ready for tea and a cake too. But apparently it's shut on Monday and Tuesday. But we had a wander around, went down to the beach, and walked across the heath a little way to look at the ephemeral art there.

By now I was desperate for a cup of tea so we went to Snape Maltings¹ who provided us with a vaguely plausible pot of tea and two cakes ... for £6+. Gack.

Time for some peace and quiet so we drove on to Tunstall Forest, which is nearby. It's Forestry Commission land with lots of quiet shady tracks and they've left more deciduous trees in place than usual so it's rather pleasant. We only did a short walk, perhaps three miles, but we didn't see a soul.

And finally to Aldeburgh, my spiritual home, for fish and chips eaten out of the packet on the sea wall. The perfect end to the day.

There was a coda too. The perfect Aldeburgh day would include Adnams but it would have been a bit unfair to Beth (who was driving). So when we got back Beth wanted to wrap my presents so I went and sat in the garden of the Jolly Brewers and nursed a pint of Adnams while I surfed the Web via our home WiFi connection which just reaches there.

Marvellous. And that's just day one.

1. We discovered they're doing serious building work at Snape at the moment - converting some of the buildings into houses and flats! Presumably they need the money. I found one flat on the web being sold by Savills, two bedrooms - yours for only £425,000 ...