Holidays

A week without any posts here? I must have been on holiday. We spent a week on the Suffolk coast, not far from Southwold (no, I didn’t bump into Gordon), and had a wonderful time. I know the area well, having lived there as a child and holidayed on many occasions since with my parents, though this was my first lengthy return since my late teens. I was surprised just how much I remembered, but also how much I didn’t.

We stayed at Priory Farm in Darsham, in the converted Granary. It’s a great spot, really close to Dunwich and Southwold on one side, but also Framlingham and Aldebrugh on the other. The Granary was really comfy and nicely presented, so I’d recommend it to anyone wanting to stay in the area. Here’s how it looks:

We had plenty of trips to the seaside, largely as a result of the incredibly good weather we enjoyed. We went to Dunwich:

Southwold:

Walberswick:

and Aldeburgh:

We also spent half a day at Snape Maltings, which is a real cultural treasure-trove, with a musical venue, plenty of galleries and some really cool sculptures:

I also had the chance to get plenty of reading in. I took Charles Leadbeater’s We-Think along with me, and managed to get a good two-thirds of the way through. The latest London Review of Books also contained some fascinating stuff, including a long review of a biography of Raymond Williams, the leftist cultural academic, critic and author. I managed to find the book in the wonderful Aldebrugh Bookshop, and have been dipping in and out of it since, but my real find in the same shop was a copy of Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald, which I have been hankering after for a while.

All the better that I bought it in Aldeburgh - the book is based around a series of walks the author undertook around the Suffolk coast.

The other joy of visiting east Suffolk is the beer, specifically that from the Adnams Brewery in Southwold. My usual tipple at this time of year is the lighter Regatta, but the new and very cold Spindrift was a real pleasure on the very hot days. Favourite pubs include the Sole Bay Inn at Southwold:

And also The Ship at Dunwich, where this picture of Adnams standard (but delicious!) bitter was taken:

All in all, we had a fabulous time and were really sad to leave. Will be paying extra attention to the lottery numbers tonight, just in case…

More photos at Flickr, in case you want them…