Ringing Outing and Sunday Walk

Yesterday, we went on a ringing outing with some ringing friends. We went to three churches between Woolpit and Bury St Edmunds. This is about an hours drive down the A14 from Woodbridge, so we had to make an early start!

The first port of call was Bardwell, a newly restored ring of six bells now augmented to eight bells. We had a practice session with some of their new learners here, before going on to the next tower...

Ixworth, also with eight bells.We rang a quarter of Cambridge Surprise Major here....then went on to:

Hopton, another ring of eight bells recently restored. A quarter peal of Yorkshire Surprise Major was rung here. We had lunch at the Mill Inn, Hopton (very large portions!) before returning to Bardwell to ring a quarter peal of Superlative Surprise Major.

Just to show you what actually makes the noise...here are the mediaeval clappers from Bardwell bells. Usually when bells are restored, there is a lot of fund raising to do. Bellframes, headstocks, wheels and other fittings, new clappers and work to the tower structure all has to be carried out as well as paying for any new bells needed. But once installed, the bells should be an asset for many years to come. Thanks to Mike and Ruth for organising this day.

Today we went on our usual Sunday walk - we started at Parham airfield and walked to Great Glemham church and then walked back to the airfield. The airfield is a relic of WW2 when East Anglia had many such airfields. Parham has a small museum in its control tower. The rest of the airfield is now turned over to small businesses and agriculture, but unusually, the runway has not been dug up but remains in situ. The runway is locally popular as a place to introduce teenagers to driving - we had three or four parent/child pairs driving slowly up and down, stalling, bunny hopping, revving the engine and generally mistreating the clutch...brought back memories...

As the walk had not taken very long we went on to Aldeburgh, a local seaside town - all the traffic was heading out of town, weekenders going back to London? Here is the view from the top of Town Steps towards the sea...
And a view along the seafront. The weather here has been once again exceptionally mild after our cold snap - and very dry - the authorities are predicting a water shortage next summer. East Anglia is traditionally a dry area, but we rely on the winter rains to replenish reservoirs and aquifers.