Sunday 1.

 

Went for a good walk round the Polstead area of Suffolk this afternoon. Suffolk's mediaeval wealth was built on wool. All Suffolk's large old Churches (including ours) are known as 'wool churches' because they were funded by people who got rich on wool. Nowadays however, most Suffolk farms are arable - not many sheep to be seen. So it was a real pleasure to be able to snap these ewes and lambs this afternoon.
Near Polstead Church we met an old couple out walking; it was a fine sunny day with a North East wind that kept things cool, so of course we chatted about the weather and the late spring, and the old lady said (in a lovely Suffolk accent) how good it was to see the peggles out at last. Ann looked blankly at me. I said to the old lady "In Norfolk we call them paigles". Ann still looked blank, and Matthew seemed to think we'd lapsed into a foreign language. I explained to them that we'd been using the old East Anglian word for cowslips. Ann said she'd never heard the word, and I must admit it's a good many years since I had. The old couple then told us they'd been married for sixty eight years, over twenty years ahead of us. They were a lovely couple. More later.