Monday.

Firstly, I must apologise for my tardiness over the last week. I can only plead being extremely busy. The week has included taking part in an antique fair at Long Melford, attending an antique fair at Lavenham, viewing an auction at Stowmarket, and leaving bids on said auction, plus the usual weekly activities. Backtracking slightly, early last week we were looking at a calendar that a friend makes yearly, featuring East Anglian scenes, and found that in this year's calendar a village called Hawkedon keeps recurring - mainly Hawkedon Church, which has lots of early carving, bench ends, and stained glass. So we decided (having consulted a map, and found Hawkedon was about ten miles or so the far side of Lavenham) to go and have a look  at it. The top photo is of Hawkedon Church.

Above photo is of  an elderly, well whiskered gentleman, taking his ease on a gravestone, in front of the church.

Above photo shows three more (even older and more bewhiskered)  gentlemen taking their ease  on a carved bench end, dating, we're told from the mid fourteen hundreds, inside the said church.

Think I'm going to leap forward to this week now- back in a minute.