Tuesday.

Granny Sarah, Great Granny Annie, Great grand daughter Astrid, and her mother (our grand daughter) Amelia, in  Granny Sarah's kitchen last weekend (left to right -  of course).
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P.s. If  you look at Ann's  right elbow (and embiggen the picture a bit)  you  will notice a nicely embroidered flower on her grey jumper. It's  a long story  but to cut it short Ann noticed that  a very favourite woolly jumper had moth holes in it. Ann killed the moth by washing the garment  in a special wool detergent, and was mourning over it at Christmas to the Swedish grand daughters.  The  senior one said she thought she might be able to help, and worked on it that evening.
 She embroidered flowers over the ex-moth holes in similar coloured wool, and it looks really good again  - even better as far as Ann's concerned, in that it was done (with love) by a granddaughter.

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P.s. Ann says people now think  it's  a 'designer garment'.

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Monday.

I think I mentioned last week that we motored over to Aldeburgh. It was a nice morning - hard frost and bright sunshine. Came back via Snape, and took the above photo in the Snape area. Reed beds in the  sunshine. Slightly  misty. Looked well.

No Curser - well, me perhaps.

Sorry, readers,  to  have to report a further fault  on my 'new'  computer- the  curser has disappeared. The engineer on 'Knowhow' has done various tests and tells me that the mouse is  at fault. There are, he is  sorry to  tell me, no replacement  mice  in store, but he will  order one for me, which  should  be  with me within twenty eight days. Oh $£%^&**)(+_ dear me. I  cancarry on blogging to  some  extent by scribbling on, and jabbing at, the screen with a finger, but it's  a slow business

Saturday.

Last Monday we motored home from Sarah's in Buckinghamshire. We took  our  time  about  it, stopping off  for a light lunch at Quy  Mill  restaurant, and  eventually  arriving home  at a little after four p.m., and to the accompaniment of a  fine, dramatic sunset, as we motored downhill into Highdale. I  managed to get a snapshot of  the sky as  we ran  down into the  town.  It's shown above just in case any 'furriners' still believe Suffolk is very flat and undramatic. 

We do have  our moments - Good Night All. 

Tuesday (2)

More about the wall paintings in Saint Lawrence's Church, Broughton, Buckinghamshire.
The painting above is over the North doorway, and is  a 'Doom' or a painting of the 'Last Judgement'. It is  rather  like, but much smaller than, our Suffolk 'Wenhaston Doom', but has a good many similarities like the Jaws of Hell at the bottom right of the picture.

Above picture shows Saint George destroying the dragon.

Above is the one that fascinates me. According  to  the booklet on the subject it shows 'a collection of blacksmith's tools and products' and I couldn't better that as a description, but it does leave a good many questions unanswered. Why should an English Church be decorated with a collection of a blacksmiths tools and products ?  Very odd.

The above picture shows the  dead Christ in the arms of his mother, surrounded by nine men, including  two who are playing backgammon, both with drawn knives.  The other men are holding parts of the body of the dead Christ. All the standing men are very similar. It has been suggested the pictures are a warning against the worship of religious relics, and also a warning against swearing oaths on body parts..........all  very odd, as indeed are all their legs, which all end at the knees, and are equipped with very large feet. The whole picture is very odd, and probably full of hidden meaning???

Like a great many of our smaller and more remote churches, Saint Lawrence's  should be better known than it is.

Good Night All.

Tuesday.

About ten years ago when staying with eldest daughter Sarah and her family, she took us to  a carol service at a village nearby in an otherwise disused Parish Church. The church was full of nice early wall paintings, all of circa 1480. One of the paintings appeared to show the contents of a village forge  (as far as I know this is  unique) and Sarah promised to go back when we could. She was a s good as her word, we went back this last weekend, and Sarah had spoken to  one of the Church Wardens and had got me permission to take photographs. Above is the painting of the produce of the village forge, with a close up below it.  There are more photos, which I'll endeavour to put up later. These two show horse shoes, hammers, locks and keys. Just to the left of centre is what appears to be a canvas tool bag, of a type that blacksmiths carried to outlying farms in my boyhood !!! How little things have changed, and in  the last few years, HOW  MUCH!!!!!

Monday.

Herewith (good word) photograph of the knife from a chatelaine (?) with the blades open. The upper blade would be the pen knife, for reshaping a quill pen, and the lower blade a fruit knife for peeling pears, peaches, nectarines, etc. Altogether a useful little item for a lady. The knife is  shown  in  the blog entry for Friday, 13th January, 2017.

Saturday.

Above are photographs of another 'Mystery object'. I first put up a photograph of this item on my blog entry of Saturday, 19th November, 2016,  but then changed my mind and did the necessary restoration of this  item, which  I finished this afternoon. In the second picture is a foot ruler to try and give an idea of the  item's size ( bit of a giveaway). What is it, when was it made, and  for what purpose was it made? It is a very attractive little item (if you like that sort of thing).

P.s. I do, and Ann does,too.  Like that sort of thing, I mean.

Friday.

The four  photos shown here are of this week's  'Mystery Object'. It was purchased at last week's Long Melford Antique Fair. It is a little under two inches long, and on a chain that is seven inches long.   

Can you guess what it is, where and when it was made, and where the chain would hang. I think it would be only fair to add that it is made of polished iron/steel.

Good guessing regards, Mike.

Thursday.

Last Christmas photo (promise). It was taken on Boxing day, and all are offspring, save the lady in the armchair (Jude) who is our son Jonathan's ( the tall bloke standing beside her) long term partner. They've moved (fairly recently) to a village near Cambridge, which is a great deal nearer to us than Wolverhampton, where they lived previously. Ann is at the front of the photo, and all others are our descendants; children, grandchildren, and a great grandchild in the centre of the photo. It was a good day.  Must knock off now - got friends coming to lunch, and I can hear the two who haven't been here before, are on the 'phone getting directions from Ann. So must now go upstairs and get into my convivial Host act- not really an act, I'm looking forward to it.

More later perhaps.

Tuesday.

Walked into town  this morning (a lovely bright, but cold, morning). Did a little shopping, then went on to  lipreading class, for a 'refresher' course.  Took the above photo of St. Mary's Church, when walking back.

Took the above photo of  our only  hotel in  town while walking home. There  are several large old coaching inns in town, that  at one time would have been turned into hotels, but  all of these have been  cut up into flats/small houses, and sold (or let) as such.

Been fairly busy all week, since  the  Christmas season ended, and got several jobs waiting to be done.  In fact I must get stuck into one such job that's been waiting for far too long for attention. If all goes well, might turn it into a blog entry.

Warm regards to all, 

Mike and Ann. 

Wednesday.

On Sunday we motored across to Stanstead Airport with Ruth and the  girls, setting off at 7.15 a.m. On the way there we ran across a road  sign in Essex which never ceases to puzzle me. Although it was raining at that time, I  think the notice is quite readable in the top picture. As a statement it is  interesting. I suppose that long gardens might reduce your speed, but surely only if the  gardens had now become so long as to have  grown  right over the road surface?

Here is a rather clearer picture of a similar sign on the  way home, approaching   Halstead.

On Monday we decided  that  a walk  was needed to sweep the cobwebs away, so we donned welly boots (remember it had rained quite hard on Sunday) and  set out to do the complete  river walk, where we found our resident pair of swans, and  their one remaining  cygnet from last year's five. I  suppose for a pair of swans who seem to have five cygnets annually it is not always  possible to find five suitable partners for them all.

Been to the Long Melford Antique Fair today. Bought  a  quite nice,  sheet iron, tinder box from Graham's stand- needs work though. And also bought a small, double bladed knife, with a fretted steel handle,  probably from a lady's 'chatelaine.  Generally  speaking,  a goodish  fair.

Been a long day -we set out at 7a.m.- so  will, I think, wish you all a very Good Night.

Saturday.

Don't quite know how (or Why) I took  this  photo. It is a snapshot of one corner of the sitting (or drawing, or withdrawing) room. Been a lovely, busy Christmas, and has  become even busier this morning,  as Ruth and the girls have just realised that they are flying home tomorrow, and are busy packing for an early start. They've done quite a lot of shopping, but this is  alright as most of what they've bought is clothing, so they can wear several layers instead of packing them. As I type I can hear them rushing about packing, I have taken refuge in my cellar, so am well out of the way - ' real cowardy custard that Horner'  I hear you murmur, and you are, of course, right; although  I think that any other father of families composed mainly of girls, will agree with me that finding lots to do in the way of work in a nice dry  cellar, is a standard business precaution, when one's female family  are busy packing. When the noise level indicating that the rushing about packing part is still taking place drops to a level of all's done bar the actual donkey work - I may well go up and help with the carrying  stuff part of packing.  In fact I think I may  as well go and put in an appearance, especially as it's  nearly lunchtime now.

P.s. Yes, I can remember why I  took the above photo - It was because, in the small wall mirror almost dead centre of the picture, there was rather a good photo of the reflection of the Christmas tree and lights - which didn't  come out at all well, still it's a useful enough photo to give an impression of a family house  at Christmas.

Regards, Mike. 

Thursday.

The above  picture shows  the  Horner Family revelries at their height on the afternoon of Boxing  Day.

 

The next pictures were taken on the twenty seventh of this month, i.e. the  day after Boxing  Day, when Ann and I, Ruth and  her girls decided that  what we all needed, when the morning mist lifted , and the ground frost was nearly all gone, was a  good walk. We set out on the Highdale river walk, then watched  a dog walker throwing branches into the river for  his  two brown Labradors (lovely dogs) to retrieve. We then extended the River Walk, with a further walk up  and  over  the Highdale   Downs.

The above photo shows one, having done a graceful long jump (followed by a belly  flop) into the river for his branch.

The above  picture shows the graceful Highdale Downs. We do have some very lovely, if undramatic, scenery in our area.

More (D.V.) tomorrow- Goodnight All.

Tuesday (2)

P.s. Slightly enlarged version of picture shown earlier. 

Tuesday - the Day after Boxing Day.

Above  photo was taken on Boxing Day, and shows (from right to left) a grand daughter, meself, then our two Great Granddaughters. They are both just over two, behaved perfectly, and appeared to thoroughly enjoy their day with Great grandparents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and loads of cousins. The pink and  blue items the children are holding are toy microphones, and the three of us were singing a wassail song 'Good Tidings we bring to you and your King, we wish you a merry Christmas..........'  To my surprise they both knew it and several more, so I took the base line and the tinies the tenor.  You should have heard us in 'Good King  Wenceslas'.  

We sat down to Boxing  Day lunch just over twenty of  us. Youngest daughter, Liz, had organised lunch, and everyone  brought something. Great Grandpa (meself, that is) provided the wines  and spirits, although not that much of  it  was drunk, as a good many were driving home  later. Oh well, it'll  be  a pleasant duty to make sure  it won't  be wasted..........

Needless  to say, it  has been a lovely Christmas!

, Sunday, Christmas Day, 2016.

Went out  to Aldham Church this morning. Picture shows Ruth, Ann, and Ruth's two daughters.

Near the Church is the above water feature, which is an old duck decoy. It was cleaned out a few years ago. Don't know when it was last used, though.

Ruth's daughters  are both very artistic (like their mother) and  spent part of this  afternoon decorating the Christmas cake with a wintry scene, snowman, etc.  We've had no snow here yet, I'm glad to report; but they live in Sweden, so they've had good opportunities to study the stuff, already   this  winter. They  are both teenagers (the oldest one is at Uni) and both are already taller than I am. Been a good Christmas Day.

Tomorrow we are expecting most of the rest of our family to come and spend the day with us, so there'll be well over twenty of us at lunch. Looking forward to it.

Good Night to  All our friends.  Enjoy the rest of Christmas. Warm Regards, Mike, Ann, and Family.

Saturday.

Hellebore now in full  flower.

Second  daughter, Ruth, serving stir-fry (with chicken) for supper.

Been a nice, busy day. Bagged the  last of  the shopping in town.

Take this  opportunity to wish all my readers a good,  and Happy,  Christmas.

Tuesday.

Photo of a very pretty little thatched pub on  a very small back lane near here.  I'm surprised, given where the pub is (back of beyond) that it gets enough passing traffic to stay in business.  Hope it does, though.  'New' computer is still giving problems. It's latest bright idea is to remove all comments from my blog for the last couple  of months. Don't know  where it's  hidden them, but our friends John and Margaret are coming to lunch today, and as they are both much better at keeping computers in order than I am, I hope they are going to sort out this latest freak.  Actually I think they have just arrived. Can hear Ann greeting someone. More to report later I hope. 

Friday.

Rather handsome old house in Newton Green.

Entering  the village of  Boxford.

Took these a week or two ago when coming back from a shopping trip to Sudbury. Must get on with some work now -  in the throes of repairing a wall clock. When I say 'repairing'  in  this cases I mean a major restoration project for a friend. More later perhaps.