April 27, 2013
STRAIGHT off to Snape Maltings, where I expected to spend a couple of
hours looking at art exhibitions but ended up whiling away half the day.
“Another retail opportunity” was how David summed it up.
It was bitterly cold outside, which helped persuade us to stay under
cover. But how lucky a chance that was …
There was a huge and very high-class home and garden shop, and there
were little shops attached to each art and craft exhibition, so a great deal of
present-buying was done.
Plus there was a food shop with cake and wonderful cheeses, most of
which disappeared immediately after we returned to the Hymer for coffee.
Outside, there were Hepworth and Moore sculptures to admire.
Sadly,
given my interest in buildings, we didn’t see inside the auditorium, because of
signs saying ‘Ticket holders only’. Maybe we should have pushed our luck and
just wandered in.
“I’m all shopped out,” I groaned as we put down our bulging carrier bags
on a seat in the Hymer.
“Then this is a truly jaw-dropping moment,” replied my long-suffering other
half.
Fresh air was the only thing that would do. So we droved to Aldeburgh –
one of us making a mental note to save the shops there for another day – and
parked up by the absolutely lovely Maggi Hambling shell sculpture on the beach.
Impossible to resist climbing up to sit on it and survey the sea in
front of me.
Thorpeness beckoned on the horizon, with the House in the Clouds and the
Sizewell power station poking up above the trees, so we decided to walk there
with Glen. Bracing is probably the word for it.
But by way of compensation there was a great white egret on the marsh
just across the road.
How nice it is, too, in East Anglia to see fields full of free-range
pigs, having fun as pigs are meant to. Piglets racing each other for the sheer
joy of it. Why on earth does anything think it’s right to keep pigs in sheds?
We’d pre-booked a Caravan Club site at Lowestoft because I fancied a
nice hot shower and a few home comforts. And we got there in time to bag a
perfect pitch overlooking the beach.
We couldn’t help recalling our camp site at Tarifa, on our Spanish
expedition this time last year.
Time for a gin and tonic … or two.
PS We thought
we’d ask readers of this blog for their suggestions for the best birdwatching
and seawatching sites, preferably with dog-walking close by.