R and I arrived in Suffolk this afternoon, where we’re putting up for three nights at The Stables at Henham Park. Some of you may have been to Henham Park, which is where the Latitude Festival is held each year, or to weddings at the barn venue they have there, but this is a small bed and breakfast establishment, run by a nice couple in an old building that’s been converted out of a stable block, and in the happy absence of either a wedding or a music festival it promises to be a quiet and peaceful place to stay.
I’m old enough to remember when getting to Suffolk was a nightmare – I once had to make a work trip to Bungay from London by rail, and having set off first thing in the morning, I arrived just in time to sit down and have a cup of tea before being taken out for dinner – but thankfully these days there are fast roads into East Anglia. It’s still a bit of a hike though, so we broke the journey at NT Ickworth, which is…. odd. I didn’t absolutely hate it, but I shan’t be rushing back.
I’d happily rush back any time to Southwold though, which is the nearest town to Henham Park, and the place where we had dinner this evening (Coasters – recommended), followed by a stroll along the promenade. The beach here is enticing, and there are rows of multi-coloured beach huts, which would have been a good subject for a blip image if the light had been kinder. Beach huts were not a feature of my family’s seaside trips, which mostly involved hunkering down in the sand dunes at Lytham St Annes, but the sight of them made R quite nostalgic for his own childhood family holidays, and when I enquired, journalistically, how he felt about being back beside the seaside (beside the sea), this was his response. He made what I felt was a token protest when I said I was planning to post this photo, but I pointed out the value of giving the Offspring the impression that we’ve been out and about enjoying ourselves, rather than just sitting at home tolerating each other, and at that point he graciously agreed.
