Denston Walk

Hooray! We can walk in groups of up to six again! And today was the first for me. A reprise, with slight variation, of the Denston Walk I did with Jane recently. But this time we had two groups - Joyce, Gavin, Helen and Steve going clockwise and Jane, Joan, Peter, Steve and myself going anti-clockwise. This was our anti-clockwise route...

Here are a few of my photos...

It was lovely to catch up with Steve, Peter and Joan.

Jane took us a slightly different way at the start to avoid a muddy path which took us past the impressive Gifford's Hall.

There is still some lovely blossom around.

We remembered walking up here before with these trees laden with plums

The last time we came past here, there was a pond!

We enjoyed the statues here.

Oh look. Who's this coming in the other direction? Lol.

We stopped by the log that Jane and I had our lunch at previously. And it started to drizzle! That wasn't in the forecast! But Joan is always prepared.

These daffodils are at their best.

Now it was downhill towards Wickhambrook Church.

We passed the impressive White House opposite the church - the former doctor's surgery.

I hadn't spotted this before, though...

The decorator we stopped to chat to said they are tiny one-bedroom cottages.

Jane couldn't resist walking through the ford.

And soon we were back at Denston Church.

As we returned to the car park we looked out for our fellow walkers coming the other way, but we were 10 minutes ahead of them.

Oh it's so great to be able to meet up with walking friends again! Thanks Joyce for arranging it and Jane for leading us round.

You can see more of my photos here on Flickr and more details of our route here on MapMyWalk.

Landguard Point Walk

It was a lovely day again today and we decided to go for a short walk at the coast this afternoon... the first time I had been that far since our traditional Christmas Eve walk. We went to Landguard Point and walked to the point and around the Nature Reserve.

This was our route.

We started at the Viewpoint Cafe, which, of course, wasn't open, but the kiosk was doing a roaring trade. From there we walked along to the point and then through the Nature Reserve and back.

Here are a few of my photos. The aforementioned kiosk...

 

A large container ship was docking, but we missed the Ever Glory, the sister ship of the Ever Given that had blocked the Suez canal, which sailed earlier in the day.

 

It was lovely to see the colourful Harbour Ferry in operation. 

 

After visiting the point, where the sea was almost as calm as a millpond, we followed the boardwalk and path along the edge of the roped off area.

I kept my eyes peeled and was rewarded by the sight of 2 plovers nesting. They are pretty hard to spot! I wonder how many I missed?

From the path at the top of the dunes you get some good views.

In the SSSI dogs have to be kept on a  lead. The bunnies seemed very happy.

The bird observatory board is always worth a peek. A swallow in March!

That was a short but refreshing walk. I think we may have caught a bit of sun.

You can see more of my photos here on Flickr and more details of our route here on MapMyWalk,

Go, Tim, Go!

 Last night one of my crosswording pals, known in the community by the username of  TopicalTim, Tim Hall was on this...

And here he is at the end...

With 22 points he beat the best of rest of the field by 6 points and has qualified for the semi-final. Well done Tim!

Two Households Can Meet!

Hooray! With today's relaxation of lockdown rules, Laura and Lawrence were able to come for lunch in the garden.

It was a lovely sunny day and the forsythia was glowing.

As the sun went lower we moved from the shade in the back garden to the front.

 It's the first time we had seen Laura (and Lawrence) since Christmas. Lovely!

The Turing Challenge

This is fun. With the issue of the new £50 note featuring Alan Turing this week, GCHQ have published a commemorative quiz...

You can see for yourself here. I started yesterday and have got to puzzle 6 so far, although puzzle 2 (Portrait) has me baffled still. I'm not going to look for any hints or clues yet. Maybe William and Dawn or even Sarah and Laura can chip in first. So far I've enjoyed numbers 4 (Window) and 5 (Foil) best, although number 3 (Bits of note), was fun too. And now, although I have answers to all the clues, I'm stuck on  number 6... More anon!

Update 29/3 lunchtime: Puzzles 2,7, and 8 solved now, but still can't see how you to put the answers in the sunflower at 6. For 10 I've got the pieces on the board but can't answer the question.

A Rather Good Jumbo Crossword

Times Cryptic Jumbo 1487 - 13th March

I thought this quite an entertaining Jumbo. It had a fair smattering of easier clues to help you populate the grid but also a few trickier ones with deceptive definitions or ingenious wordplay. As usual, there were a couple of things I didn't know, such as the knitting stitch, the Irish surname and the Marxist term for "the unorganized and unpolitical lower orders of society who are not interested in revolutionary advancement".... a lovely phrase and  a bit like how my Maths teacher wife describes her bottom set of Year 7. A couple of the harder clues gave me some anxiety on compiling the blog as I hadn't checked how the wordplay worked and worried I had got them wrong, e.g. 3D and 7D. My LOI was the sporting event which got cancelled last year; among my favourite clues, but COD goes to 23D with its clever definition and surreal surface. In all it took me about an average time of 45 minutes. Thank-you clever setter. How did everyone else find it?

( Read all about it... )

Mozzarella

It's been a while since I made my own cheese, but I thought I'd make some mozzarella cheese using my Big Cheese Making Kit today for my Saturday home made pizza and Sunday Insalata Caprese. Here is the result...

Four lots of mozzarella, a little creamier in colour than commercial varieties dues to the creaminess of the full-fat milk I used. Nice. And here is a little sample Insalata Caprese I had as a sneaky snack before cooking the dinner tonight...

A little firmer in texture than that from the supermarket... maybe I kneaded it a bit to long. But very tasty. I think Dawn and William will like it.

An Izetti Quick Cryptic

Times Quick Cryptic No 1839 by Izetti

A typically smooth but testing Quick Cryptic from Don today. He certainly kept me on my toes with one or two tricky clues that needed all my experience to navigate. Never one to just follow the well-worn paths, be it with an unusual word or different wordplay, he has given us a new (for me) anagram indicator and a teasing definition or two. Good stuff. Thank-you Izetti. In all it took me just over an average time. How did everyone else get on?

Fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic. This time it is Phil's turn to provide the extra weekend entertainment. You can find the latest crossword here and the answers here. Enjoy! And if anyone is interested in our previous offerings you can find an index to them here.

( Read all about it... )

Weekend Quick Cryptic 21 - by Phil Jordan

Click here to read about the origin of this series of crosswords.

A brief history of the origins of these crosswords for those who are new to them. As a blogger of the Times Quick Cryptic Crossword on Times For The Times every other Friday, I have often had comments on the blog bemoaning that The Times only provides a Quick Cryptic on Mondays to Fridays. When I finally gave up work at the end of February 2020, I decided that I would try my hand at compiling crosswords. It was with some trepidation that I published, in May, the first of these Weekend Quick Cryptics to fill the gap. Well it seemed to go down well so I did another. And then my fellow crossword solver and commenter on Time for the Times, Phil Jordan, volunteered to produce some too! So now we alternate, publishing each new crossword via my Friday Quick Crossword blog. You can find an index to the complete series of crosswords here.

This time it is Phil's turn to provide the fortnightly weekend quick cryptic crossword. You can try and solve it interactively here or download a PDF to print here. Alternatively you can copy and print the image below. Comments and queries welcome here or with the solution post here. I will respond to them as soon as I can.

You can find the solution here and an index to the complete series of crosswords here.

Champion Chopper

 Here's an exellent Christmas present I got that has had a lot of use...

The Geedel Manual Pull Chopper is great for finely chopping onions, garlic, chilli, ginger, herbs etc. I now use it  a lot in preference to my food processor. The blades are very sharp, though, so be careful when cleaning!

Metering Update

 For 6 months I've been trying to get EDF to fix my smart metering telemetry so that they can take meter readings remotely and I can see my energy usage using the In Home Display. Well today, finally, I had an engineer replace the faulty the telemetry module (and change my electricity meter) after nearly 2 years of being broken and I can see my Electricity usage!

0W as the power I'm using is being supplied fully by the Solar power system.

But it's still not right...

I wasn't getting any Gas usage information at all and, after a couple of hours, it stopped working.

*Sigh*.

Ixworth Stowlangtoft and Pakenham Mills Walk

We still can't do group walks, but I arranged another 1:1 walk with my friend Jane. We postponed it twice because of the weather, but, 3rd time lucky, the weather was OK today. We were doing a walk I'd done a couple of times before that used a lot of quiet country lanes and there was a good chance we could avoid getting muddy boots. It was this figure of 8 walk, starting and finishing at Ixworth visiting both Pakenham Windmill and Pakenham Water mill, with an extra loop via Stowlangtoft.

This was our route.

 Here are a few of my photos. We started at the Car Park for Ixworth Village Hall and Library and set off just before 10:30.

We were very quickly in the country. Over to our left through the lingering mist we could see the Grade I listed Ixworth Abbey house, which incorporates ruins of the 12th century Augustinian Ixworth Priory.

Look. No mud!

We saw only this one deer today. I wonder where the rest were?

I said to Jane before we set out. "I'm hoping we'll see plenty of blossom today"... and wildflowers too. Here is a swathe of dog violets.

I hadn't spotted before that you can see Ixworth church behind the mini-windmill next to the real thing.

We enjoyed the gardens at Grimstone End before we turned towards Stowlangtoft. Here was some blossom we had been looking forward to.

Approaching Stowlangtoft we passed this patch of lesser celandines.

Before stopping for our lunch we visited St. George, Stowlangtoft church. It wasn't open...

...but we had a little look around the graveyard and admired the magnificent rectory, which even has its own swimming pool!

We lunched at the bench by the village sign opposite these 17th century almshouses.

We agreed that Stowlangtoft Hall, now a care home, might be a nice place to end up in for our sunset years.

Returning to Grimstone End we crossed the Black Bourn again via Baileypool Bridge.

Just before the watermill we took a little detour off on a path to the left to admire the blossom.

We imagined a wedding party shaking the trees to shower a newly wed couple with blossom confetti.

It turns out that neither of has visited the watermill. Some thing for the to-do list when it's allowed again.

Here, behind Jane, is one of the willow trees in that shade of light green they have as they begin to come into leaf.

We heard plenty of birdsong along the way. This little bird's song was very mellifluous, but silhouetted against the sky it was hard to see any colours so we couldn't identify it.

We had a good view of the windmill again just before we crossed the main road back into Ixworth.

Another favourite spring flower of mine the muscari or grape hyacinth - here are some in the verge.

Then it was back to our cars via the splendid village sign.

Well that was a lovely walk and we saw plenty of flowers and wildlife... and our boots were mud-free! Thank-you Jane for the company.

You can see more details of our route here on MapMyWalk and more of my photos here on Flick.