Bury St. Edmunds Whitsun Fayre

 

It was nice to see this happening this weekend, albeit somewhat scaled down in size. I visited today in the lovely late spring sunshine but didn't come home with anything, although I did enjoy a beer from the Beautiful Beers stall. 

Cyberfest 6

 

This weekend is Beer 52's (and my) last virtual beer festival (probably). Looking forward to a real one sometime... the East Anglian Beer Festival of 2021 will be at the end of August... in the Cathedral, of all places. I  can hardly wait for that. Meanwhile there was a great selection of beers to try, not just last night and tonight, but for some time to come as I will still have plenty left to taste. 

Hasbean #3

 

My third special coffee has arrived just as I finished the coffee in my tin, so I was able to make it today. Delicious! Thank-you again Kirsty and David.

Good Sense Research

Yesterday I did another online questionnaire for the local Food and Drink Market Research Company, Good Sense Research. The are only a mile or so away and over the last 6 months I've been able to participate in a number of trials and tastings...

Sproughton Walk

Today's walk was another new area for me once again taking on some of the Gipping Valley River path. This was the invite from Joyce...

"Wednesday 26th May a new walk for many: Park for free at Morrison’s, Sproughton Road, Ipswich IP1 5AQ. Toilets and refreshments are available here.  We will start walking from the car park entrance (near garage/Boss Hall Rd) at 10am. It’s a 9.5 mile circular walk with good views, woodlands, River Gipping (again!). Our lunch break will be at Bramford Picnic (pub nearby). There is some walking along the main road pavement but you’ll soon forget about that and soldier on. Sometimes, we have to use less than perfect paths to join up routes."

Needham Market Walk

 

Today we did a walk from Needham Lake in Needham Market. This was the invite from Joyce...

"Tuesday 25th May Please park and meet at Needham Lakes free car park (toilets here too). IP6 8AU is the postcode I can find. Our start time is 10am. We will head towards Barking Church, and then to Baylham, Darmsden and Pipps Ford. Lots of great views on this walk and the River Gipping at the beginning and end. Mileage is 9.5-10 miles."

More Berliner Raspberry Weisse Beer

This was definitely a hit of 2020 from Tassel Nanobrewery. The Berliner Raspberry Weisse Beer. Well Dawn didn't like it  but I did and so did Laura, Light and  refreshing it comes in at about 3.6% ABV (although I calculated this batch at 3.9%). I thought I'd make some to enjoy in the blazing sunshine and warm days of spring and summer.... I live in hope. Started 10 days ago, it was a mammoth bottling operation today...

Pickling Again

I saw some lovely little cucumbers at the market the other day and couldn't resist buying them. Today I pickled them. But first I had to get some fresh dill... I found some at M&S in town yesterday. Then, last night, I had to salt them (and some onion) ready to pickle today...

Sunshine and Showers

It seems like we are having April's weather a month late. It was chucking it down but the sun was shining.... there must be a rainbow. Yes! Here it is. And a multiple one!

I must get my spade and go find that pot of gold.

A Quirky Jumbo Crossword

Times Cryptic Jumbo 1497 - 8th May - Down with Cruciverbalpachydermosceptiscism!

I greatly enjoyed this Jumbo which has lots of delightful quirky definitions, such as "Who cares?, Don't bet on it!, That settles it!" and the lovely "You'll get stick when it's finished" in the acrosses... and there are plenty more. So many ticks for clues that made me smile that I can't list them all, but favourites were 39A and the reverse cryptic at 44A. As usual I was held up by a handful of clues at the end, with my last four accounting for 8 of my 46 minutes. A couple of unknowns, as usual, too, including the river running through Berlin, the shell and the hard bits of the lughole. Lots of fun, and one I'd point cruciverbalpachydermosceptics (if I may permitted such a neologism, if only to outdo antidisestblishmentarianism.. and then extend it in the title) at to get them enthused. Thank-you witty and entertaining setter! Lovely job! How did you all get on with it?

( Read All about it... )

Felsham Walk

 

The weather forecast for today wasn't good - winds gusting up to 50mph and some rain showers, but I thought I'd go for a walk anyway. So I headed for Felsham to explore some paths I hadn't done before.

A Nice Quick Cryptic from Joker

Times Quick Cryptic No 1879 by Joker

We have a delightful Quick Cryptic from Joker today to end the week's series of good crosswords. We are treated to a triple definition (my Clue of the Day) a double anagram and four other clues that got approving ticks on my copy because they made me smile : 11A, 17A, 2D and 5D. Very neat. About average difficulty, if my time is anything to go by... but I've been wrong on that before! There are one or two trickier clues that might cause a bit of head-scratching for some, I think. How did everyone 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. 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 25 - 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 2020, 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 on crossword.info or here on MyCrossword, 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.

John's Walks 2021 Updated...

 ...to include all the walks I was on in Joyce's Mini Walking Festival... and others up to 17th May. See here. Please let me know using this link of any broken or erroneous links or other errors here (or in other pages). It's a bit of a fiddly job that is prone to error as the Blogger editor is not that helpful.

No-Mow May

Dawn had heard about No-Mow May and decided to participate. Just over half-way into the month and the grass (and weeds) are getting quite high in both our front and back lawn already.

Fornham Walk

Today we enjoyed a familiar walk to celebrate the first day when we didn't need to walk in groups of 6 or less.

This was the invite from Joyce...

Stutton Walk

" Do you want to go for a walk?", asked Dawn. Yes. A chance to show her some of the best bits of the Holbrook Walk we did last month, my favourite from Joyce's Mini Walking Festival. I mapped out a shortened version of about half the length of that walk and we set off to park at Stutton as before. This was our route today...

Stuffed Moroccan Pitta

" I think I'll try some with this recipe for my lunch on our walk tomorrow instead of the chilli sauce I usually add", I said. Well I added it as well as the chilli sauce and pickled chillis to my falafel, red pepper and rocket filling for my lunch yesterday. This is what it looked like...

Quarries Quest Walk

Today it was Glen's turn to lead a walk for the group, walking from Claydon around Little Blakenham, and also taking in Nettlestead and Somersham.... and several quarries.

Wild Garlic Pesto and Dip

It all began with a crossword clue in Times Cryptic 27964.  "19D Stuff children, offering garlic (7)".

Self-Sufficient...

 ...in electricity! Now we are no longer heating the greenhouse at night, and with a bit of sunshine, on Tuesday and again yesterday, our solar panels (and batteries) provided all our electricity, so we took none from the grid and even exported enough to cover the daily standing charge.

Great Finborough Walk

Joyce asked me if I would like to lead a walk for the group this week and I said yes, of course. I decided to vary and extend a walk I had led previously from Great Finborough to include a visit to Buxhall and Mill Green as well as an extension to the north from OneHouse church up to Harleston Church and back through Northfields Wood.

Joyce's Spring Mini Walking Festival - Summary

That was lovely. Thank-you Joyce. Here is my index to my blog write-ups of the walks I went on (and some that I didn't)...

Ancestry

Dawn has taken up an interest in ancestry and been researching her family tree. She has also had her DNA analysed for ethnicity and the results are just back...

Some Norwegian and Icelandic? That was a surprise

Jabbed!

Yesterday was my second COVID-19 vaccination appointment at the Swan Surgery in Town. I arrived 5 minutes early but was seen straight away. As I've been having the Pfizer vaccine, I had again to sit for 15 minutes before being allowed to go...

Another Tracy Quick Crossword

Times Quick Cryptic No 1869 by Tracy

An enjoyable, neat crossword from Tracy to end the week. I generally find I catch his wavelength quite quickly and I did so again today. After my misjudgement of how diificult others would find it on my last outing, I'd better not say I found it straighforward, though! I did hesitate over the unknown 1A and the parsing of my LOI, 21A, but I still finished in a well-under-average time, a second quicker than yesterday. COD for me to the clever 16D, although I liked 8D too. How did everyone else get on?

Fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic. This time it is my turn to provide the extra weekend entertainment. You can find the latest crossword, entitled "Tweet Tweet", here. Enjoy! And if anyone is interested in our previous offerings you can find an index to them here.

( Read all about it... )

Sailors' Path Walk

Today was the last day of Joyce's Mini Walking Festival, the longest of the walks and a repeat of the last walk of the September festival - The Snape Walk. This was the invite from Joyce...

Weekend Quick Cryptic 24 - Tweet Tweet by Johninterred

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 last year, 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 Times 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 my turn to provide the fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic crossword. As is hinted at by the title, there is a bit of a theme.I've tried to make it a little easier than our last couple, so I hope people don't find anything to scare the horses. 

Shingle Street Walk

 

Today was day 12 of Joyce's Mini Waking Festival and this was my contribution to the festival, a 12 mile walk from Shingle Street on the coast - a walk I had done with Ann in November (which you can read about here). The weather forecast wasn't great...

Bluebell Walk

Today was Day 11 of Joyce's Mini Waking Festival and the perennial iconic Bluebell Walk from the Suffolk Food Hall. Would we see some bluebells?  Where would the best ones be? We had 3 groups of 6,6 and 5 walkers - a great turnout for a classic walk. I led the third group. Joyce went clockwise and I opted to follow the second group going anti-clockwise. It was a walk I had done several times, and I would have been leading in the Suffolk Walking Festival, but, alas, it was cancelled for a second year, so it was great to be able to do it anyway.

Mildenhall Warren Walk

Today was Day 10 of Joyce's Mini Walking Festival and today's walk was in Joyce's local patch around Mildenhall. This was the invite... 

Hasbean #2

 

 Opened yesterday.... delicious. Thank-you Kirsty and David.