Chilli Fudge

 William brought me a present back from the Bank Holiday Food and Drink fair. Some fudge....

Beer in the Cathedral

As previously mentioned, the 29th East Anglian Beer and Cider Festival is on at the moment. I volunteered to help out on both Thursday and Friday (and tomorrow too), but yesterday I was the other side of the bar with friends drinking the beer.

A Tricky Jumbo Crossword

Times Cryptic Jumbo 1512 - 14th August

An interesting Jumbo with several unknowns for me and some chewyiness in places... which I enjoy in a Jumbo. I was slow getting started and never really on the wavelength. In all I thought it a  little trickier than average and it took me about 1hr. I was held up most in the NW corner and middle of the LHS. Last one is was 37A, which took rather longer to parse than biff. Quite a few question marks on my copy where I puzzled over the parsing, but also several ticks for clues that made me chuckle, including some rather sneaky definitions. Is it just me, or are there rather more deletion type wordplay elements than usual? Those I enjoyed most included the neat hidden at 21A, and the definitions at 1D and 6D. Thank-you setter. How did you all like it?

( Read all about it... )

A Tricky Izetti Quick Crossword

Times Quick Cryptic No 1949 by Izetti

A rather tricky but perfectly fair challenge for us for the end of the week from Don with the usual neat and precise clues and some nice pieces of misdirection. I found it at the harder end of the spectrum, taking 9:17 to finish - my slowest for quite a while. There are a few words on the edge of my vocabulary that I needed the wordplay to find. 5d took me a while to see and 4A was my LOI. Lots to enjoy, though - I liked the concise 12A best. Thank-you Izetti! How did you all get on? If you found it difficult, don't worry - I'm sure you will be in good company.

Fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic. This time it is my turn to provide the extra weekend entertainment. You can find the latest crossword, entitled "Gone Fishing", and a bonus quiz round, 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 32 - Gone Fishing 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. 

East Anglian Beer and Cider Festival

 

The 29th East Anglian Beer and Cider Festival 2021 opened today. I have volunteered to help tomorrow, Friday and Monday mornings as will be there Saturday afternoon too. I was disappointed when it didn't happen last year or as originally planned in May this year, but this time it is in the cathedral! More anon. Maybe see you there?

Anglesey Abbey Dahlia Festival

Today, as we had done at the start of September last year (see here) and the year before (see here) we had a trip to visit the Anglesey Abbey Dahlia Festival.

Lotti Crucifixus

I've just been catching up on last week's Times Literary Supplement crossword, set by Myrtillus... aka, in real life, Robert Price, one of the 3 brilliant Sunday Times Crossword setters. Rather disconcertingly the crossword was printed with the Down clues on the left of the Across clues which caused me to muck up my paper copy by  mixing up 18A and 18D. All successfully solved in the end with much enjoyment. But the clue that sent me down memory lane was this one..

John's Walks 2021 Updated....

...to the end of last week. 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.

Family Quiz 5

  

Somehow we managed to win the weekly family quiz again last week, so it was our turn again to act as quizmasters. Try out our quiz for yourself here!

Alan Barnes at the Hunter Club

 Hooray! Live Jazz returned to the Hunter Club last night... and we were there!

Norwich T.riffic T.Rex Trail

Today we had a trip to Norwich to Meet the T.Rex. They were scattered through the city, so we got a walk around the city too, just as we had with the GoGo Hares in 2018.

1000 Up!

  

Ooo look. This is post number 1000!

St. Ives, Houghton and the Hemingfords Walk

This was another of Joyce's summer days out. Today we did a leisurely circular walk from St.Ives via the delightful villages of Houghton (and its mill), Hemingford Abbots and Hemingford Grey. It was very similar to the walk I did with Kirsty and David here in June (see here), but with a little detour to explore Houghton village. This was the invite...

"Wednesday August 18th an 8 mile loop in St Ives and the beautiful Hemingfords. We will meet at St Ives park n ride free car park PE27 4LG at 10am and enjoy the town of St Ives for coffee first thing before heading to Houghton Mill and the Hemingfords. The area is just delightful and involves walking alongside the Great Ouse. Pleases bring a picnic as we will stop en route. "

Double double...

Times Quick Cryptic No 1939 by Felix

Well if this excellent quick crossword from Felix made you toil and trouble, the setter will have achieved his objective. Lots of lovely deceptively hidden definitions, and neat wordplay and surfaces. I particularly enjoyed 10A, 13D and 17D. A little trickier than an average QC, if my time of just under 6 minutes is anything to go by. And as for the clever theme... can you spot it? Lovely stuff. Thank-you Felix. How did you all 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... )

Dinner with Laura

 

On our way home from Sue's today we took a detour to Portsmouth to meet up with Laura for a couple of hours... and have an evening meal. We were early so we had a little walk along the sea front first.

Another Oakhill Walk

 

This morning we had a last walk with Sue before heading to Portsmouth to meet Laura on our way home. Just a local walk around the village and along the road to the nearby Ashwick Church. 

Weekend Quick Cryptic 31 - 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 MyCrossword or here on crossword.info, 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.

Wells Day Out

Another Somerset day out today, this time to the lovely city of Wells, which is only about 6 miles from Sue. I think the last time we visited we had Laura in a pushchair... which would have been over 20 years ago.  Kirsty and David had stayed over, so came too. We parked at the long stay car park over Waitrose. It was market day and we had plenty of choice of street food for lunch.

Frome Day Out

Today we had a day out in the lovely town of Frome. It is only about 15 miles from Sue's house, but she had never stopped to explore. Sister Kirsty and husband David came down from Yate to join us.. and they hadn't visited Frome either. I got a map and ended up leading us around the sights.

Chew Magna and Blagdon Walks

Today we had a day out with Sue from Oakhill northwards towards Bristol. First we drove past Chew Valley Lake to have a little wander around the village of Chew Magna and visit the church there. The we drove to Blagdon for a circular walk down to the lake and across the dam, before grabbing a pub lunch at the New Inn.

Oakhill Walk

 

Today we traveled to Oakhill in Somerset to visit my sister Sue for a few days. We arrived in good time and were able to go for a walk this afternoon. Sue suggested a circular walk including a stretch along part of the Fosse Way.

Bures Walk

Today was my second walk with the U3A Bury St. Edmunds Longer Walks group. This time we did a 13 mile walk from Bures, led by Dave. This was the invite from him...

"Hi all. I am planning a walk of about 13 miles this month starting from Bures Community Centre and going via Tiger Hill and Arger Fen to Wissington, returning on the Stour Valley path. Can we meet at 9.30 in Bures."

The Music of Eric Thiman

My recent participation in the trienniel (now to be bienniel) reunion of the St. Michael's Singers reminded me of the CD we contributed to in our alter ego of the Tudor Singers in 2016, The Music of Eric Thimon.Our conductor, Guy Turner, is the archivist of the Eric Thiman collection at Southwell Minster, where we were singing a few weeks ago. 

Holkham Day Out

Today we visited Holkham Hall and had a lovely walk through the estate, along Holkham beach to Burnham Overy Staithe and back via Burnham Thorpe, where Horatio Nelson was born. Dawn came too. The trip was organised by Joyce, so thanks to her. This was the invite...

A Basil Jungle

 Look what we have in the greenhouse!

No shortage of basil for pasta dishes... and lots of Insalata Caprese and Insalata Tricolore. Now if only toddler William hadn't ripped the leaves off my little avocado tree 17 years ago....