Clare to Bury St. Edmunds Walk

This was one I had been looking forward to for a few weeks. A pukka Long-Distance Walk of 18 1/2 miles, we were doing it in a single day. Well we didn't quite do it as it is documented and how people usually do it - from Bury St. Edmunds to Clare, but did it in reverse - from Clare to Bury St. Edmunds.

"Dear All,

We are going to walk this Long Distance route on Monday September 17th. Please be honest about your fitness for this walk as it is 18.5 miles long, mostly off road and there are NO refreshments en route.

I'll be catching the 9am bus from Bury St Edmunds bus station and arriving in Clare at 9.51am.

Please bring plenty of water and food as we will be walking til 5-ish I think.

Any questions? I'm doing a recce this Friday so will be able to answer any questions after that"

..said the invite. So I brought plenty of liquid in my backpack - and needed it all as well as a top up of a bottle from the tap of someone out watering his garden.

Here is a map of the route as we walked it...

As it turned out, there were more people on the recce than the day itself, and, with Alex unable to make it, it was just Joyce and me. We met at the bus stop as planned and sat upstairs at the front to enjoy the ride and views.

We got off the bus just outside Clare Town Hall and started from there rather than walk to the Country Park and back again.

Here are some of my photos. The start of the walk was dominated by huge fields, but as the walk progressed it got more interesting. We saw some more berries like those we found on our Needham Market walk. Doing another look I think they might be redcurrants rather than cranberries - see here. We saw a nice haystack, some chicory flowers  (check that I'm right here), some cute little pigs, some goats and even spotted a couple of deer. And we saw some rather fine buildings too. The weather was warm and the sun came out so it was very pleasant walking conditions. One thing the recce walkers didn't see was the massive bonfire that we could feel the heat from from 20m away as we crossed the ploughed field next to it.































The aircraft in the garage was a bit of a surprise!



We finished at the proper point in Nowton Park by about 4:40pm so we had made good time. Here I am at the sign.



Of course I wasn't finished yet. I had to get back to my car in the Ram Meadow Car Park.... which was another 1 1/2 miles walk!

One question we had... which direction is better and is one harder than the other? Well here is the elevation profile of our route...

It seemed to me that the ups in this direction were steeper than the downs, so it was maybe a little harder. But the scenery was definitely better after the first couple of miles, so I'm glad we did it our way. The walking was mostly fine - what was on roads was on very quiet ones - but there were a few ploughed fields to cross where the path had disappeared. I didn't enjoy those much.

This is our speed profile...

You can see where we stopped for lunch at the bench near Somerton Church and I forgot to pause my tracking and a few drink breaks. As you can see, we started at quite a brisk pace, but we took it a bit easier later.

Here is a slide show of my photos taken en-route.

You can see all off my photos on Flickr here and more details of our route and progress on MapMyWalk. Thanks Joyce for the great day out! It was a bit of a long one but aside from some trigger finger cramps once my sausage fingers subsided, no ill-effects in legs and feet the next day, so I think I could have done it again.

Bury St. Edmunds Ramblers Walk - Saffron Walden

Only my 3rd Saturday walk with the Bury St. Edmunds ramblers. They are all day affairs, so I have to get my weekly shopping done on the Friday. This was a lovely one in a circular route from Saffron Walden south the village of Debden and back via part of the Harcamlow Way and Audley End House.

This was (approximately) our route - my phone ran out of juice so didn't track the last 2 or 3 miles properly.

I'd not been to Saffron Walden before. A very attractive little town with ancient houses, a marketplace and historic maze. We stopped about halfway at the The Plough in Debden. The charming landlady was very accommodating, letting us eat our picnics in the pub garden. The route onward from there along the Harcamlow  Way was lovely.

Here is a slide show of all of my photos.

You see them all individually on Flickr and more details of the route on MapMyWalk.

Lovely walking weather and a lovely day's walk. Thanks Trevor!

QC Blogging day

Times Quick Cryptic No 1179 by Izetti

A typical witty and thought-provoking crossword from Izetti today, with plenty of practice at cracking cryptic definitions. A couple of fish, a couple of trips abroad, the police and their collaborator, a bit of Greek mythology, some wizardry and a nasty bit of witchcraft feature in the wide range of vocabulary and general knowledge to give us plenty of variety. A couple of new words to me, but the generous wordplay meant I got them fairly easily. Lots of lovely clues so it's hard to pick one, but my vote for Clue Of the Day goes to ROLLS UP. About 1/2 minute over average for me at about 7 minutes, so slightly on the tricky side, but not too much so. Thanks Izetti for a great puzzle! How did you all get on? [Edit: Well it would appear I underestimated how difficult others would find this. But some great comments - thanks to all for sharing their experiences. And, boy, did we learn some lessons today! Commiserations to all who didn't manage to finish, but I hope the discussion below helps make some of the tricks easier to spot next time]

( See the answers here... )

Update: Well that was interesting. A total of 45 comments, which I think is the most I've had for a Times for the Times blog posting.

In training

It's less than 2 months to finals day. My training regime has started. I have bought books 17. 19 and 21 (I could only scan 2 covers at once), with an aim to complete most of all 3 before the day. Up to number 25 of the fist book now. Has my form on the daily corssword improved? Er, no... not yet!

Bury St. Edmunds Ramblers Walk - Knettishall

Today was my first Ramblers walk this month. It was a circular walk from Knettishall Heath along the Angles Way to Hopton and then back across Knettishall Airfield.

 

This was our route. 

I particularly enjoyed the walk along the outside of Hopton Fen. Along the way Chris gave us lots of interesting information about the places we past, including the Angles Way, Riddlesworth Hall School, where Princess Diana went to school, Gasthorpe Village  where Bill Gates family originated from and Knettishall Airfield with its lovely memorial line of trees along the original runway. We also saw lots of sloes, blackberries and even some hops.

Here is a slide show of all of my photos.

You see them all individually on Flickr and more details of the route on MapMyWalk.

A lovely morning's walk. Thanks Chris!

Ukichi Kuri - First Fruits

I mentioned previously that our garden was getting taken over by these Japanese Squash plants. We thought we'd harvest a couple. Don't they look pretty?

We had half of one with our Sunday roast dinner. I cut it into pieces and drizzled with a little olive oil to which I'd added a little runny honey and dried thyme and roasted for about 20 minutes.

Delicious!

Birthday Sushi

I recently found there is now a Sushi Counter in our local Waitrose run by Sushi Daily. I picked up a leaflet there about their party platters. Would Sarah like one for her birthday tea? Yes, please! She chose the Sakura Sunset..

 It seemed to go down well and there was plenty for the 6 of us.

Happy Birthday, Sarah!

Suffolk Youth Music Gala Concert - Snape Maltings

This was the finale to academic year for the Suffolk County Music Ensembles and Sarah and William were playing in the Suffolk Youth Orchestra.

In the first half we were treated to performances by the more junior ensembles - Suffolk Young Strings and the Suffolk Youth Wind Ensemble. The strings were rather depleted in comparison with previous years, but the standard of playing was excellent.

The orchestra were playing again two of the pieces from their Snape Prom concert at the end of their Spanish tour, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and  Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol.

Once again they were on top form and hugely impressive in very challenging music. As you can see from the picture below they are quite a big outfit (about 95 players) and make a fantastic sound - their fortissimo almost deafening even at row W!

Well played all! And we look forward to coming back next year.

Both William and Sarah were given these souvenir badges to put on their instrument cases.

You can find out more about the county ensembles in the 2018-19 brochure. ...which has William playing my Dad's cello on the cover!

Feta Cheese

I have this Mediterranean Cheese kit, which I got for my birthday.

 

 It has instructions for making a number of recipes. This was my first attempt at making Feta cheese.

The Cow's milk, Goat's milk and Bio-yoghurt mixture was heated and the rennet to be added.After an hour some curds are separating. So far so good...

Here's how it looked after slicing the curd. This looks fine too.

But this is where things didn't quite go to plan. After transferring to a muslin-lined colander, I don't think it drained properly. I had trouble tying my rectangular shaped muslin into a bag to hand as the curds slopped over the short side when I tried. Eventually I was left with this...

But all was not lost. Instead of hanging up it was in a cheese mould and was still able to drain for 36 hours.
Then it was pressed for 12 hours...

 And here it is... my somewhat smaller than planned piece of cheese.

It is very tasty - quite tangy and fresh tasting, and quite crumbly. It is now being kept in the fridge for a day or so, as recommended, before use in a Greek salad tomorrow. I think I'll make some more soon.

River Stort Walk

"If the weather looks fine then please join us on Saturday 1st September for a peaceful and enjoyable walk beside this winding river with 13 locks. Park at Grange Paddocks Leisure Centre CM23 2HH (toilets here) or a road nearby. Bring a snack/drink. The whole route is 13 miles but you just catch a train back to start when you have had enough.....e.g Sawbridgeworth is 5.5 miles, Harlow is 8 miles, Burnt Mill is 9 miles. We will stop for a cuppa and/or bacon sandwich about 5 miles in.", said the invite. That sounded good. I said I would go.

Discussing with family at tea, Dr. Interred said no, but Sarah and William said they would like to come along. "Are you sure?", I asked Sarah. The last family walk we did, around Hartest, was only about 5 1/2 miles, but she complained about there being more than a mile left when we were 4 miles in. But she was sure. So I checked with our organiser and the 3 of us went.

We started in Bishop's Stortford. The weather was perfect - sunny, but not too hot. This was our route...

A total of 13.7 miles from Car Park to Railway station, with 13 locks, a cafe (the Trackside Diner) and pub (The Moorhen) along the banks of the River Stort.

Here are the happy walkers. An affable bunch who made the three of us very welcome.



"Mum would like this too", said Sarah a few miles in. The scenery was delightful and the path peaceful, but we met some interesting characters along the way too, including a couple with an inflatable kayak, a lady swimming and some kids jumping into a rubber tyre.

We had options to cut the walk short at various points close to a station, but Sarah and William wanted to make it to the end. Well done them. And they really enjoyed it too.

As usual, I took plenty of photos. Here are a few favourites.









Click the picture above to see why it is especially significant.



















And from here it was a just a short train ride back to Bishop's Stortford.

Here is a slide show of all of my photos.

And you see them all individually on Flickr.

Thanks to Joyce and Nick for a great walk, and the rest for the additional good company!