What we saw and didn't

I mentioned quite a while ago in this blog that while we were camping in a place in North London we saw a host of rabbits in the next field. Bunnies everywhere!
In fact, we saw quite a lot of wildlife while we were travelling around: a fox in a churchyard in Kentish Town (a London suburb); plenty of squirrels around the Norfolk lanes and even one in the backyard of my niece’s house in Braintree. He was running along the fence as if he owned the place, stopping when he felt like it, and taking stock of the situation.
We saw a deer one day – apparently they’re quite common in the forest areas on the sides of roads, and there are signs warning motorists to watch out for them in places. I’m told there are some deer in the woods at my great-nephew’s school in Taverham.
Pheasant were common hopping in and out of the hedgerows, and pigeons were everywhere on the country roads. They appeared to have no common sense. One of them flew up in front of us when we driving along one day, and instead of flying to the side, it kept going straight. It didn’t even go higher than the car – just straight. Fortunately at the last minute it swerved, but I thought we were going to make impact at some point.
At my other niece’s house, there were frogs in the garden, and even on the roadside near where she lives. And in the place we stayed in near Bury St Edmunds, there was an infestation of moles – though we never actually saw them, only what they left behind: large mounds in the grass.
Domestic animals were a different matter. We hardly ever saw a cat, though there were plenty of dogs around. Dogs everywhere: held in their owner’s arms, tangling up their owner’s feet; on the buses, on the tube; in the museums, and other public places.
And the only place we ever saw sparrows were in some of the cities. I never saw one in the gardens of the houses I stayed in. Isn’t that strange? I really missed the little critters.

This photo was taken by Tony Northrup; you can see a large version of it on his site, as well as other nature photography.

Some things I meant to mention

Policeman’s Loke. We’ve passed a sign with this on it twice now, and wondered what on earth a Loke is. Finally checked it out: it’s a private path or road; also, the wicket or hatch of a door. Presumably in this case it’s the former. The origin of the word seems to be a local dialect version of the word, lock.
Secondly, I keep meaning to say about the number of churches in Norfolk and Suffolk that have made their own hassocks. In some churches they commemorate occasions, in others they have all sorts of designs on them depending on who made them, in others they may be only a couple of designs spread throughout the church, and in others such as the one we were in today at Hingham, each hassock is a memorial for a person who’s been in the church, at some time over the last several centuries. And in Bury St Edmunds we came across a woman measuring out the correct distance between each hassock as it sat waiting for a user on the pew back and putting them closer or further apart as the need arose. There were at least thirty rows, with six or so hassocks in each. A time-consuming job! Those hassocks each had a different design on them, commemorating all the different parishes within the diocese.
Thirdly, in every National Trust place we’ve gone so far, they’ve had a secondhand bookshop. Very tempting, and I don’t think we’ve managed to get out of one yet without a purchase.

England is riddled with history

Let’s face it, England is riddled with history. You trip over it at every corner.

We went into the Abbey Gardens at Bury St Edmunds today and found children playing on the ruins of the original Abbey, stones that go back nearly a thousand years. Yesterday we went to Melford Hall near Sudbury, and also visited a church that’s some 600 years old. At every point in the flooring, practically, you’re standing on the tombs of people who’ve been dead for centuries. Next to the church was a hospital originally set up for people who couldn’t afford to go anywhere when they were dying – several centuries ago. The place is still being used for the same purpose. Just up the road was another historic home that’s now home to operas, concerts, plays and the like. Furthermore, family members still live in many of these places. They’re people who can trace their family back for generations – as opposed to the Crowls, who can only go back to my great grandfather, or the Hannagans (my mother’s side), who can only go back a generation or so before that.

In the back lanes near where we stayed, we kept coming across churches that have been used by Christians for centuries. In some cases they’re in very good condition (the churches, I mean); in other cases, the current generation is struggling to keep a church functioning that hasn’t had enough work or money put into it for decades. But nobody seems to think: this is too old; we’d better pull it down. Nope, they have great respect for these old buildings, and there they sit on the landscape as they have almost forever, in spite of the dissolution of the monasteries and all the destruction that went with it, in spite of wars and the ravages of time.

Perhaps because we’re not so familiar with it in New Zealand, we're struck by all this history. Perhaps local people take it more for granted. Whatever, it’s great to see it here, and all this viewable.

Different and Not

Some other things that are different in England.
When I was last here, you couldn’t go anywhere without finding a Wimpy Bar. That doesn’t mean a place for wimps, but a kind of pre-MacDonalds, where they sold Wimpy Burgers. Now you can’t go anywhere without finding a MacDonalds – except in Sudbury (south of Bury St Edmunds), which still has one of the last Wimpy Bars in England.
Fish and chips aren’t horrible everywhere in England. We had some very nice chips the other day. And in the Guardian this morning they’re saying that fish and chips are now being served in top restaurants as one of the great English meals – with lots of garnishes, of course.

Some things that aren’t different.
Television is almost identical to the television we see in NZ. Not so much in terms of the actual programs, but in terms of the types of programs. There are more English-made series, but they all follow the same trends as we have: lots of cooking series, gardening, quiz shows, reality tv etc. There are more satirical talk shows, and these are brilliant, because the wit of the people on them is top-notch. There’s nothing quite like this at home. But otherwise, most of the time you could be sitting in your lounge in Glenpark Ave and watching your ordinary old tv.

Bury St Edmunds

Spent most of today in Bury St Edmunds – once we’d woken up (at around 9.30 – very late even for us). Did the touristy thing, checking out the Abbey, and taking lots of photographs. The place is a constant reminder of its Christian heritage, with most of the streets in the centre having saints’ names or names associated with the church. There are other names, too, such as the usual market names, but the place is rife with Christian associations.
I didn’t know a thing about St Edmund until today. He was a king of East Anglia in the 9th century, and was slaughtered by the invading Danes (who camped at Thetford, incidentally). Whether he died on the battlefield or whether he was martyred by refusing to take up a sword against the invaders is not known for sure. The typical picture of Edmund is of him punctured with arrows, rather like Sebastian – there’s just such a picture in the Lady Chapel in the Abbey, with the angels pulling the ‘soul’ of Edmund out of his body and bringing him before God.
Bury is relatively hilly: not so much as my home town, but with enough hills to keep you fit. It has several op shops (charity shops), so we had plenty to keep us occupied. I found a pair of cufflinks in one of these shops and offered them £10 (they were marked at £11.99). They ‘weren’t allowed to change the prices,’ so I didn’t buy them. But in another op shop they were selling everything for a pound or less, and I got a more interesting and outlandish pair of cufflinks and a matching tiepin for a pound. Every town we’ve gone to has several op shops, often within spitting distance of each other. Literally, if you’re a good spitter.

The photo is of the Abbeygate, which stands alone at the moment, leading into the Abbey gardens, which are open to the public. I met an Black American woman in there yesterday with an albino ferret on a lead.

Going back in time

Well, we’ve hardly been living on the edge of late, but we did have lunch in a house built in 1570 today. As the host said, it’s amazing to think that Shakespeare was writing his plays around the time the house was built. Actually Shakespeare was only born in 1564, so he probably wasn’t writing much at that point, but you get the idea.

The people who own the house, which is situated near Bury St Edmunds, are both into the conservation of old buildings, and this place is a prime example of a house built (and restored) in the wattle and daub process. It has a thatched roof (I’m told thatched roofs are great, except that they need more frequent repair than more solid materials such as the tile roofs that are common everywhere in Norfolk) and that timber and ‘plaster’ look that’s typical of Elizabethan houses. (You can see some photos of the process of building one these houses here.)

It’s a bit weird going into a house this old (400 plus years), and sitting down at a table amongst furniture that’s also old (not as old as the house, but still old). On the walls are photographs of various ancestors in the typical serious poses of the early 20^th century and before, and the floors in the kitchen are made of bricks on sand. Apparently that stays very dry. The rooms have an uneven look about them, and even though I’m only 5’6” tall, I hit my head on one of the door frames, and would have hit it on more if I hadn’t watched out. Even the ceiling beams are within inches of my head.

The house has mod cons, of course, because these are 21^st century people, but it retains the atmosphere of a home built centuries ago – plenty of creaking floors, for example. (There were plenty of those upstairs at Blickling Hall as well – no doubt there for the benefit of Anne Boleyn’s ghost!).

We’re going back to this house mid-July, to stay there for a week, so you’ll no doubt hear more about it.