Normal holiday life
I thought I would group days together in this blog to save me time and you boredom – I am sure there is only so much time you have to read about our chaotic activities.
The site we are on is lovely and quiet – so quiet I wonder if the other travellers are alive. In fact, I soon wonder if any living beast is alive as we don’t wake up to the sound of birds tweeting like we normally do when on holiday – maybe they don’t have birds in Suffolk. The site is impeccably clean and tidy and the owners have been considerate and stocked the toilets with quality toilet paper – I am disappointed when Mel wont let me steal any.
However, there are lots of signs and posters on walls, gates and doors and we realise the site is being run by dictators. Don’t do this and don’t do that etc. You know the type. Little emphasis is placed on ‘please’ and/or ‘thank you’ and instead tells us when we can and cannot breathe. Mel and I decide to keep a low profile and agree not to try to access the toilet block when the sign dictates they are closed for cleaning.
The showers are clean but once again, the site owners clearly haven’t used them. If they had, they would make changes. It is one of my frustrations as it isn’t hard to make them better. On this site, there are 2 sets of showers and in the first one there aren’t any hooks or places to put clothes, and in the other set, you risk hyperthermia. For those of you who are the slightly bit interested, I have previously written a blog about showers on some sites in Wales which you can find here: https://2ladiestravelling.com/2021/09/29/showering-far-from-home/
The weather this week has been changeable with dry and sunny one day and rain the next, so we plan our week around it – outings when dry and old people activities when we are in all day. To be prepared, I brought a jigsaw puzzle with us and Mel brought crystal card making kits. I will start with mentioning the card making. The kit had millions of tiny crystal type stones and you stick them on the card. It is simple but very therapeutic. Or it is meant to be. Mel decided to be helpful and used egg boxes to separate the different coloured crystals and make life easier so I sat down and started my sticking which was fun, and I knew I was set for the afternoon. Unfortunately my bliss didn’t last long as Mel bumped the table and in a split second, disaster took over.
Thousands of tiny weeny colourful stones flew up into the air and landed everywhere. Ethel’s carpet was covered, and she shimmered beautifully. Mel looked at me, worried I would be cross but all I could do was laugh as it was a scene from faulty towers. The next hour was taken up with Mel and me on our hands and knees trying to pick up each stone. It took forever and was impossible to separate the colours. Now there was just a pile of prettiness. The situation wasn’t helped by me knocking them on the floor again later. But after we had picked them up again, I carried on with my art afternoon and just put the colours where I thought they should go.
The next indoor activity failure was attempting to complete a jigsaw puzzle. We only have a small table in Ethel and Mel assured me she had measured the table and so the jigsaw was certain to fit. Or not. We spent an age getting the straight edges to form the outside of the puzzle, but it was too big for the table. The jigsaw was quickly put back in the cupboard. Mel went back to sleep, and I returned to playing a game on my phone.
On the sunnier days, we headed out to enjoy the Suffolk countryside and using a variety of walking apps, we headed on circular routes to the coast. Our nearest beach was Shingle Street which, as its name suggests was made of shingle. It was stunning. Miles and miles of shingle and sea and on a cold but sunny day was beautiful. Mel soon took up her normal position and started foraging for shells and stones and anything else she deemed interesting.
For the first half hour, I did remarkedly well and showed suitable enthusiasm and even picked up and passed a shell or two to her, but I was unable to sustain it and soon switched off from beachcombing and instead just marvelled at the beauty. Most beaches we visit have limpet shells as the majority but on this one, whelks took the lead – there were hundreds and I start to worry about Ethel being overloaded on the journey home as Mel collected so many. On another day, we took a longer route and walked to the next beach along and I was impressed with Mel as she seemed very restrained and collected only stones (!) this time.
On Monday we headed out in Ethel to visit the town of Aldeburgh as we wanted to buy a couple of items: 1. A rucksack as we took the ones from Ethel into the house to be washed last time out but forgot to put them back in. 2. A smaller jigsaw and 3. Water.
To explain the water purchase, since arriving on site, every cup of tea we made was disgusting and after a long process of elimination (using water directly from the tap, different tea bags, different milk) we worked out it was the site water and we switched to using bottles. However, our arms were getting a bit stretched from walking to the local shop every other day and it made sense to get some when we were out in Ethel.
Aldeburgh was lovely but very posh and the shops were predominately independents (and therefore expensive) but we were mainly successful in our tasks. We bought water from co-op and a new jigsaw from a charity shop but couldn’t locate a rucksack. Helpfully, the shop worker in the charity shop suggested we drive to Leiston where there was a factory shop.
On arrival at Leiston, Mel got accosted by an old dear who proceeded to share her whole life story based on the common ground of us arriving in a motorhome. I walked off. We successfully bought a rucksack.
I feel I should mention how successful our day out in Ethel was as so much could have gone wrong. Firstly, I was worried that Ethel’s battery would be flat as I had left one of the switches on the control panel in the wrong setting so I was surprised when she started without a problem. Secondly, I gave Mel fair warning that there was a risk of me having a breakdown if I couldn’t find anywhere to park. But the gods were with us and a huge 4×4 drove out of a parking space in a bay suitable for Ethel. We didn’t have to pay – bonus. And finally, I was dreading the boxing day crowds but they didn’t seem to be a problem in sleepy Suffolk as whilst there were more people than I would have preferred, it was manageable. All in all, it was a successful and stressless day out.
We are heading to Ipswich tomorrow to tackle ‘Go Outdoors’ as we need some more gear in preparation of the Dales Way walk in May and I am praying the trip is equally painless.
We have a couple more days left of this holiday and if anything else interesting happens, I will let you know. If it is boring, you may not hear from me till our next trip in 2023. Mel hasn’t planned anything yet, but I know we are heading to Cheshire for a break in the spring and then will probably spend a few weeks in the Republic of Ireland in September. I am sure there will be plenty of short weekend trips throughout the rest of the year too – I will keep you informed!
Happy New Year!
2LadiesTravelling 