Suffolk

We decided to take our annual holiday in the May Half Term this year, to celebrate our First Wedding Anniversary (which is actually today!). We picked Suffolk as it was our first holiday together 6 years ago, so it seemed like a fitting place!

On our way through, we returned to Anglesey Abbey, a place that I have been desparate to revisit for such a long time! Although it was just a passing visit, we spent a while exploring the woodland walk and the rose garden, counting clocks in the house and then a hearty lunch to set us up for the remainder of our journey towards the seaside.

 On our first day, we made a beeline for the beach. Of course! The boys played on the beach whilst I enjoyed the beautiful scenery. We had a delicous lunch, the product of the many delis and bakeries in Southwold. Then there was more playing on the beach (of course!) and then we went for a long walk around to the harbour for a fish and chip supper and a nose at the boats.

 We couldn't come all this way without making a trip to Felixstowe, the venue for many of Dan's holidays as a child, and the place that we stayed those many years ago. More playing on the beach, yummy Italian for lunch and it wouldn't be a holiday of ours without stopping in to the nearest Waitrose. We are all for little traditions!

Our National Trust visit of the week was to Dunwich Heath. We have fond memories of Dunwich from our last visit, but this time we chose the Heath. It was beautiful. We had a lovely stroll around the kids trail, including a play on the, you guessed it, BEACH! But of course the main feature was the famous scones. I chose Raspberry and White Chocolate and my goodness, I think it was the most delicious cream tea I have ever had!

Then I had a day cameraless. You can guess what we started with. Beach! And shopping for a few souvenieers. To celebrate our wedding anniversary as a family, we went to the local posh hotel for Afternoon Tea. Finger sandwiches, tarts, macarons, scones. Delicious. And Louie thought it was very novel!

And to end our week away, another National Trust property to break up our journey. This time, Ickworth. What a beautiful house indeed and one which Dan was completely enamoured with. Especially because of the electrical engineering magazines from 1936 in the basement. He was just a little excited when he found articles on Switchgear, and even more so when he found details of a unit he was updating only a few weeks ago! We ended up staying at Ickworth much longer than we intended and didn't get home until bedtime!

You can find more about our day trips here, here and here.

Anglesey Abbey

This weekend Pappy went home to Burnley to watch them keep their top spot in the championship against Charlie's new side, QPR. So Mr Bee and I decided to have a trip of our own. We trekked through 4 counties to get to Anglesey Abbey in Cambridgeshire, with one hell of a diversion as there was a closure on the A14. 

And what an adventure we had. With autumn in full swing, we kicked, threw and chased leaves all over the huge grounds. We must have walked for miles and miles around the paths. 

 

Of course our tour of the house was whistlestop with Louie (remind me to visit again childless...!). We counted the hundreds of clocks inside the house and marveled at the deco bathrooms. The library was the firm favourite with paintings of Kings and Queens lining the shelves. Louie confidently pointed out King Richard (of course) and told the lady the story of Lady Jane Grey living in Bradgate Park, being queen for a short while and then having her head lost (as he calls it!). History geek in the making...

 

 (oh and the house was nearly completely carpeted so you could either go shoeless or with shoe covers on!)

 After a delicious lunch, we visited the formal gardens to hunt for bees and butterflies but came to the conclusion that they had gone to sleep for the rest of the year. We didn't see any, but we did see some beautiful roses and dahlias.

 Oh and some ENORMOUS fungi!

We walked alongside the river to Lode Mill. We watched the watermill turn the millstones to grind the wheat into flour, and even bought a bag of wholemeal to use for our pizzas tomorrow ;)

On our way home, we couldn't resist popping into the Cath Kidston factory shop (at St Neots) for some cheeky christmas presents. Well we were passing!