THURSDAY

I got up this morning to go for a walk. I've been doing a fair bit of walking and it has had some interesting moments. On our first morning in The Lodge (don't call me Kevin) I walked outbound along the lane. Within 50 metres I saw some cute little furry critter dart across the road and into the hedge. I now know it was a squirrel and have seen a few more in various places. Another 100 metres and I met 3 deer in the stubble in a farmers paddock (field). It looked like a doe and two fawns which were about three quarters grown. Anyway back to this morning, I just got out the door and it started to rain so I cancelled that plan. After a very leisurely breakfast and wash-up we decided to go for another drive into 'ancestor country'. All the places where the ancestors that I know of lived are within about 20 miles of here. Each village or town is only about 2 to 4 miles from the last. Hadleigh is a much larger town than most and has another old and beautiful church. In there on the wall was a memorial to a former rector, Benjamin Stannard Fryer MA, Dean of Bocking who was rector for a year and a half prior to his death in 1910. He must have been very popular as the memorial is significant and he was not there long.

After that we went to Raydon where my G/G/Grandmother was baptised. This is the first Church we have visited which was locked. As we were leaving another couple came and he was taking photos. He asked me if I would take a photo of both of them (on his camera). He was obviously a yank. I made the mistake of asking if he had some significant connection to the Church. He didn't answer but proceeded to pull out his drivers license. His surname was Raydon and assured me that his ancestors gave the town its name.

Today we had a few problems with Deidre. Whenever we park the car anywhere I take her off the windscreen and put her out of sight. Yesterday in the process I dropped her. No apparent damage but today her voice was very scratchy. I played with the controls and then she went mute so she stopped talking to me. Later, after several wrong turns she must have got sick of all the mistakes because she started saying "recalculating" and then she started working OK. But we were continually getting of course. I do not know if she was giving wrong directions or I was not correct in following her instructions. Anyway after quite a few wrong turns I decided to do my own thing and headed home by what I thought was the right way. Later she seemed to agree with me and by the time we got home our relationship had been sorted out.

One thing about all the wrong turns we get to see a lot more of the country. Deidre is programmed to never do 'U' turns so every wrong turn takes us on a round about trip to get back on course. Add to the adventure.

The attached photos show the memorial mentioned.

The main through road for traffic passing through Hadleigh which is not a small village but a sizable town. The cars on the left are parked as is the truck (lorry) on the right. The car in the middle is coming from the opposite direction. Please note that the cars can park facing in either direction which takes some getting used to!

The third photo is a country road between villages, not a main road but it becomes interesting when you meet a tractor or lorry.

It looks like we are in for a few days of pretty unpleasant weather so I might have to try and get to the Records Office and do some research.

That's about it for now. Catch you all later. Dave and Ann