Sunday 28 September 2008

Strap yourself in... it's a catchup!

Ok... In a complete turnaround, I'm going to attempt to fill you in as quickly as I can... a novel may still follow...
I managed to snare tickets to see Stevie Wonder at the O2 a couple of weeks back, much to the chagrin of a couple of my workmates, and he was awesome! It was his first tour of the UK in ten years or something, and initially I was a little un-engaged as he played a LOT of album tracks - slow ones, at that! - but he rolled out about an hour of hits at the end, which was just fantastic... and free, so it doesn't get much better than that.
The next week it was back to the O2 for Nickelback (another blag - I'm getting rather better at this now!), which I'd jacked up for Kent months ago, after he insisted on watching the 'Rock Star' video on YouTube over and over and over again... They were just amazing live - a notch above anyone I've seen live in the last few years - and there were a couple of families there with younger kids who were really getting into their airguitars - it was supercute!


We met our friends Jordan & Jax at the tube station afterwards and brought them back to Ipswich with us.
The next day was beautiful, so we drove to Hickling Broad and hired a boat for half a day for a bit of a cruise around... we've done this before, and probably will again - it's great - so be warned, if you're planning a visit anytime soon!


Some of my workmates had a flatwarming that night, so it was, ahem, a fairly late night/early morning for all bar Kent, who is far more restrained. This proved to be quite handy as he got up early to cook us all a wicked breakky before we wandered into the park and then drove to Flatford, just down the motorway from us in Constable Country for a picnic... people have been urging us for months to pop down, as it's rather pretty, and quite peaceful. We had a lovely wander in the sun before dropping J & J back at the train station.
In other news, we had to call the police (thank goodness we had to call them while I was at work, as the emergency number here is different than at home!) after our neighbours decided to have a rather loud fist fight outside... in the middle of the afternoon. Luckily no one was seriously injured, after my hero Kent intervened and pulled one off the other... and was promptly accused of being racist as one of them happens to be dark-skinned. Ah, you just can't win, can you?

Oh yes and Kent's been to two football games this week... Ipswich Town lost both of them... perhaps he's a jinx for them?!

It's been lovely again today, so we went to Sutton Hoo, which is an Anglo-Saxon burial ground, where archaeologists unearthed a massive burial ship just before WWII. There's quite a lot of evidence to suggest it's the one holding Raedwald, who was King of East Anglia in the 600s - it was pretty cool, and there's a great story that the old woman who lived on the farm there kept having dreams about a huge burial procession for a King and so funded the digging... personally, I'd have thought the unusual mounds in the field on her otherwise flat farm might have been a giveaway, but it's nice to have a story.
Incidentally, it's between Sutton Hoo and Orford Castle, where we went next, that I found apples that actually taste like apples... let's face it, they've been a bit rubbish for ages, but we drove up a narrow dirt path and found a farm that sold them...mmmmmm... they tasted exactly like the ones we had as kids.
Orford Castle was also pretty cool. I have to confess that I do get a little 'castled out' at times, thankfully this one is almost a 'castlette' - it's still standing, but only one really big tower and a couple of small ones attached to the main one. It's good and tall, so there are amazing views of the north of Suffolk from the top; especially good views from the bit of the top Kent climbed over the fence to take a video of... I think he thinks he's Indiana Jones... or Lara Croft?
Not mega-quick, but not too bad to sum up the last few weeks... we'll spend the next few planning Christmas (sorry, but someone has to be the first to use that word) and my trip to Disneyland Paris with Susie News - YAY!
Take care,
Eryn x