On the road again

Bertie is on his travels once again. This time the plan is to head South West to be in Plymouth by Tuesday 16th in time for British Firework Championships.  It was a rather fraught morning as we had left far too much to do to the last minute but despite all that we drove away from Wenhaston at 12:39.

First stop was Bury St Edmunds to visit the EE shop as our new Sim card had not arrived. To make a change we headed along the A1120 through Earl Soham which I think is a new road for Bertie! Bury St Edmunds was well popular and everyone was out shopping in the town centre. The EE shop was very small and seriously busy with 4 people try to serve from just two tills. Even so they gave first class service which saw my old Sim cancelled (the one that was in the post but had not arrived before we left) and a brand new Sim issued. Back at Bertie I plugged it in the router and it worked at once so we now have 32gb per month of superfast 4GEE broadband anywhere in the UK for £28 per month. No more excuses for not keeping the blog up to date.

After leaving Bury St Edmunds we drove a bit south to the tiny village of Hawkedon where Eileen tells me her great-great-great (etc) grandfather is buried. A lovely church in a beautiful location on the village green surrounded by wonderful old timber framed houses large and small. Quintessential Suffolk. Eileen was really pleased to find the gravestones of C18 ancestors (John and Susanna Wiseman). From here we drove about a mile to Thurston End to catch a glimpse of Thurston End Hall, an amazing timber framed manor house, which Eileen tells me was the childhood home of Susanna Wiseman (nee Gotts) the wife of John Wiseman.

From Thurston End we squeezed down several miles of tiny lanes to the nearby village of Depden and our Britstop (231) for tonight. Arrived at 4:20 so plenty of time to visit the farm shop before they closed at 5pm. We parked in the rear car park close to the young turkeys (don’t mention Christmas) who were twittering away to themselves. There were sounds of pig just the other side of the fence too. The shop was good with a good selection of local produce and some interesting cheeses.

The plan for tomorrow is to be away by 9:30 as we have over a 100 miles to do to get to our lunch rendezvous with a cousin of Eileen’s that we have never met and only recently made contact with. His name is David Lowson and he is Gordon Lowson’s son, Gordon was one of George’s (Eileen’s father) brothers.

Mileage at Wenhaston: 118194kms

Mileage now at Depden: 118297km

Total today 103kms.

30th night on Bertie