After a very nice 'full English' breakfast, we had to decide where to go. Saxmunden sounds like an interesting place. Our host thinks people assume it is a Saxon town, and I can see why.
First impressions can ruin a town. Parking in the Market car park and going through a very long and boring phone call to pay my £2 for parking could have been a first impression, but a bigger one was to come. All the toilets have been converted to disabled access, and are restricted to those with the right key fob (or something similar). Would this include visitors? The rest of us have to share 3 Portaloo boxes, with no proper place to wash our hands - yuk.
Although the museum is closed for the winter, there were some interesting things to see, or rather people to meet, in the town. We spoke to an old man who offered to show us a blue pound note. He had just picked up a plaque with a WWII pound note and set of stamps. He spoke a little about the other things from the war he had inherited from his father. We walked on past the museum and followed a footpath sign. It took us into a housing estate, where we found a Ford Anglia 100E, in very good condition. Later we spoke to a woman and two girls, partly because I admired her little dog - a Jack Russel - chihuahua cross. She said that people are frightened of it, but it is really friendly. She told us about the market outside Waitrose, which would be our next port of call. In the market we bought some smoked cheese and smoked humus with various other flavourings. After that, we walked back to the main road and had a cup of tea in the corner café almost opposite Harry Hayward, the plumber. We also purchased their homemade sausage rolls for lunch.
Now, it's time to leave Saxmunden and head to Aldeburgh.
We parked to the north of the town in a beech car park. It has a similar arrangement for payment, but also a 'pay and display' machine, which I was thankful for. The first thing we noticed, because we were parked almost in front of it, was a giant sculpture.
The caption reads 'I hear those voices that will not be drowned' It comes from Benjamin Britten's opera 'Peter Grimes'. I don't know the opera, but my main question is about its placement, not it's purpose. The beach, I believe, is a SSSI, so why plant a great sculpture in the middle of it?We enjoyed our walk through Aldeburgh, after eating our lunch in front of the sculpture. We bought ice cream from a kiosk, visited the lifeboat, and the moot hall. We walked to the southern end of the town on the beach path, and back through the town, then returned to the B&B.
In the evening, we ate at 'The Crown'. Here's the review I wrote:
The food for dinner was lovely, although the portions were rather small. The service though was not so good. Sat in perhaps the darkest spot, I had to use my phone torch to read the menu. Almost immediately our order was taken, drinks and food, then the starter arrived, when I asked for the drinks they were delivered. My wife's soup came without a spoon. Finally, I see a 10% service charge has been added. The whole evening felt rushed until we got the bill, then it was a struggle to get attention to pay, we thought about 'doing a runner', but neither of us can run any more.
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