I hope it won’t be too boring if I tell you a bit more about my stroll along the Suffolk coast.
These days it is pretty unusual to take a ferry consisting of a small boat rowed by a genial cove with a Captain Birds Eye beard. He plies his trade just south of Southwold and saved us having to walk more than a mile. I, prudently I think, removed my backpack reasoning that if I fell in wearing a pack I would in all probability drown. The ferry man agreed with me but said that a recent passenger had all but done that while as tight as a Morston Mussel.
For most of the day, shimmering in the sunlight, we could see a dome that reminded Ian of the Blue Mosque. It is Sizewell B, an elderly nuclear power station. The adjoining cafe (closed on Friday afternoons in September) is called Sizewell Tea.
Not far on there are some more beach huts where a friendly bather invited us to see something unusual, namely a wasp spider. A spider looking just like a wasp with two extra legs that had decided to diversify into the web-spinning business.
We spent the night in Thorpeness at the golf club (est. 1922). Ian spent ages reading the wall boards recording the names of past captains and competition winners. I spent ages teaching the barman to make Dry Martinis. I think I may have got the quantities wrong as the bill was as stiff as the cocktails. It took two bottles of red wine at dinner before Ian got over this.
I regret that space does not permit even a brief description of the conversation Ian had with the charming mayoress of Southwold and her councillors and the subsequent mix-up over bedrooms. But there is room to mention that in Thorpeness we met a South African, a Slovakian and a Romanian. They are all in employment and I assume paying their taxes. Just the sort of migrant workers that the country needs, even if the South African did sting us for £65 for the Martinis.