Funny how you go months without a picnic and then end up on three in a week... and one in a VERY unusual location.
Who would have thought I would have a picnic underneath a old nuclear testing building? OK - not as dramatic or dangerous as it sounds but still pretty amazing.
Both picnics were at National Trust sites. The first, a more traditional NT property - The Vyne in Hampshire. Beautiful 16th century house, chapel and gardens, lovely cakes in the tea room etc etc.
The second was at Orford Ness in Suffolk as part of an organised trip with
Paddy Heazel, a volunteer who has carried out in-depth research into the military history of the site, as our guide. He has written a book on the subject which the National Trust will be publishing eventually.
No tea room on "the island" ...the secret base for defence experiments. Fresh water and toilets are available on the site but you get there on a NT boat (a five minute journey from Orford Quay)to be conveyed around the Ness on a large tractor drawn trailer, with our own packed lunches ready for a picnic in the vicinity of the famous pagodas.
To have such a knowledgeable guide, and one that could bring history alive with stories of the young "boffins" who worked hard and played hard developing the means for Britain to win two wars, was a real treat.
I knew the site was where radar was developed but didn't know that every bomb was tested there, or that in 1915 the Central Flying School's Experimental Flying Section developed aerial warfare there. In the Second World war it was bomb ballistics that needed the privacy of Orford Ness, and postwar it was the site of secret work on The Atomic Bomb, testing to ensure that none were accidentally triggered whilst in transport by extremes of temperature,vibrations etc.
We also heard how parachutes were developed on Orford Ness, and how it was the need for wartime pilots to be able to operate one-handed as they flew their planes that led to the easy-to-use seat buckles we take for granted on holiday flights nowadays.
How did it stay so secret for so long? A co-operative local population, individual work done on a "need-to-know" basis and the improbability of such a remote location being the site for work that needed ease of transport. It was only when the USA military began to get involved in work there during the Cold War that there was a security fence installed with a hgh number of armed guards to keep people out.
Since they took over in 1993, the NT has demolished many of the decaying buildings and the runways have been removed but they have resisted the temptation to "tidy up" the 16km shingle spit. Bomb craters and many of the old test buildings remain and debrey is still scattered around. Warning signs remind visitors to stay on the marked trails because of the possibility of old ordnance making its way to the surface of the shingle.
Whatever your views on nuclear war, Orford Ness is part of our history and must be one of the National Trusts most unusual acquisitions. The bird life is amazing (our party constantly had their eyes to their binoculars), but with an expert guide the place comes alive in your imagination and you get to go into some of the locked miltary buildings. Remember, there's no tearoom..it just wouldn't look right!
Friday 27 June 2008
Monday 16 June 2008
The Great British Picnic
Finding we had a couple of hours to waste between reviewing an art exhibition in Halesworth and a poetry reading in Aldeburgh, I decided that a picnic would be a) a change and b) more economical than "eating out". So we (husband and I) could be seen yesterday teatime sitting on a bench over looking the seafront and the controversial "Scallop", eating sandwiches, dipping celery into dips and munching on some fruit.
(Some thoughts on Maggi Hamblings sculpture first... I cannot understand why some people hate it so much! It rises out of the shingle and, especially when the beach is deserted, looks as though a giant beachcomber has just dropped it there. It is fabulous and so right as a memorial for Benjamin Britten. We were there from around five o'clock until six thirty and there was only one five minute period when there was no-one either sitting by it, wandering around it, climbing on it or taking photographs).
Anyway ... picnics. As a child we were a big picnic-ing family. The full works... ham salad, rolls, proper puddings, and fresh tea made on a primas stove. With all that of course came plates, cups and saucers, knives and forks. The one thing that always stays in my mind is the Washing Up.
Mum always packed a washing up bowl, Fairy Liquid, teatowels etc and everyone was expected to take part in the ritual of Washing Up (using the hot water boiled on the stove, of course. I have teased her about it so much over the forty plus years since.
Last month, when the subject came up again, she finally admitted why she did it. It was because she knew that, once we got home, Dad would sit in front of the TV and doze, while my sister and I went off to do whatever, and she's be left with the unpacking. At least this way she didn't have dirty plates too!
What a logical way to tackle a problem.. no nagging, no sulks... just put up with the teasing while smiling to yourself that you are the winner all along! Nice one Mum!
(Some thoughts on Maggi Hamblings sculpture first... I cannot understand why some people hate it so much! It rises out of the shingle and, especially when the beach is deserted, looks as though a giant beachcomber has just dropped it there. It is fabulous and so right as a memorial for Benjamin Britten. We were there from around five o'clock until six thirty and there was only one five minute period when there was no-one either sitting by it, wandering around it, climbing on it or taking photographs).
Anyway ... picnics. As a child we were a big picnic-ing family. The full works... ham salad, rolls, proper puddings, and fresh tea made on a primas stove. With all that of course came plates, cups and saucers, knives and forks. The one thing that always stays in my mind is the Washing Up.
Mum always packed a washing up bowl, Fairy Liquid, teatowels etc and everyone was expected to take part in the ritual of Washing Up (using the hot water boiled on the stove, of course. I have teased her about it so much over the forty plus years since.
Last month, when the subject came up again, she finally admitted why she did it. It was because she knew that, once we got home, Dad would sit in front of the TV and doze, while my sister and I went off to do whatever, and she's be left with the unpacking. At least this way she didn't have dirty plates too!
What a logical way to tackle a problem.. no nagging, no sulks... just put up with the teasing while smiling to yourself that you are the winner all along! Nice one Mum!
Monday 2 June 2008
Bees, eagles, and flying experiences
My challenge for 2008 (to try something new every month for a year) is progressing well. Earlier in May I had a go at beekeeping and almost into June it was falconry at Stonham Barns Owl Sanctuary. The best bit is that the Suffolk Norfolk Life magazine want to feature them in the magazine - and I recorded the experience for a possible "special" at the end of the year on radio.
Fascinating Bee Fact 1. One of the hives had three holes in the wood (nearly as big as my fist) made by woodpeckers who get in, eat all the goodies and then fly out the other side.
Fascinating Bee Fact 2: If you stand in front of the flight path of the bees they stop flying into the hive and hover around... when you move away they resume their journey!
Fascinating Falconry Fact: Lots of our sayings come from falconry ie, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush"....to cadge something comes from the "Cadge" a wooden frame used to carry hawks in the field and the "Cadger" who wheedled his way into a hunt as he owned the frame. Caddy and Cad derive from the same meaning.
Fascinating Owl Fact- We say that an owl says "Too-whit Two-whoo" but actually it is the male bird and the female bird calling to each other. The male says "Too-whit" and the female replies "Too- who"! Or is the other way round?!
Both experiences were amazing - watch out for the articles and pictures in Suffolk Norfolk Life magazine.
Fascinating Bee Fact 1. One of the hives had three holes in the wood (nearly as big as my fist) made by woodpeckers who get in, eat all the goodies and then fly out the other side.
Fascinating Bee Fact 2: If you stand in front of the flight path of the bees they stop flying into the hive and hover around... when you move away they resume their journey!
Fascinating Falconry Fact: Lots of our sayings come from falconry ie, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush"....to cadge something comes from the "Cadge" a wooden frame used to carry hawks in the field and the "Cadger" who wheedled his way into a hunt as he owned the frame. Caddy and Cad derive from the same meaning.
Fascinating Owl Fact- We say that an owl says "Too-whit Two-whoo" but actually it is the male bird and the female bird calling to each other. The male says "Too-whit" and the female replies "Too- who"! Or is the other way round?!
Both experiences were amazing - watch out for the articles and pictures in Suffolk Norfolk Life magazine.
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