Blaxhall, UK

Today was an incredibly gorgeous sunny day here in the Suffolk region of England.  I got some work done on the computer this morning, read a little, vacuumed or hoovered, as they say in the UK and Ireland, the house and tired to suck up the unbelievable amount of cat and dog hair that accumulates from these three. But, and this is going to sound strange, I love the vacuum cleaner. I used the same one in Ireland when I was living there for 4 months a few years ago but it was named Henry and was a red canister machine where as this one is pink and named Hetty. I remember looking up online when I got back to NYC to see if they sold them in the US but I couldn't find any. Anyway, I digress, so I managed to get most every little offending fur ball and the scattered bits of kitty litter in the hallway and cleaned the counters and table top, shook out the blankets on the sofa so all-in-all I felt a little bit productive and somehow a little less fur oppressed. I was thinking, and wrote to my aunt, who also battles with Zaboo's tremendous fur balls which accumulate at an alarming rate under the bed, that if only scientists could find a good use for this unwanted fur. Maybe if they could figure out a way to power cars with it or turn it into recyclable plastic bags, I don't know but when you think of how much of it households gather and discard daily around the world it would certainly be an amazing renewable resource.

I took a three-hour walk with Teddy today since it was so gorgeous and yesterday, the rain deterred us from venturing too far so I figured it would be good for him to stretch his legs and get some fresh air, I know I certainly needed it.  We walked down to the nearest little village called Blaxhall which if I were walking alone would take about 10 minutes but with Teddy it takes about 40. I really can't imagine why he needs to do his business one little bit at a time. We stop constantly, it's maddening. Anyway the village has a pub and lots of little cottages and homes as well as a few farms on the outskirts.  We took a left on to Station Road from School Road and walked a bit when I heard a noise and said "Teddy, it's a cow, let's go see the cow." Well we turn onto a tiny driveway and there is a small fenced in area and what is sitting in the middle of the grass, not a cow, but a brown and black sheep "bah, bah, bahing away." Don't even ask how I mistook that sound for a cow. I think I need to go back and play with that kids toy where you pull the string or press a button and the animal makes it's sound. Anyway, the sheep was adorable and didn't seem to mind us looking at him although Teddy just wanted to move on, clearly sheep are not his thing.

I came across, for the first time since I arrived, a few poppies growing by the roadside. I always like poppies but that's not what interested me today, it was that for the time I've been in England I see in almost all the stores these boxes with paper poppy pins and car adornments. I knew it had something to do with war remembrance so I just looked it up found this "Remembrance Day (also known as Poppy Day or Armistice Day) is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth countries since the end of World War I to remember the members of their armed forces who have died in the line of duty. This day, or alternative dates, are also recognized as special days for war remembrances in many non-Commonwealth countries. Remembrance Day is observed on 11 November to recall the end of hostilities of World War I on that date in 1918. Hostilities formally ended "at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month," in accordance with the Armistice, signed by representatives of Germany and the Entente between 5:12 and 5:20 that morning. ("At the 11th hour" refers to the passing of the 11th hour, or 11:00 a.m.) World War I officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919.  The day was specifically dedicated by King George V on 7 November 1919 as a day of remembrance for members of the armed forces who were killed during World War I. This was possibly done upon the suggestion of Edward George Honey to Wellesley Tudor Pole, who established two ceremonial periods of remembrance based on events in 1917.  The red remembrance poppy has become a familiar emblem of Remembrance Day due to the poem "In Flanders Fields". These poppies bloomed across some of the worst battlefields of Flanders in World War I, their brilliant red colour an appropriate symbol for the blood spilled in the war."

This is one of the interesting things about living in a country rather than just a visit for a few days. I walk around with the locals picking up groceries, stopping for something to eat at a local pub or taking a public bus and I get a real feel for life here and Remembrance Day is an important part of their society and their national identity.

We walked to Church Road and took a right to get to St. Peter's church which was my original destination when I saw, in the distance a few days ago, a Medieval looking spire. According to a web site on Blaxhall "St. Peter's,  Blaxhall church, built in the 14th century, is set within a hedged graveyard and has recently undergone refurbishment. It is a warm and welcoming village church, with the touch of local hands through the ages very much in evidence.

This small church with a cemetery around it all enclosed behind a stone wall is beautiful with fields and meadows surrounding it and with a lovely and peaceful tree-lined walk leading up to it.  Teddy wasn’t too happy about sitting still in the pews so I didn’t stay too long, just enough to say a prayer and notice some of its beauty. I found, when I was searching online for information about the church, a web site that is dedicated to the churches of Suffolk and St. Peter’s was of course included. The man’s writing is very interesting and so detailed I won’t cut and paste it all here but if you have time it’s worth a read. http://www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/blaxhall.htm

Here is just a tiny bit from what he’s written “Today, St Peter is open to pilgrims and strangers all day, every day. A sign on the door says This is God's House! Be welcome whoever you are, whether of this household or another way. be welcome! This is wonderful, because St Peter is a church of outstanding interest, and little known. A hint of this is to be found when you step into the porch.  Blaxhall was home to the Ropes, that extraordinary creative family of farmers, artists, engineers and religious. Their work can be found in churches and cathedrals all over the world, and they are widely represented in Suffolk. In quantity, you will find the work of Dorothy, Ellen, Margaret and her cousin Margaret E. Aldrich Rope most notably at Leiston and Kesgrave, but also here.”

 

I of course, after reading his blog entry on the church was prompted to look into the lives of the artists he mentions, the Rope family who have an impressive history with stained glass windows throughout much of England and even in South Africa and one in Rome, Italy.  I’ve included the web site I found on the family and George Thomas Rope who was a painter and whose works are also mentioned and included on the web site http://www.arthur.rope.clara.net/intro.htm

I’ll have to make another trip up there so I can really enjoy looking at the art. You just never know what you’ll find in these little villages, always something wonderfully surprising and inspiring.

I found another website with a history of Blaxhall but wow, there is a lot of history for this one tiny village so again I didn't cut and paste but here is the web site for further perusal. http://old.blaxhall.com/history/

I did find it interesting the mention of the Doomesday Book which is quoted or referenced in just about everything I look up on the cities, towns and villages of the UK and now I know why as will you when you read this from the 1066-1699 section of history on Blaxhall on the website above. "...Domesday Book; This unique and priceless record of land and livestock ownership was the result of William the Conqueror’s desire to discover just exactly what he’d got his paws on 20 years earlier, a necessity at the time, not least due to the pressure to raise taxes in order to pay the Danegeld (a fund to keep those feisty Norsemen at bay), as well as the ongoing cost of fighting Anglo Saxon resistance, which continued for many years after the his victory at Hastings."  It was all about taxes, no big surprise there, right?

And I also learned from reading these web sites that sleepy little villages are not at all sleepy. Blaxhall has had it's share notoriety like a women who conspired with her lover to kill her husband and had they had more loyal servants she may have gotten away with it but in 1763 the lover was hung and she, so gruesomely, was the brunt at the stake for what they termed as "petty treason" or husband murder. I think it was an excessively cruel way to punish her, I mean the man who committed the crime only got hung. And there was smuggling and it seems headquartered in the local pub- "The Ship (originally believed to have been The Sheep) has played a prominent role in the village from it’s earliest days until recent times; in the 18th & 19th centuries it was the meeting and preparation place for the Blaxhall Company of Sheepshearers as well as the haunt of local shepherds, but perhaps gained even more fame (or infamy!) at the time for its constantly rumored connection with smuggling - rumors indeed which also involved much of the rest of the village and left several amusing anecdotes for posterity, such as the story that menfolk would suddenly commence loud singing while sitting indoors at night, a habit allegedly driven by the desire to hide the noise of passing illicit wagons from their womenfolk, while the shepherd would conveniently be along early next morning with several hundred hooves to erase any wheel tracks."

So a very lively place a few hundred years ago. I passed the Ship Inn Pub now and it looks pretty tame although there were several people outside having a smoke and probably their afternoon pint.

So off we went after leaving the church to head home. We followed Braxhall Church Road along a lovely path of horse farms and pastures as well as a few cottages including this one I took a picture of with the red brick and thatched roof. John had told me the day he was showing me around that each region in England has their own brick and this kind of red brick is called Suffok brick and it's distinguished from other red bricks by its makeup.

As we rounded a bend we came across a women standing in the road where a bright stream of sunshine shone on her and the baby carriage she had next to her. We stopped to say hi and we ended up walking back to School Road together as we chatted. Her name is Debbie, easy to remember, and her 9 month old son is Stanley. She's a nurse at the Ipswich hospital in oncology and her husband works at the nuclear power plant somewhere nearby. Such a friendly lady and they moved here about 4 years ago from the North because of his job. She goes back to work tomorrow after having been on maternity leave all this time. She seems very excited and said to pop by the house, which is about 3 doors down from mine, on one of her days off Monday or Thursday so I'll have to do that.

Got back to the house and let Olie out for some grass but he decided to run up the tree again, see picture. It really is like a three ring circus around here. I let Olie get down on his own even though he seemed completely flustered and broke lots of small branches and generally made a mess of things as he descended. He's going to get less and less outdoor time if he doesn't behave.

Another night with fireworks. It's really getting on my nerves now, not because I don't love them, I do, but only when I can enjoy them and I can't enjoy them with a howling, barking crazy dog on my hands. He just goes nuts so I gave him a time out in the other room where his bed is. It didn't stop him from barking but at least it wasn't directly in my ear.

So I should be pooped after all that fresh air but I'm pretty energized so hopefully I'll get some more reading done, although now that I look at my watch it's already 8:15pm, wow, time files when you're writing a blog!

Sweet dreams everyone or rather you'll all most likely be reading this during the day so happy after noon!