Our mysterious East - sun dappled tracks and atomic weaponry.

Inevitable as late April's automatic reminder for the moho's road  tax, the habitual arrival in mid- December of Christmas cards from friends in America who we have forgotten, mid July brings a short email from the Caravan and Motorhome Club informing us that next year's subs are about to be filched automatically from our bank account unless we tell them otherwise. Equally inevitable is the resultant brief conversation questioning why we belong to the organisation in the first place, then inaction, ensuring that next year, in mid July 2019, we are destined to have exactly the same short exchange. 

When we first bought Maisy in 2013 we joined the Camping and Caravan Club. Our son was living in Oxford at the time. We worked out that a couple of visits per year to the club's site would more than pay for the subscription. We discovered more or less straightaway that the club sites' jolly hockey stick ambiance, their ridiculous rules about pitching to avoid facing a neighbour's door, the uniformed scout leaderish staff, the preponderance of Daily Mail reading little Englander types - all these things were irritating. Even though we knew that the alternative 'The Caravan Club' probably shared the same qualities, a couple of years ago we swapped our allegiance. What drew to this organisation was not their club sites, which in all honesty are more or less equally bungaloid, but their network of 2000+ certified camping places situated mainly on farms, scattered across the British countryside. Most have a maximum of five pitches, minimal facilities and charge between £10 - £15 per night even in high season - very cheap by British standards. It would only take five or so nights to more than make up the annual club fee and would give us the opportunity to explore bits of Britain we were unfamiliar with. 

This summer we have taken two short breaks to East Anglia. Though we were both born near the east coast, really eastern England from Yorkshire southwards is the area of our home country that we know least well. Most of our adult lives we have lived within 25 miles or so of Manchester. Those times when we were not scuttling off to Europe found us visiting the west of England and Wales, from the Lakes to Cornwall, concentrating in our cycle-camping days on the Welsh borders, Hereford and Worcester and the Cotswolds. In some ways this is unsurprising. Both the train network and the motorways around Manchester make it easier to stay on the west of the country. Furthermore, the Lakes, the hills of the Welsh Marches, the coast of Wales, the Cotswolds and Malverns - they are all beautiful places, perhaps more obviously picturesque than the rolling plain of eastern England.

The east coast has its beauty too. Perhaps we were reminded of it last year when we spent weeks in South Shields while Gill's Dad was in hospital. Big skies, silvery light and the grey, changeful sea provided the scenery for both our childhoods. Though perhaps unfashionably Wordsworthian, I do think the landscapes of childhood are forever present in later life and subconsciously influence our adult perceptions. There were many reasons why we responded enthusiastically to our visit to Suffolk last year. The garden gate food culture, the chatty locals, the picture postcard pretty villages - all of those aspects are unique to the place. However the rolling cornfields, the expansive sky, a glittering light, the empty beaches and pallid sea, those things felt familiar, profound and tinged with nostalgia, at least for me.

So our first trip in mid July took us back to Suffolk, staying in some of the same places as last year and in fact doing much the same things.

The Whitehorse at Edwardstone, a great unassuming local pub with a small camping field attached.

It specialises in brewing 'farmhouse style' beers in the barn next door

simple camping in a field - but the small sanitary block is well maintained and clean

We made friends with a local carthorse the last time we were here two years ago, he dropped by to say 'hello again'.

Edwardstone - picture book England,

with lots of curbside retail - fresh strawberries and...

After one night we headed for the coast, stopping for lunch on the outskirts of Felixstowe. We like Felixstowe, we seriously considered moving here.

Easy beachside parking near the golf links

Felixstowe, an alluring mix of workaday port and fading Victorian resort.

We took a walk to Felixstowe Ferry - a nearby village at the mouth of the river Deben.

It's gloriously ramshackle with a popular fish and chip place. The menu looked unimaginative. We lunched at the moho.

Our final destination - three nights in Orford -

sunken lanes...

the usual flower decked cottages..

the Post Office doubles as a greengrocers - most stuff is sourced locally...

then there are the pasteis de nata from the Pumphouse Bakery..

all additional reasons, apart from its glorious esturial setting, to like Orford.

We decided to take a day trip to the National Trust nature reserve on Orford Ness. It is situated across the river Alde and accessible by a small ferry from Orford Quay. Sadly, even in somewhere idyllic the current political debacle is impossible to escape.  British inshore fishermen's support for Brexit is one of the more curious aspects of the referendum vote. Most shellfish caught by our fishermen is exported to Europe as our friends over the water have a greater appetite for 'fruit de mer' than us. So, by leaving the EU they cut themselves off from free access to their largest market. I am not sure what is the piscatorial equivalent of 'shooting yourself in the foot', perhaps 'drowning in your own net'.

The National Trust ferryman strikes a heroic pose.

Orford Ness is famous not only for birds, but as the site of a top secret military laboratory.

From the 1930s to the 90s it was off-limits to the public.

In mid 30s Radar was developed here - this experimental rig from the late 50s was designed specifically to track Sputnik.

mysterious steam-punk  junk litters the place.

From 1945 - 1971 the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment had a laboratory here.

A couple of the old huts have been purloined as make-shift museums. Among the faded black and white photos of the personnel, a few bits of rusting ordinance, old furniture and various bric-a-brac, suddenly you are confronted by a gleaming de-commissioned nuclear bomb. For something that was capable of destroying an entire city and killing millions the object is unexpectedly small, maybe three metres long. It is a sobering sight. 

Though the entire shingle bank remains littered with unexploded ordinance- people do heed the warning notices to stay on the marked paths - thankfully no fissile material was stored here. It was the non-nuclear parts of the bomb that were developed in specially constructed concrete bunkers - high explosive detonators, the fin, tail and guidance system, and high speed tests that slammed the nose cone into massive a concrete wall to make sure the bomb would explode on impact. 

The ruined structures are haunting and other-worldly, the kind of place loved by the makers of Dr Who episodes featuring the UNIT. Disappointingly, neither Tom Baker, Leela, nor the Brigadier were anywhere to be seen. I can only assume that the fact that we were not confronted by Daleks, Cybermen or terrorised by Zygons means, as ever, the Time Lord triumphed and is off in another time and place fighting inter-galactic evil. The only strange beings we encountered were ornithologists.

Aside from the ruined military installations, Orford Ness is a unique place.  The huge shingle bank hosts rare flowers and plants and the esturial mud flats teems with bird life. It is a place of wide horizon's and big skies, a lonely spot, desolate and beautiful in equal measure. 

Teasels - an appropriately extra-torrential looking flower

I think the sight of the nuclear bomb had dampened our spirits. We reflected on the folly of human ingenuity being harnessed to create weapons of mass destruction. When we got back to Orford, unlocked the bikes and pedalled back to the Raydon Hall camp, I think we were both glad to reconnect with the mundane and the everyday. Somehow ordinariness seemed more valuable and precious after being unexpectedly confronted by an atomic bomb.

The re-assurance of the simply mundane.

The whole of Europe is having a heatwave. Suffolk did not quite hit the 44 degrees suffered by our daughter in Lisbon, nevertheless we had daytime temperatures well into the 30s, dipping at night a little, but remaining hot and sticky. Because we we travel outside of the summer months mainly, we are unused to dealing with heat. Back at home, 1000' high in the Pennines, for once, Buxton's climate was preferable to the rest of England, as other places sweltered we experienced lovely summer days with temperatures in the twenties. We spent a couple of weeks doing some long overdue refurbishment work in the garden, repairing the decking and relining the ponds. Time has slipped by. These features are now twenty years old; recent travels and time spent in the northeast caring for Gill's Dad has meant the house and garden has been neglected a little. I enjoy physical work, well in small doses. What soon became apparent was that forty-something me had considerably more strength and stamina than sixty-something me. After four days of labour I was ached from head to foot and felt like a physical wreck. Still, the garden does look much better now.

We have a 2 - 3 week boredom threshold when we are at home. The long term forecast was predicting an end to the long dry and sunny spell in a week or so's time. We decided to head-off again as once the summer weather breaks in the UK it does not always return. Quite easily, a cool spell at the beginning of August can presage early onset autumn. We needed to make the most of the sunshine, so booked ourselves three nights in a small certificated site at Attlebridge in Norfolk. The area is another part of Eastern England that we are are unfamiliar with. Though less than 8 miles from Norwich it feels remote and isolated. We chose the location because it near the Marriott Way, a 26 mile cycle track from the centre of Norwich which wanders off through the countryside to the northeast of the city. 

The small site at Breck Farm is simple, but well kept - suits us perfectly

The Marriott trail is accessible about half a mile away.

It runs through water meadows,

and mixed woodland - oaks mainly.

Reepham is about 5 miles up the track - a classic small English market town - few are as authentic as this these days.

Diane's Pantry looked perfect for lunch.

What to choose...?

The town has retained local shops - a butchers and a greengrocers

Some fine mid 18th century town houses - now a hotel

Unusually it has two medieval churches adjacent to one another with the remains of a third, no one knows why.

old cottages

A small town hall that looks distinctly 'Camberwick Green'. Reepham - a small delight.

Post bike ride meditation.

Always on the lookout for awesome sausages, next day we headed to Swannington 'Farm to Fork'

Classic English landscape around Swannington - Hoskins country.

In the afternoon we explored the track in the opposite direction - towards Norwich.

Again, nice mixed woodland. We stopped on the edge of the City, but the track takes you right intro the centre if you wish.

It's great to discover new places. We liked Norfolk. The villages and towns we visited have what Gill terms, 'integrity'. By that, I think she means that they function as unique communities and have retained local services and shops. It does lift the spirits - not a Greggs in sight. 

When we got home the warm weather continued. We actually relaxed for a day or two. It won't last, in another day or two and we tedium will return. Where next? we will ask.