Peckish Travels

Every day, if we’re lucky, we’re making shared memories with someone that we can reflect back on. Bob and I had a chance to create memories today as well as reflect back on memories from last year.

We had a nice walk today in some intermittent drizzle back near the new housing development north of us, which we had visited last weekend. This time, we continued across a major road to enter a large meadow, which at least for now, has been set aside for trails.

Below are some photos from our walk, which also included a bit on a currently unused (by cars) road.

Our reflecting on past memories today centered on our time house sitting in Melbourne, Australia, last year. A little over a week ago, we read a Facebook post from our homeowner from Melbourne, which stated that she had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer and wasn’t given long to live. She wanted to say her goodbyes. She was open to comments but wanted everyone to know that she wouldn’t be responding. We sent a note, and today were informed that she had passed.

Just another reminder that we’re not long for this world and to make the most of every day, including letting people know how much they mean. So to those of you reading this, please know that Bob and I are so grateful for the gift of your friendship. Take care of yourselves, hug your people, as we send a virtual hug your way.

We don’t have any photos with us and Debra, but we are thinking of her family, including the three that we got to care for.

Today, Bob and I had a great visit to Ickworth Estate, which is a National Trust site a short drive from Bury, with our Cambridge friends, Sue and Peter.

The Ickworth estate’s origins date back to 1086 when it was recorded as a settlement of 16 households belonging to the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds. In 1254, the Crown granted Thomas de Ickworth the land to create a deer park. In 1700, John Hersey inherited the estate to become the First Earl of Bristol; however, the house that we were able to visit was the vision of the 4th Earl of Bristol, known as the Earl Bishop. Construction was begun in 1795 and completed in 1829 after the Earl Bishop’s death.

Some of the rooms in the rotunda portion of the home that we were able to visit.

Yesterday, Bob found a route for us to walk through some neighborhoods to a short path. It gave us a good excuse to see more of Bury away from the town center. Our walk took us north of where we are staying into what appeared to be a new housing development, Marham Park, and we also found a more countryside walk to do on another day.

Also, we have been spending more time in the garden and just yesterday noticed these lovely flowers along the back fence, which separates us from the community tennis courts.

On Saturday, Bob left the house about 10:20 am to catch the train to Cambridge to meet up with our friend Peter, who had kindly offered Bob one of his season tickets to watch the Saracens rugby team play against Sale. Bob has been watching and trying to learn about rugby since our first international housesit in New Zealand, but this was his first time to see a proper game — and at the premiership level. He even treated himself to some merch.

It was a great day for a game, but sadly, not a win for the Saracens. Bob had a great time and learned a lot more about the strategy of the sport.

While Bob was away, I headed towards the Abbey Gardens, where they were holding free interactive walks, talks, and creative art projects as part of Bury BioBlitz. I ended up listening to a 30 minute talk by a guide on the diversity of spiders. Apparently, there are more than 620 species in the UK. I was quite impressed with the speaker for remembering quite a few Latin names for them.

When Bob and I first got to Bury, we started researching some activities and/or places that we wanted to check out. One of the places we knew we wanted to visit was the Theatre Royal. We could have just paid for a tour, which would be interesting as well, but we decided we would prefer to visit the theater to see a performance. Today was that day (or at least the first day if we go back). We chose to attend one of the theater’s Lunchtime Concerts.

The Theatre Royal is England’s last surviving theater from the Regency Period (1795 – 1837). It was built by William Wilkins and opened in 1819. It was fully restored in 2007.

The lunchtime series is a 50 minute performance from selected musicians. Today we saw the Miyabi Duo, two guitarists (one from Japan and one from the UK), who played a variety of music, including music by Spanish composers Granados and Rodrigo as well as contemporary music. The series seems like a great way to introduce the public to different types of music.

Bob and I took the train today for a quick 36 minute ride to Ipswich, the county seat of Suffolk. With a population of about 145,000, it is the largest settlement in the county. Bury St Edmunds is 3rd. Ipswich has been in the news recently here, as its football (soccer) team recently secured promotion to the Premier League.

We began our walk around Ipswich with a walk along the River Path along the River Gipping. The path is part of a 17 mile path to Stowmarket, passing through Sproughton, Bramford, Clayton, and Needham Market.

After leaving the path, we headed through a bit of the town center towards Christchurch Park, the first public park in Ipswich, opening in 1895. It extends over 33 hectares and is host to many events year round.

After the church, we walked back into the town center. It was pretty active and was a cute mix of old and more modern. We had lunch before we left in a cute little cafe/restaurant called Bonbon.

As we had not yet visited the Bury St Edmunds Library, we decided to head there today and then check out St John’s Street, which we had read as having local shops.

We have had our first 70+ degree day for this visit to the UK, and it actually felt like it. Bob and I were both in shorts, and we were both in short sleeves by this afternoon, lovely! We had two walks with the dogs and also walked a couple of paths that Bob had found for us on his phone.

First, Bob took me by a house that he passes every morning with the dogs. It has a beautiful wisteria tree on one side.

Then we headed towards the God’s Quarter section of Bury near the Abbey, Cathedral, and St Mary’s Church.

After we walked along the River Lark to a main thoroughfare, we retraced our steps and then headed out east of town on a number of nice paths to the community of Moreton Hall. We were surprised how quickly we seemed to be in countryside.

It is a beautiful 64 F degree day in Bury, and Bob and I used it to explore more of the area by heading off to check out two parks — Hardwick Heath and Nowton Park. Hardwick Heath is about 1.5 miles from where we are staying, and Nowton Park is 2.4 miles. Since it was a beautiful weekend day, they were both getting a lot of use.

Hardwick Heath is a park of about 55 acres that contains a children’s play area, football pitches (in use today), picnic areas, and walking trails.

The 200 acre Nowton Park has lots to offer, including football pitches, arboretums, walking paths, a maze (closed until June), ponds, wildflower meadow, and a cafe. We walked around, although we didn’t find the way finding markers particularly helpful, so we were always guessing a bit on our actual location based on the map below.

Another fun note from today. Both parks seemed to have some dog classes that had just ended when we got there — pugs at Hardwick Heath and Dachshunds at Nowton.

After a wet and chilly Friday, Bob and I were excited to get out in the sunshine today. We decided to explore a bit more of the God’s Square area of Bury — the area between St Mary’s church, the former Abbey west front, the cathedral church of St James, and Angel Hill. Specifically, we wanted to check out the rose garden area behind the cathedral and then go down the street a bit to visit St Mary’s church, the parish church (religious center) of Bury.

St Mary’s church was one of three churches that were originally part of the Benedictine Abbey of St Edmund, along with St James, which became the cathedral, and St Margaret’s, which was demolished. A church has stood on the current site for 900 years. It was enlarged in the 15th century to its current form and is one of the largest parish churches in England.

On the way to St Mary’s we entered the Abbey Gate to try to see more of the cathedral gardens. We were only partially successful.

The garden behind the building next to the cathedral which holds the gift shop and tourist information center.

We didn’t do a tour of the brewery, but we did pop in to check out the shop. The walls inside had a timeline of its history. Monks were brewing ale on the site of the Abbey as of 1086. The Greene King brewing company was formed in 1799 and is based in Bury.