Where the Sun Shines

Writing this on an afternoon when there's no play in the Test Match because of rain, it's hard to focus on the fact that the two best bits of this week have been in glorious sunshine.  The first of these was on Tuesday afternoon, and its recollection completely blotted out - until research revealed them - the details of the previous day-and-a-half.  The week began with a delivery to the Birmingham Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, neatly followed by a collection in nearby Oldbury.  Then three local jobs - the never-to-be-sneezed-at background items that can turn an 'all right' week into a good one - occupied Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning.


My great-grandparents, c.1900,
 outside a door now removed

The Tuesday 'special' job was, of itself, just three boxes of labels for a cosmetics firm in Halesworth.  I always like going to Suffolk because of the opportunity to indulge in the nostalgia of my youth.  This particular visit was even better because the bright sunshine encouraged the use of my camera, enabling me to add some shots to my collection that have some resonance with my family history investigations.  One village I visited was Syleham,

'The Cross', Syleham, in 2013

where my grandfather spent his childhood, and where all his siblings were born.  I have yet to establish why he was not, but the accepted explanation is that his father was out of work and had temporarily taken a situation at Easton, some seventeen miles away from home.  In 1881 the families of both my paternal grandparents were living in Syleham.  My grandmother's parents lived at a crossroads, known as 'the Cross', where their house projected into the junction.  The road past their home led down to the village church, and today the junction is marked by a commemorative wooden cross.  Their cottage has been merged with the one next door, and the front door outside which they posed for a picture has now been filled in.

The week progressed with jobs into Essex on Wednesday, visiting Basildon and Chelmsford, and then returning to the same firm in Basildon on Thursday, along with the delivery of an air-conditioning unit to a school in Brookmans Park.  And so to Friday, when my week ended with a financially beneficial, but exhausting, trip to Yeovil, Ilminster and Tiverton.  The A303 is a busy road any weekend, but on the Friday before the bank holiday, even more so, with a delay of up to 71 minutes foretold at one point.  SatNav tried to help me around this, but lost all credibility when it returned me to the main road after a short detour only to find several miles of almost standing traffic yet to negotiate!  I was glad to have the morning's experience to reflect upon.

On Friday morning I'd been allocated a run to the Essex-Suffolk border with some heavy chains for a motor firm based on one of the many reclaimed WWII airfields that pepper the area.  With the two possible 'A-roads' encompassing a broad circle, one to the north, and the other to the south, it made sense to opt for the rural ride straight across the middle, with the saving in mileage almost compensating for the slight delay.  The result was a most delightful meander between the harvest fields, which enabled me to repeat to myself, in my ignorance, wise comments I'd often heard my father make about the progress that was being made in getting the crops harvested.  I drove along twisted and almost deserted roads, into and out of villages that I'd never visited before, often never heard of.  I reflected on a slower, more encompassing, and probably healthier, pace of life in bygone ages, and was almost joyful at being able to imagine just a glimpse of how life might have been lived then.

This afternoon, having recovered from the exhaustion of the night before (when I finally fell into bed at 5.0 am), I'm taking part in another hangover from another age - ringing bells for a local wedding.  I used to occupy myself in this way as one of the regular team, serving all the weddings that the summer presented, but with other interests tugging at my limited leisure time, this has dwindled to those exceptional coincidences when the present regulars are short-handed and I happen to have little else pressing.