Maggie Hambling clam shell and big Suffolk sky

We all went to Snape Maltings. We used to take #2 daughter to the concert hall when she was in the Suffolk Youth Choir. The place has changed a lot since then. There used to be far fewer shops and cafes etc. The fields out the back are now car parks and the place was full of visitors.

The children played on outdoor sculptures, made in Gateshead and depicting different aspects of “northern light”, including stylised lenses of the first electric powered lighthouse. There was also one depicting the lightbulb at Cragside, the house near us where Armstrong had the first house in the world powered by hydro-electricity. They climbed on the Henry Moore sculpture just as their mothers had.

Then our old friend Carole arrived with her partner David. I met her when we first moved to Suffolk. We were on the CND bus to Molesworth, the USAF base. She taught both daughters GCSE and A level English - moving #3 daughter seamlessly on from
Ned the Donkey to Mayor of Casterbridge. Ella told her she was too old to be a teacher. She then asked if she and David were married. David, 17 years Carole’s junior, and the same age as Ella’s dad, laughed and said “No I’m her carer!” The benefits of a younger man are many.

Then we went to Aldeburgh where the kids played on the very pebbley beach. I walked miles to the northern end to see the Maggie Hambling sculpture. I like it more than the awful Mary Woolestonecraft one.