Busy day

Today was our youngest family member’s 2nd birthday, so we all came together in our caravan at the end of the day, to eat together, play family games and generally celebrate. It was a challenge to fit 21 of us into the small lounge area of an 8 berth mobile home (but that includes 2 babies), but we did it. We had to borrow a bench from another van, and everyone brought their own crockery and cutlery. Apart from that we (mostly Mollie) prepared, cooked and delivered fajitas and all the trimmings for 19. A successful end to a good family day.

Now to back track. We, as a family, plus Jenny, Martin and Lorna visited the famous Sutton Hoo just half a mile up the road at nearby Woodbridge. Anyone who has seen the Netflix film ‘The Dig’ will be familiar with it, although I have been fascinated by this since primary school when I had a visit to the British Museum and saw the relics excavated. I had thought we must have had a trip to Sutton Hoo itself, as I know I bought postcards of the brooch and shield, but now I think it must have been a London trip as this feels too far for a primary school day trip from Hoddesdon. I wonder if either of my friends Mandy or Denise remember seeing the famous discoveries? It definitely made an impression on me, and I’m guessing I was about 10. I particularly remember chanting ‘Sutton Hoooooo’ in the coach, and thinking how funny we were.

The site is National Trust and after paying our entry fee we booked onto a free burial mounds tour at 12. That gave us 75 minutes for a coffee break and to visit some other features. The coffee and cake was expensive and not very satisfactory, but the exhibition was really good. We then met Jenny, Martin and Lorna at the burial mounds along with others making up the group of 40 people. A site volunteer proceeded to deliver an excellent and historically informative tour of the several burial mounds. An area fenced off to the general visitors. We learned that all but 2 of the mounds were robbed of their treasures in Tudor and Victorian times. An hour later we were heading up a viewing tower to look down on the whole site.

Back at the main complex, we were taken by 3 ladies in their traditional 7th century clothing, weaving with authentically dyed wool and producing beautiful patterned fabric on a special loom. One lady gave a detailed description of what had been found in the burial which did not consist of much fabric as most had rotted away in the intervening 1400 years. But where scraps of fabric had been preserved they know what plants had been used to produce the colours for the dye, and which fabrics (wool or linen). It was fascinating and now I want a loom!

In all we found it a really enjoyable day, ending with a little bit too much Prosecco and some games we were all able to play together.

Happy 2nd birthday to little Levi - who was happy enough dropping anything he could find into my drink…& who doesn’t really know what birthdays are yet! Oh to be 2 again!