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Yesterday saw another willow gathering session down at the langer park. Once a mighty stream flowed freely through langer all the way down to the flourishing embryonic port of Felixstowe that was many dozens of decades ago when canals and barges and shire horses were the chief form of power and Suffolk was part of this natural artery. Then the railway’s came. The barges and canals are long gone but there is still thousands of gallons of underwater streams flowing to the sea through the park and the stubbed out willows which fed on the banks in this reclaimed marshland live on and receive a life giving coppicing each year. I’d already harvested the rods from three of the stumps and a fourth one was harvested yesterday. I get funny looks in my uniform of Guernsey 🇬🇬 shorts and boots but often polite questions along the lines of “lost art” and people are “happy to see it happening again.”
THE ROCKERY
I’ve identified an amazing range of wildlife that I can prove have used this oasis over the past year here is the uncomprehensive list ( you will be amazed)
Four different types of moth
Numerous varieties of butterfly
Red Admiral, torteshell, peacock, cabbage white. Fox, both of my cats all cats in the area seven plus. Rabbit, voles, rats, mice. Vertebrates frogs 🐸 toads 🐸 newts. And the star of the visitors a badger. On the insect front we have aphids and ants 🐜 beetles ladybirds including stag beetles worms slugs snails millepedes and centrepedes wood lice gnats bats 🦇 even a muntjac deer 🦌 Billy witches 🧙 known also as Junebugs.
The insects run into many more varieties (possibly approaching one hundred) I have to mention to them that I’m including the rockery in my exhibition as a remote installation (number four). Victoria street is number one.
The crucial factor about this rockery is that it has been very crudely constructed and the fact that it is dominated by weeds is actually its saving grace as one weed in particular is holding it all in place.
GRAHAM SMART DAYhttps://www.eadt.co.uk/news/23950588.tributes-retired-felixstowe-port-worker-graham-smart/
Its the day before the hardest day of all burying a loved one is not something that happens often but it is as sure a passage that we will all have to face in life.
I’ve recanted tales of a much loved maverick who was to the area what a massive force of nature is such as I’ve described above. Tomorrow the district of Walton will I assure you come to a total standstill. The high street will be lined with folk and I’d say upwards of six hundred people maybe many more will crowd around the little church at Walton.It is still Wednesday and the day has been gulped up with emails of activity organising the exhibition as it is now a work in motion and punches have to be pulled and moves made this tree has a life of its own now and installations are being planned ideas bandied about and questions asked.
The fisherman could not put to sea yesterday beyond the shore it was as calm as you could ask. But a huge swell caused by the prevailing northern north easterlies meant getting off the shore was very trick and capsizing ten feet off the beach is not a good look and deadly dangerous to boot 🥾. Today the sea and the day is a thing of beauty and as much as I’d like to the uniform will be changed for waterproofs and double Guernsey even I’m not going to wear shorts 🩳 everything will be tucked into my wellies!! Rossa Ryan has kept me in beer for the week and if I catch the end of Dundalk or something on the all weather over here I’ll be happy using the two masters philosophy I’m sticking to the TRF and popping up in meydan thread at the post hopefully with an Alexander or two for an penultimate racing going on later.
I’ve touched base with the genius that is Sarah Figlio the artist who has helped me bring the tree to life over the last ten days and her artistic brilliance will be a key competency for me in the coming weeks. If I can, I need to go to the farm stables at Trimley and walk the gladed lane there. Tomorrow is Graham’s send off and the town will rise as one to pay its respects I couldn’t envisage I’d ever go on a day out without this good buddy alongside I really couldn’t but this will be on demand “HAPPY DAYS”. Nothing else could there be.Rossa Ryan is a great lad Sam….
Drone mentioning Barnstaple brings back bad memories
It was my last ever “proper” game of football for Taunton reserves, last game of the season and we needed a win for the title and they needed a draw. I had to come off after five minutes as the gout was too painful for even me to get through. After two seasons of play a game not walk for two weeks REPEAT, I decided to call it a day. We lost the game 2-0 aswell. I played a few Sunday league games since but when you have played at a certain level the drop down wasn’t for meBlackbeard to conquer the World
Don’t vote for the tree killer!
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Playing matches be it 🏉 rugby or football ⚽️. You go from playing two matches in a day to three games a week to playing one match to the next match a week apart with no training struggle up the stairs then spend the week between matches learning to walk again. You know it is time to call it a day finally.
Today has been one of those days.lots of communication I waited all day for the fisherman and because of his non appearance much of my day wasn’t a goer as I was waiting to go out in his boat, and when your day is planned around something that doesn’t occur it is an anti climax.I nipped into the wine boutique to select a wine for the wife of a friend who has stage four. I’d hoped the entrepreneurial owner would be holding court but John is recovering from an illness. I’ve a proposal to make over the exhibition.
I bump into Ali and her Husband at night the wine shop is a bar and it is lit to feel and look like a wine cellar anywhere in Europe France Spain Germany it is very atmospheric. Ali has a garden to die for and is currently looking after the massive seed collection I acquired in the flash sale at Homebase.© Literally hundreds of plants and veg. Ali has also given me some great cut flowers 💐 for the hospice. I give her the exhibition news and she’s delighted. My partner has done commissions for their pet greyhounds in the past. Both have passed on now and I’ve said anytime they are ready, our dog is always up for a walk.
I choose a wine for my mate’s wife. white German and without owner John to guide me to a bin or special import, I hope it’s a good choice. I decided I’d write him a note I cannot say much of what I penned but the magical journey I make along the trail with my deluxe wheelbarrow featured in my letter. I describe everything I see on the trail and all of the sounds. The freight train which is endless and the near silent passenger train. They both sweep alongside the perimeter of the wood by the horse’s fields. Then the complete and splendid isolation as silence falls yet again. I tell him about the three rivers and the combined power of the Deben, Stour and the Orwell and how travelling along this gladed trail takes me to a different place every time.
Whenever I need time to reflect and a clear head I find a reason to visit the stables and “walk the walk”.
On the way back I call into the Half Moon at Walton. This pub when run at different times by Patrick a ships purser for Townsend Thorensen has been the hub of the area and has been the nerve centre for countless racing coach expeditions. Mary took it over and made a highly successful go of it restoring it again back to a decent village pub before leaving the trade and the pub slid into decline. Someone thought it might be a good idea to dumb down the pub and put a pool table in and lower the clientele. It didn’t work and conversion to housing loomed but I saw it was “under new management” said the sign and I nipped in to see. A very quiet night but a few old faces had returned and the friendly land lady made me welcome 🙏 Welshwoman Tina runs the nearby Falcon too and it really does feel and look like a pub again. I’m sure SMARTY would approve.
I went into the other bar and it was good to see “crafty” the son of a great old friend that I used to play rugby with indeed the half moon used to be our club house. I bumped into his grandfather the other night so the family had a full house 🏡. Importantly two friends were in tonight one of whom I know well as I did her garden and our kids went to swimming club together. She can see I’m lit up and she asks me what’s occurring we discuss my experience over the last month or so the tree and the chain reaction and the amazing exhibition of Sarah Figlio and how it has catapulted me to an exhibition which is now just over a month away. Remarkably nearly everyone has experienced the weather line and understands about the three rivers effect. I’m not sure if the guy with her is her new partner or not but they look happy. They both ask lots and lots of questions especially about the weather patterns and the ecology. The dates are placed firmly in their diary and the opening night is going to be interesting. I’m preaching to the converted.The things that dreams are made of by the human league.
Take time to see the wonders of the world
To see the things you’ve only ever heard of
Dream life the way you think it ought to be
See things you thought you’d never ever see
… Take a cruise to China
Or a train to Spain 🇪🇸 ✅
Go round the world
Again and again
… Meet a girl on a boat ✅
Meet a boy on a train ✅
And fall in love ✅
Without the pain ✅
… Everybody needs love and adventure ✅
Everybody needs cash to spend ✅
Everybody needs love and affection ✅
Everybody needs 2 or 3 friends ✅
… These are the things
These are the things
The things that dreams are made of
These are the things
These are the things
The things that dreams are made of
… Take a lift to the top of the Empire State
Take a drive across the Golden Gate
March, march, march across Red Square ✅
Do all the things you’ve ever dared
… Everybody needs love and adventure
Everybody needs cash to spend
Everybody needs love and affection
Everybody needs 2 or 3 friends
… These are the things
Norman wisdom, ✅ Johnny, joey, ✅ Dee Dee, ✅ good times. ✅ .
It’s nice to tick a few of these boxes.Back on terra firma ( but not for long) I started the day as I always do yesterday with a sea side stroll with my dog. He wasn’t always my dog as I was dead set against having a hound. Raised on the Greenwich estate where dogs were ferral, we learned which ones to stroke and which ones were to be avoided. Like all kids I dreamt of my Dad bringing me home a puppy on his bike with his little head popping out of his bag. Mum said “there are more than enough dogs running wild outside on this estate, go play with them”. The puppy never materialised and not long after my mum’s words I was attacked and badly bitten by an Alsatian. It would be thirty years before I trusted one enough again to have a dog. Goldie was a rescue mongrel and an absolutele delight. She bolted down her food for fear of never being fed and also delighted in improving her glossy golden coat by rolling in fox 🦊 poo and rotting dead rabbits 🐇. The former was due to previous owners, the latter was typical dog delights.
The funeral was a big big event forget six hundred there were more and although being early is not my strongest point, I made it to the church with an hour to spare and still queued. But I was inside for the service and many many more stood outside. It was a very liquid event literally and I gave the boy a send off befitting the great man. A couple of my best friends drove me home from the half moon after midnight and the landlady promised me the pub would be restored in time to it’s former glory. I made it home in one piece and that I can tell you was an achievement.
This morning the twins have been round with my Saturday copy of the racing post.
Over coffee we talked horses of course and gardening. Everyone including the twins agrees about my three rivers theory.
It is an amazing thing and everyone seems to know of it.
We also discuss the incredible phenomena of AMMO racing and how all their two year olds seem to win. How they went damn near through the card at a waterlogged Leicester. How they had 150/1 winner at royal ascot when some leading trainers have never had a winner or even a placed runner there in twenty years of trying and how much like coolmore and Godolphin they are. We agree anyone big enough to dispense with the services of Rossa Ryan and Kevin Stott in the same season need better advice.
My missus tells me Oisin Murphy rode in a hurdle race yesterday. I don’t know how he did. Hopefully better than his current flat form.
John, whose dog would probably marry my dog if that sort of thing was possible has challenged me to go for a swim this morning.
🏊♀️.
He also says he’ll walk into the saint Elizabeth’s hospice shop and hand in a tenner 💵 💰 so I’ve accepted the challenge. He’ll be ten pounds lighter in the next half hour then.
Funny how he won’t be getting his feet wet and I’m hoping he also do some forfeit when next I see him.
I do like a challenge.Brr!! The North Sea is no respecter of anything. Often when I take a dip the cold sea is placated by a warm sun and going back into a freezing sea becomes a warming treat. Even if the sea is very cold it is warmer going back in again.
No such solace today. It was freezing and my legs 🦵 felt the icy chill solidly.
I’m not given to expletives but four and seven letter variants of the f word attached to “hell “ were audible within ten feet of my frozen body.
Thats one pound swear word to my Dad’s hospice.
A hot bath and a bowl of porridge 🥣 accompanied by a hot strong coffee is doing the trick. The porridge is tool cool and the bath can’t be hot enough but as Goldilocks found out it’ll have to do as just right for today.
It is good enough to be getting on with.
True to recent form, before going to Graham’s celebration yesterday I went to a friend’s house and cut some hydrangeas. Steve and Elaine had been on holiday for the last week and I’d been enviously eyeing up their prized blooms. But just like skip diving I’d awaited their return to ask. Many years ago we’d all gone to a concert together at Portman Road not sure who it was now but we’d parked our Morris minor on their drive with their permission before going off with them in their car 🚘. On our return her children had left us a very rude note admonishing us for parking our “rusting heap of crap” on a private drive!!
No such issues thirty years or so later as my van 🚐 Betty bluebottle nestled gently in the drive. A good chat and within ten minutes the hydrangeas were cut and another ‘Disciple’ converted to the ecology cause.Saturday has whizzed here.
A very late night burning the midnight oil. I’ve had to load up the van late ⏰ at night in preparation for a craft fair in town today. Some of my hydrangeas will be featuring in the willow wreathes which my partner has made. I haven’t had time to try my hand at making a wreath as yet but I’m having a go at it one evening next week.
The visit from the twins 👯♀️ yesterday morning was as always most welcome. They talk telepathically in unison and at speed having time to disagree in a rhythmic flow. They nipped in with my racing post from last week and stopped for coffee. We are getting together for the stricly come dancing final next week and I’m cooking dinner. Artichokes will feature strongly and I’m looking for someone on the allotments who has grown some Brussels sprouts to use.
Just after they left I’d gone down to the beach and had my icy dip. It’s the coldest I’ve felt in the sea ever and my lack of insulation was likely due to my night out at the wake. As I chilled in the deep hot bath soon after, the twins were back again pruning the roses in our front garden.
I’m useless at pruning roses I have to admit. I’m working on it and next year I’m joining the group that cares for the spa gardens to try and improve some aspects of my gardening. I’m trying to restore my front garden and like many gardeners my front patch is not a good advert for my gardening prowess and is installation number two @ the exhibition. The beds on the rockery in Brook lane is also an installation.
The squadron leader proudly pictured by his tree 🌲 will feature in the exhibition I’m asking his permission later today. It is quite possible that Mike Howlett will be calling in some time to retake the picture himself as it is going to be the feature “focal point” of the exhibition. ( on my part)
I’ve made the first major move since getting the nod from the 142 gallery people.
If it comes off it’ll send the profile of the exhibition into outer space.
Obviously I cannot say what it is right now. If it comes off I’ll mention it here first. There are numerous “ remote” installations being planned and top of the tree is Victoria street the site in a little car park of my town centre probably one of the most prolific small plots in the town centre.
It’s reconfiguration due to a fifth of it being shaven off is a key part of the exhibition. My daughter has a little tree planted in the area to be removed and I’m waiting for it to go “dormant” so I can move it. The little ash tree 🌲 came in a sale at the private school at nacton a few years ago.The school also has a observatory and it is ideally placed on a hill on the banks of the river Orwell and I’m hoping to secure some involvement with them for the exhibition. Being at levington and nacton this area is right in line with the weatherline which fronts the Deben peninsula.
I put my order in at the bakery early today as I’d be just up the road at the market all day.
Today was the fourth Saturday of the racing post being put through my door. For the most part it has been a waste of time. I’ve barely waved it in anger as yet due to being busy elsewhere. Today I went out early to both bakery and shop and arrived early at the shop in time to intercept my racing paper from my errant paper boy to spare him from a life of debauchery reading my racing post and getting into a bad way.
The weather was atrocious on Saturday morning and setting up shop was not great. Driving rain throughout but not as cold as Friday and positively balmy when comparing this rain to my dip on Friday. Trade was very slow and few braved it out until afternoon so except for a brief break after setting up to post a losing selection on the meydan thread a minute before the off as per normal. Lots of interest though in the exhibition and discussion’s centred around that for a lot of the morning. The message is simple plant a flower and consider planting both fruit vegetables and flowers and benefit from the results and improve our immediate environment as a direct result.The twins also went up to my allotment and pruned the fruit trees. They are stars ⭐️.Like a lot of albums, you really have to let this one roll a few times.
I was none too complimentary about it but I absolutely love it now.
It’s a decent effort by the old fellas and they’ve done a very good job of it here. I’ve put the whole album on here but I’ll be featuring one track a day from here on in.
Todays track BITE MY HEAD OFF
Raucous Rolling Stones and I love it.
Why you bite my head off?Remember, a tree is for life, not just for Christmas, and tree killers shouldn’t be winning popularity contests.
Infantile, attention-seeking, narcissists are FAR more suitable winners of such things.
Just saying.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Davies_
https://www.facebook.com/ThePointtoPointNHandFlatracingpunter/
It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"The magazine “SUFFOLK Magazine© is going to print today.It is a monthly big a4 size glossy colour magazine.
They have taken up a feature about the upcoming exhibition and The Tree 🌲 will receive it’s first serious piece of advertising for January 11th.Yesterday was a long one. One where for the first time in months I didn’t get to either allotment. I haven’t been able to get to Molly Roberts and I must be the only gardener in the area whoose work is stacking up right now. The weather is finally playing havoc to my plans but I’m doing bits and bobs but todays the day things can get back on an even keel again.
On the sports front the winners have returned with Eagle Day winning two in the bounce. Off the record I did cafe con lecce which won at 40/1 and son to have two shots on target in a double with Romero to commit 1+ fouls. (Romero commits multiple fouls every match) @ 4/1. I did Harsh ridden by jack Kennedy for Joseph O’Brien and Gigginstown ( a most usual combination to win by five plus lengths at 4/6 in a double with Celtic to score twice. The double was 2.26/1 and I cashed out in profit as Celtic were yet to score on thirty minutes. Just as well as they lost.
Hopefully today I start posting pictures.Nathan Hughes wrote on October 24th
“Sam you are doing a fine job… keep up the good work
hope you get the vase back”
Things have escalated since then and when I cut flowers I often borrow a bucket or container and so far I’ve managed to lose a multitude of buckets as I can never remember where they have come from. I replaced a bucket 🪣 yesterday for Sarah who lives around the corner. I borrowed three buckets 🪣 🪣 🪣 when I cut flowers at Helmingham Hall last month so I need to return them to the Head Gardener next month.A funny thing happened last night. It wasn’t funny but I was behaving funny walking around in my wellies pushing a wheel barrow like you do on a Sunday night.
Raised a few smiles as I wheeled “Barry” back up the hill for a third time in a hour. Any gardener with an excess of topsoil will identify with this behaviour. I’d normally be being pulled up the hill by an eager canine ready for dinner 🥘 at this juncture but instead me and Barry were greeted by a friendly huge labradoodle who just may have mistaken Barry for a new breed of something. I put Barry down for a sec to greet this woolly lovely dog 🐶. The conversation with the owner rightly centred on Barry.
The chap said he was down from Scotland 🏴 visiting family and has hired a bungalow nearby. “You’ve a good tide for Barry then “. I nodded “he likes to tip himself up in the sea right enough” I agreed. “Not happy till he’s hauled me down here three times and then dried off by the fire at the fludyers arms!”. I ld swear he was human, thinks just like me!”There is both a first and remarkably a second half to my Sunday night stroll with “Barry”.
Firstly the chance meeting with another gentleman walking his dog led to a prolonged conversation where he told me he was visiting his mother who was seriously I’ll. The family were renting out a bungalow tucked away in a corner in a road at the top of the hill we were standing on. Firstly the man told me his dogs name was Willow. “ Oh, my partners a willow artist” I said. We agreed our fogs had a very similar temperament and would do well together. The conversation progressed through our love of good beer and cooking I told him about my gardening and how my journey had changed midstream and I mentioned the hospice and the work I was doing and I how I was “saying it” with flowers 🌸 🌸.
The coincidences began to accumulate when he told me his mum had been in saint Elizabeth’s too but that there had been little to no hope of her coming out.
Most of the family travelled to Ipswich from all over the country to be with her and somehow she rallied and was dubbed “the miracle lady” by hospice staff.
I told him I sourced flowers from gardens locally and that I would find a bouquet for his mother and asked when would be a good time to drop one off. We settled on Wednesday. He also insisted on paying something towards the hospice.
This evening we were due to go out to the flicks for the time since the pandemic. I’ve been with the young uns to watch a boy band documentary but to watch a film like 1917 or the shawshanks redemption, nothing. We also had a guest round for a meal an early dinner.
The Twins had again been in action at the weekend and in addition to pruning my roses 🌹 at home they’d gone to the allotment and pruned the six trees that make up my orchard three 🍏 🍎 apple 🍎 two plums and a cherry 🍒. I’ll be pruning my current bushes this week and transplanting my strawberry plants. At the foot of each tree were the prunings. Not to have a bonfire 🔥 in their honour would have been rude.
My own source of Jerusalem artichokes has long since run out at the allotment and I have gone back to the original beds from my old next door neighbour for anymore I need and when the time comes in the spring, I’ll dig up some more to plant as tubers for a bigger crop next year. But any fragments left in my plot this year will grow into full sized artichokes in any case. Paul agrees to take a picture of his and Lesley’s hydrangeas for my montage.
A visit to the seafront pub where they do zero Guinness was my end of day treat.
A wake was in full swing and the family members an Irish family were in the pub I’m friends with the family and knew their mum and Dad this funeral is for a close cousin. They know how to send off family and it is great to see them all again. Another incredible coincidence one of the three sisters at the wake we bumped into each other walking our dogs just the other day with two of her sons one of whom was celebrating his 31 st birthday. On Sunday it was the first time we’d seen each other in eight years.
A fifteen minute non alcoholic trip to the pub where I assure everyone I’m not “unwell” and I’m whooshing out the door headed for Bath road for my old neighbour’s prized artichokes. I came here last time in the dead of night with a headlamp to mine some of the magic tubers after the first decent frost in Felixstowe and Paul and Lesley were away. I left three hydrangea blooms I their porch that time. Tonight I called ahead had a chat and requested that they what’s app me a picture of their bouquet. The montage/ collage for the Exhibition is growing. I’ve also been to LIDLS and bought a bottle of their organic Prosecco for the film 🎥 🍿. To go with the two cans of Guinness I’m taking into the flicks.
There are twenty minutes to spare and “ “Barry” has reverted to being a wheelbarrow buy the real chap still needs a trip down the hill. One our way down we meet willow and his Dad coming up the hill. This is a huge coincidence. Unless like me the previous night, he has been up and down the hill three times like the “grand old Duke”. From the foot of the hill to his road is no more than forty yards so you can see the term “huge coincidence” is not misplaced.
In conversation we celebrate this coincidence and discuss dinner inevitably I bring things towards Jerusalems!! We discuss ways to cook them and I promise to drop him off a bag to take back to His home near Oban. I had a night in a scrap yard waiting for the breakdown prior to catching the ferry ⛴ there about thirty years ago. Hopefully the AA have upgraded their recovery terms now but we couldn’t even go for a pee at night due to “sabre” the Alsatian guard 💂♀️ dog roaming the yard.
I reassured him I’d pop by on Wednesday with an arrangement of hydrangeas or similar for his mum and we agreed we’d find an enclosed area where we could let our dogs off the lead to have a runaround together.
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