Author Archives: Clare Pooley

Dunwich Heath

10 Fri Jul 2026

Posted by in Days out, nature reserve, plants, Rural Diary, seashore, wild birds, wild flowers

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Richard, Elinor and I went to Dunwich Heath on Tuesday afternoon.  We had originally thought about going in the late morning and having some lunch in the National Trust café there.  However, it became too hot and the thought of wandering about on the beach with the sun beating down on us and no shelter and us beginning to look like characters in one of those survival films (you know what I mean – crawling on all fours, blistered parched lips, savouring the last drips from an empty water-bottle, vultures circling overhead etc. – replace vultures with seagulls) prompted us to leave at 3.00pm.

Our car in the carpark

The carpark was pleasantly uncrowded; I took my NT membership card to the office to get our free parking ticket and while Richard went back to the car to fetch Elinor and reassure her that the café was still open, I had a chat with the volunteer on duty and found out he had recently moved to Saxmundham and had a friend who had recently moved to Rumburgh; I also got a recommendation for a restaurant in Southwold.  I think he was a little bored and needed to talk.

The former coastguard cottages now house the National Trust café and other offices as well as holiday accomodation for visitors.

We went into the café and all had a scone with jam.  Richard and I had clotted cream with ours but Elinor didn’t.  Richard and I had a pot of tea between us but Elinor didn’t as she doesn’t drink tea or coffee.  She had wanted a fruit juice but they only had water or fizzy drinks.  She, like me, doesn’t like fizzy drinks and she had brought a bottle of water with her. I quickly walked past the shelves of second-hand books on our way out.  I must not be tempted into buying yet more books!

Walking down to the sea

We made our way to the path down through the heathland to the sea.  Everything was looking a little dry but there was this wonderful smell of hot bracken (Pteridium aquilinum) which took me back to childhood camping holidays.  Admittedly, we didn’t often smell hot bracken then, it was usually wet bracken but that has a lovely smell too.  Quoting from Richard Mabey’s ‘Flora Britannica’ “…for those who have lived in brackeny places, its sharp almond scent and the first splashes of yellow on its fronds in autumn can evoke powerful feelings”.  All this in spite of it being toxic if eaten and its spores being carcinogenic!  Also, I’m not sure that I think of almonds when I smell bracken.

I think that the structure on the horizon is part of one of the two new solar farms being constructed in this area.

A few miles to the east of the solar farms and nearer to the sea is Sizewell.

The concrete block at the rear is what is left of Sizewell A nuclear power station, which is slowly being dismantled. The white dome is Sizewell B nuclear power station which is still going strong after 30 years. The evidence of work going on nearest to us is the construction of Sizewell C.  This construction (as well as the construction of the solar farms) has upset a lot of people and the mess to the countryside and disruption to traffic on the A12 (the main A road through the area) is to be seen and experienced to be believed. However, as well as bringing sorely-needed employment to the area and a reliable source of electricity eventually (I won’t go into the pros and cons of nuclear power here), the long-awaited improvements to the A12 and the by-passing of villages who have suffered very heavy traffic through their centres for decades is almost complete. This was part of the deal with tthe nuclear power company. There has also been work on a railway branchline. There are other issues involved but I won’t go into these at present.

Not a very good photo of some Common ragwort(Senecio jacobaea ) and a Spear thistle (Cirsium vulgare )

Some Bell heather (Erica cinerea) and Gorse prickles (Ulex europaeus)

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

Here we are on the beach.  How wonderful the cool breeze was!

Every time we visit the seaside we look out for ‘a literal seal’.  To explain: we were at Southwold a couple of years ago on a blustery afternoon and we heard an excited small boy shouting to his parents that he had seen ‘a literal seal’.  And there the seal was; just a couple of metres off-shore, bobbing about on the heavy swell and holding an enormous fish between its flippers which it was eating with relish.

Dunwich beach. In the distance you may be able to see an object in the water with three spikes. Not Neptune’s trident, but the place where work is being done to build a desalination tank and other facilities for Sizewell C. Once the work has been done there will be no evidence of anything on the surface.

I hope you enjoyed this quick video of the sea.

We watched what we believe were terns flying over the sea, every now and then dipping into the water to catch something and flying on again.

This strange-looking thing is a kittiwake nest platform.

We have a colony of Kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla) in Suffolk.They arrived in Lowestoft some time ago and began nesting on buildings in the harbour area.  They then moved into the town and to the Lowestoft peoples’ delight (hah!) they began nesting on roofs and window-sills.  Conservationists are trying to encourage the birds to move out of the town into permanent accomodation out at sea.  I’m not sure how well this is going.

If you had a kittiwake nesting on your bedroom window-sill this is what you would hear from 3.30-4.00am until sunset (after 9.00pm) every day, all day, until the chicks are fledged.  Not to mention the mess and the smell!

Elinor

Beach flora: bracken, ragwort, heather and sea kale

Looking up to the top of the cliff where there are Sand martin (Riparia riparia) nests.

Here I was trying to zoom in on the nests with my phone. All you can see clearly though, is the layer of pebbles above the sand and a drainage pipe projecting from the cliff face.

This is another partial failure. I had a problem with the sun which was on a level with the top of the cliff though it is possible to see a few of the holes in which the birds nest.

Sea kale (Crambe maritime)

Other areas fenced off at the foot of the cliff were to help the sea kale and other shingle plants establish themselves on the beach without people walking over them.  I think it absolutely amazing that plants can happily grow and thrive in a heap of pebbles and some sand.  A gardener spends so long enriching soil to nurture his/her precious vegetables and flowers, and here is a relative of a cabbage growing in shingle.

Here is Richard wending his way back up the path towards the carpark.

When we got back up to the car I went off for a couple of minutes on my own to look at the heathland further away from the coast.

Somebody who once lived in the coastguards cottages must have planted this vine. It looks like a Russian vine (Fallopia baldschuanica ) a ‘mile-a-minute vine though the leaves are not quite the heart-shape that they should be if that is so.

A rather stunted pine tree. Probably a Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris)

Here are its new cones.

A much better picture of ragwort flowers.

There were ladybirds everywhere on the heath and on the beach.  I was a little wary of them as they tend to bite in hot weather.

The National Trust like to put signs up everywhere. This one warns of the danger of falling off the cliff and/or the crumbling cliff.

A weather station.

I will leave you with a last look at the heath.

The heather was looking good and was at its peak.  Bell heather comes into flower a little earlier than the other heaths and Common heather (Calluna vulgaris), also known as Ling.

 

Holiday in Brittany: August 1999. Part 4

02 Thu Jul 2026

Posted by in architecture, Brittany, churches, Days out, France, Historic Buildings, Rural Diary, seashore

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As threatened in my last post, here is the continuation of the diary of our holiday in Brittany.

See earlier Brittany posts :

Holiday in Brittany: August 1999

Holiday in Brittany – August 1999. Part 2.

Holiday in Brittany: August 1999. Part 3

ooo000ooo

Friday 27th August

Richard did not sleep well last night and was therefore quite tired today.  He heard Elinor wake up and went to get her milk and our cups of tea.  We went downstairs for breakfast and only when we had finished eating, Elinor and I were dressed and Richard in the bath did Alice get up.  I ironed some shirts of Richard’s that we had washed yesterday then Richard packed the car and at 12.30pm we set off for the beach.  We went to Kerfany les Pins via St. Thurien, Bannalec, Riec-sur-Bélon and passed near Moëlan-sur Mer.  We drove alongside the Bélon estuary which was mudflats as the tide was out.  We parked opposite a crêperie where we had lunch and then walked to the beach which was in a little cove.  It was a lovely beach; very sandy with lots of shells and pine-covered rocks all around.  Some very attractive houses were built on the top of the cliffs with their own steps down to the beach carved out of the rock.  The beach was not at all crowded when we got there as it was still lunchtime and even later in the afternoon when it was busier it never got so crowded we felt uncomfortable.

Eating at the crêperie near the beach. Nom nom nom

Alice giving Richard a look

The beach at Kerfany les Pins. Richard and Elinor are the two blurry figures in the centre of the picture.

Kerfany les Pins

Elinor loved it there and played with the sand and paddled and sat in the sea.  We left at about 4.00pm when some darker clouds came over and as we set off home it started to rain.  As we got nearer the gîte we noticed it had been raining very heavily.  It continued to rain until about 8.30pm by which time Elinor had been in bed half-an-hour.

Saturday 28th August

We went into Le Faouët before midday in the hope of finding a bank open.  We didn’t, so Richard got some money out of a cash machine.  We took Alice’s film in to be developed and bought some bread and croissants.  We then went to the Scorff Valley and the Forêt de Pont Calleck for a picnic.  On the way we encountered lots of cyclists and realised they were taking part in a road race.  We drove past another wedding with all the guests standing outside the church for photos and cyclists whizzing past.  The race course went along the road we were heading for and when we had parked near a picnic spot Richard was able to film the cyclists.  A couple (not cyclists!) were already having their lunch at one of the tables when we arrived and called out “Bonjour!” to us and smiled and waved. They left soon afterwards.  Their picnic was grander than ours as they had a wonderfully well stocked hamper and glasses of wine.  We just had food in paper bags, a fidgetty toddler and a grouchy teenager.  No wonder they left pretty sharpish!  Before we had finished, a group of four adults and six children arrived for their picnic birthday party but apart from that it was very quiet.  Alice ate a lot of pâté and Elinor played with the new bucket and spade set her Daddy had bought for her in Le Faouët.  We put our picnic things back in the car and went for a walk along the river.  The large family group took over the table we had used as it was in the shade and still in one piece.  We were still watching cyclists going past on the road on the other side of the river and were surprised and amused to see a group of nuns and young girls on bikes come racing down the hill.  The nuns habits were billowing out behind them and they were shouting to each other.  There were lots of damselflies flying about; beautiful blue and turquoise ones.  Elinor insisted we take the bucket on the walk with us and also the starfish mould which sadly, we dropped on the way.  We got to a muddy puddle on the path which Elinor wanted to play in and when we said no she started to shout.  She then wouldn’t walk back and cried very loudly even after I had given in and started to carry her.

The picnic. Glum faces!

The picnic. Smile please!  You can see the river just beyond the picnic table and the road on the other side is the white line a little higher that Richard’s head.

The walk with the bucket.

The walk. Elinor actually carrying her bucket!

Alice making a bid to escape us.

We drove to a large clothing store at Bayé just outside Quimperlé but found nothing we needed there.  We then went to a hypermarket to buy food and Alice bought two bags for school.  We drove home and relaxed for a while before cooking tea.  While I was sweeping up some gravel Elinor had brought in,  Annie the gîte owner called round with a tourist passport (discounts on tariffs for boat trips and museum entrances) and a bottle of home-made cider. She explained how to dispose of the rubbish, too.  Elinor went to bed with her bucket and Alice made us laugh when she misheard Richard talking about Oates’ gesture, thinking that he said that Oates was a jester.

Elinor is in bed at last!

Sunday 29th August

Richard did not feel very well this morning so we stayed at the gîte and read books etc.

Me writing this diary

Girls playing with the bucket set

Alice was always good at amusing Elinor

After lunch Richard, Elinor and I went to visit the Chapel of St. Barbe while Alice stayed behind to wash her hair and have some time to herself.  The chapel is not far from Le Faouët and Le Grand Pont which is where we parked. We decided to walk to the chapel – the sign said it was 0.5km away.  However, we walked the longer way round via the Fountain (which we never saw!) and had to carry Elinor a good two-thirds of the way as it was uphill and very rocky.  The wood we walked through was really lovely and in places smelt very fungus-y and autumnal.  As we neared the top there were a number of cave-like crevices at the side of the path.  Steps had been hewn into the rockface or made out of stone and Elinor was able to walk the last bit up to the chapel.

This was an amazing building as it looked as if it too, had been hewn out of the rock as well as the steps up to it.  There were stairs and arches and a bridge and everything seemed very tall.  We entered the chapel and had just begun admiring the ancient interior when we found we were shut in and had been included in a guided tour.  The female guide spoke very quickly in a monotone which we found almost impossible to follow.  Elinor soon got bored and began stamping and hooting but fortunately Richard managed to escape outside with her, along with another man.  I had to wait for quite a while longer before I could get out to join them.  I loved the carved angels who looked as if they had large earphones and the stained glass was beautiful.  There was a separate belfry for pilgrims to send their prayers to heaven.  We drank an orange juice and then went back down to the car via a different path. This was much narrower and steeper than the one we had climbed up by so poor Richard had to carry Elinor all the way down.  We were very tired when we got back to the car.

Chapel of St Barbe

Elinor at the chapel

Richard ready for a night on the town

After a rest at home and a drink we all got ready to go out for dinner.  We went to Querrien to see if the restaurant there was open – it wasn’t.  We then drove to Le Faouët and went to a crêperie/pizzaria and had a lovely meal.  Elinor made a bit of a fuss at first because she was hungry and I had to take her back to the car early as she was getting bored and tired.  Driving back to the gîte, Richard put the car lights on for the first time this holiday.  He found a toad on the doorstep when we got back.

To be continued….

What I’ve Been Doing Recently.

07 Thu May 2026

Posted by in churches, Rural Diary

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After successfully finding my way back to my blog I have so far failed to do any blogging.  I found that I had committed myself to doing so many other things that the time and energy for self-indulgence (i.e. writing for my own amusement) was lacking.

We spent over a year sorting out my late mother’s belongings and then after the start of the new year we began helping Alice, our elder daughter move the rest of her possessions that were still in our house up to her new home in Sheffield.  This entailed quite a bit of hard decision-making on her part and a lot of trips to the tip and the charity shop for my husband, Richard.  When that was done I decided that I might as well carry on the good work and begin a clear out of my own extraneous belongings, also going through all the stored bedlinen etc., and I had just got going with that when Lent began – and what a busy Lent it was!  Note to self – get on with the clearing out!

I’m not sure whether I told you that three years ago I, with four other friends, was commissioned as a lay-elder (with licence to preach) in my church.  To be commissioned we have to prove that we have had a DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) check done (criminal records are checked to make sure we have behaved ourselves recently) and we have to take part in a safeguarding training course. Three years ago I took Level One and Level Two Safeguarding Training.

Every three years lay-elders have to be re-commissioned and therefore another DBS check has to be done and our safeguarding training has to be brought up-to-date.  This year we have struggled through Level Three of the training programme. We should also be doing a course on dealing with abuse in the home but there are no spare places at present on the on-line course.  Safeguarding is important work I know, but I think it highly unlikely that I will have to use this knowledge in a real-life situation very often, if at all.  It presupposes that we deal regularly with children, young people and vulnerable adults.  We don’t.  In all eleven churches which make up our benefice there are only four children who come to church fairly regularly, with their parents.  We have no youth groups, Sunday Schools or creches. We have a choir that meets just before Advent to practice singing carols.  They disband just after Christmas.  We have a hand-bell ringing group led by Gail the organist.  The only times that most of us meet are for church services, fund-raising events and PCC meetings etc. There may be some parishioners who have vulnerabilities they do not, will not, or cannot share with others but, as we all know each other quite well, we know where everyone lives, we know many of each others habits and hobbies and a lot about everyones’ families, I feel that we are in no real danger of being harmed by a thoughtless remark or by being given a hug when we’d rather not be touched.  If we got a visitor or even a new church-member (Glory Be!) that would be different and we would know to behave with care.  As for any of the other sins like coercion, bullying, grooming or sexual abuse, I really cannot see any of us indulging in those – or getting away with it either. However, as we all know, there are some very nasty and devious people about and it is better to be safe than sorry.  I finished writing up the final part of the Safeguarding course ten days ago and submitted the work.  I now have to wait a week or so to find out whether I have passed.  I committed myself to reading some of the approved and relevant books and documents and I am making my way through those at my leisure.  I also have to do some kind of project in the church during the next six months to do with promoting safeguarding.  Oh dear!

I attended a Lent course which met every Wednesday evening at the Rectory.  This was quite good fun as we were greeted by Bonnie the black labrador on arrival, learnt about the Desert Fathers (and Mothers), had a discussion and a cup of tea and then drove home again at 9.00pm.  The five minute video we watched at the start of the meeting sometimes speeded up and the narrator’s voice changed, to our childish amusement.  I quite enjoy witnessing the drawing out of the nights as I venture out in the evenings during Lent.  We begin in February, leaving the house at 7.10pm in the dark and cold, often with foggy, rainy and sleety weather.  By the end of Lent we leave home in the light with Spring weather to the fore, which is also sometimes foggy, rainy and sleety!

My friend Gail and I spent the afternoon of the day before Mothering Sunday (15th March) at her farm making posies to hand out the next day.  I took the posies home in water in a couple of her lambing buckets, kept them in water overnight in our cold garage and then in the morning prepared them for presenting to the mothers in the congregation or to people who would be seeing their mothers later that day or, wanted them to put on graves.

Posies in the making.

Equipment!

Posies in the basket.

Arrival at St George’s church St Cross.

Richard with the posies.

View from outside the church. What a beautiful day it was!

Gail at the organ before the service, practising the hymns. You can just see the basket of flowers in front of the altar.

The spring flowers have been wonderful this year – so many snowdrops and aconites then daffodils, primroses, celandines and cowslips, lady’s smock, stitchwort, tulips and blossom everywhere.  Sadly I haven’t had much opportunity for admiring them up-close on a walk; I speed past them in my car on my way to the shops or to church.

Not a very clear photo of the primroses in March, taken by my phone.

We have had some work done on the outside of the house.  In February last year we had solar panels put up which involved scaffolding at the front of the house.  This spring, we had scaffolding at the back as well as the front of the house.  We have had almost all of our gutters and downpipes replaced and also the underfelt (under the roof tiles) of the bottom third of the roof at the front and back of the house and also on the lower roof over the porch, utility room and the front of the garage.  A big and expensive job but a necessary one.  Two weeks ago, work was begun to improve the driveway, the parking area, all the paths and the patio at the back of the house.  This is extremely messy work and I have found some of the damage done by the large digger to shrubs and plants quite upsetting but when it is done we hope the pleasure of smooth paths and better parking will outweigh the inconvenience.

Solar panels on the roof. Photo taken last year.

The geese bring their babies up to the house every day to survey the work going on.

I hope they are sympathising with me about the state of the garden!

I travelled up to Sheffield recently to visit Alice and Phil, her husband, for a couple of days.  Alice hasn’t been well and has also had a lot of trouble at work.  I needed to see her and make sure that she was coping okay.  She definitely looked very tired and is trying to managed chronic exhaustion but I think she will be alright eventually.  She, like my younger daughter Elinor, has been looking for a new job, but without success so far.

I have been on a hospital waiting list for months to have someone look at my hands to decide whether I can have surgery to remove some cysts on my finger joints.  They are extremely inconvenient and sometimes painful. I cannot easily get gloves on and find gripping anything very difficult.  At long last I was asked to attend the hospital a few weeks ago.  I had lots of X-rays and spoke to a clinician who agreed that I can have the worst ones removed.  He told me exactly what the procedure would be and all the side-effects and things that could go wrong.  A little daunting, but I am pleased that he will be able to help me.  I am now on his personal waiting list.  I was told in January that I would be called back in April to see if the laser surgery on my eyes has worked or not.  Well, April has come and gone and I have heard nothing from the hospital.  To be honest, I hadn’t thought that I would be called back so quickly.  It must have been wishful thinking by the hospital staff!

That’s it for the time being.  I have been planning a few trips out so I hope to write posts about them eventually and I feel I ought to finish writing up my account of our holiday in Brittany.  That will give me something to do!

An Update

17 Tue Feb 2026

Posted by in idiocy, Rural Diary

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This is just a short-ish post to let you all know what I’ve been up to during the past few weeks.

On Christmas Eve evening I decided that it would be the ideal time to update my contact details on WordPress.  I have no idea why I should have attempted such a foolish thing at such an unsuitable time, but there is no accounting for all the rather idiotic things I have done recently.  Inevitably, I got into difficulties, found that I had locked myself out of my own blog, tried to wing my way through and by that means I sank even further into the morass.  I then attempted to ask for help and, of course, as it was Christmas Eve and most people were busy doing other things the only response I got at first was from the dreaded AI.  It told me I needed help from a human but as I didn’t have a paid account I was not entitled to have a human helper.  I begged to differ and said that I did have a paid account.  AI was adamant that I didn’t, which made me angry.  Unfortunately one can’t have a good argument with AI so I gave up in disgust.

When I next looked at WordPress a week or two later I discovered that some kind soul had sent me a message with some good advice and not only that, but a ‘Happiness Engineer’ – an-other real person – had sent me a message offering to save me from drowning in the slough of despond.  They had obviously read my messages to AI and must have had a bit of a laugh (but they never let me know).  Unfortunately, as the process looked a little daunting and as I was just about to have laser eye surgery and was feeling a little apprehensive, I left it for yet more weeks.

A week ago I felt ready to face the problem and got in touch with the Happiness Engineers who were wonderful and guided me through the whole process and gave words of comfort which helped me to feel a little better about myself.  I replied to a couple of comments made by friends and then, wait for it ….. clicked a WordPress bookmark I had forgotten to erase at the top of my laptop screen and fouled it all up again! Last night I erased the bookmark, just in case, and went through the whole process again.  Success!  I then found that by changing my email address I had unfriended all the blogs I follow which is why many of you may have noticed that I am now following you again.  I haven’t managed to find all of you and some blogs don’t appear to have obvious buttons to click to subscribe or follow via email.  If any of you find that I have disappeared off your radar please do get in touch if you wish to be encumbered by me, as I would like to continue as before.

It is said that confession is good for the soul and I do feel a great sense of relief that I am now back with WordPress and have told you all how stupid I have been.  I can go forward into Lent with a clear conscience.

Best wishes to you all!