Personal

Today

Seven months later we finally got here.

This blog will be off-air for a little while. If you took photos why not add them to our flickr group? Others should appear on our photographer's blog shortly.

Personal

Ready

The hall is set.
The orders of service are printed and folded.
Last-minute shopping is complete.
I've been on one more walk with the family.

We're ready. See you tomorrow.

Personal

Still shining

My garden is defiant: the summer is not over yet.

I planted these sunflowers rather late in the season but I'm delighted they've come out to celebrate September with me. They're the last thing I'll ever actively grow in this small patch of earth

Arts

Film: The Sentinel

It's like a cross between The West Wing and 24 without the twists, intelligence and glamour.

More importantly this film marks the last time I'll visit The Riverside Theatre by myself.

Personal

Delivered by hand

If I keep going on about my neighbours it's because I'll miss them.

I came back from the weekend away to find two hand-delivered cards on my doormat, both wishing Emma and I all the best for next Saturday. I hadn't expected this at all. I'm pretty sure I'd not told one of the senders the date of the big day.

Why is it getting harder to leave?

Angels

On the river

One thing I've learnt since starting to collect Angel pictures is that I don't have to go looking for Angel Inns. They find me instead.

I was found even on this quiet late-summer afternoon, taking a boat trip down the Thames from Greenwich to Westminster.

Personal

Feet first

In recent weeks Emma and I have been showing friends a series of photographs and asking which should be on the front of the order of service for our wedding. This one - taken on our holiday to Portland last summer - was universally ruled out.

Without exception everyone's said that "jumping off a cliff" isn't an appropriate image to be starting married life with. My friends see madness, danger and injury in the picture. They see certain doom. I disagree.

I see three people on the rock. One sits, watching, learning. One stands, perhaps readying himself for his turn. One is already committed to the jump.

There's no uncertainty here - they know what will happen. They've all sat on Pulpit Rock and watched their friends go for a swim. They're sure the water's deep enough. Even though they've not done it before they know about the thrill just as certainly they know they'll survive.

And I don't think that's a million miles away from where Emma and I will be next Saturday: feet first, led by the heart.

Personal

Bridge of sighs

My own Bridge of Sighs is a footbridge across the A12. It links the industrial estate where my office is based with a residential area opposite. The only time I ever cross that bridge is when I'm on my way to the dentist.

I haven't crossed the bridge in four years.

As you can imagine, I was a bundle of nerves on my way over this morning. It looks like there's work to be done so I'm not perfectly happy, but I'm a changed person since yesterday. (For a start, I no longer balk at the word "teeth".)

Arts

Fallen stars

Remember the Avenue of the Stars, the "prestigious new London landmark" unveiled last autumn as part of an ITV love-in?

Let's play "spot the star". Here's a photograph of the avenue today, one year after it was launched. It should be easier, what with the promised annual additions.

That's the trouble with celebrity. One day you'll be celebrated forever, but once the commercial interest is gone you're discretely removed and popped out of sight.

Walks

28 walks later ...

The next couple of weeks will be stuffed full of "lasts" for me. Here's the first then: the last walk for me to complete in my book of Suffolk Walks.

Distance: 11.7 miles
Ascent: 253 metres
Duration: 3 hours 47 minutes

Walk 25: The Shotley Peninsula

The Shotley Peninsula is the southernmost piece of coast in Suffolk, sandwiched between the vast estuaries of the Orwell and the Stour. It has a rich supply of footpaths, providing plenty of scope to roam between the two rivers.

The centrepiece is the village of Shotley itself, built on a hill just before the land runs out. From here the port at Harwich is visible across the Stour to the south. Looking east though, the ferries and ships of Harwich suddenly seem as nothing when you catch sight of the Port of Felixstowe.

The vast cranes of Felixstowe's container port dominate the horizon here. It's hard to convey the size of the dock. It's harder still to imagine that the county's small roads and railway somehow consume all the goods being offloaded.

Bringing my eyes back from the horizon to the peninsula I found another surprising thing: a naval cemetery. There are so many disused air fields in Suffolk that it's easy to forget that the wide estuaries must have seen a good amount of naval action during the wars too.

This may be my last walk in Suffolk but I've only heard a fraction of the county's stories.

Arts

Film: The Wind that Shakes the Barley

These days I take all my history lessons at the cinema. Curiously I'm more cautious of bias in reporting there than I am watching the TV news or reading books.

Today's lesson, The Wind that Shakes the Barley shows some of the beginnings of the Irish republican movement. From the start my sympathies were with the Irish but towards the end it was hard to know who to identify with. Just about everyone took a unique political path and the film does well to show how fractures and splits occur amidst even the most loyal group.

I found it impossible to watch without mapping it onto another situation where local people may see the British as an invading force. Once again I wonder what tales and lessons will come from the current conflict

Walks

The undulating landscape

Between the wars my granddad toured Suffolk in a horse-drawn caravan. He didn't own a horse - he'd persuade local farmers to tow the van from village to village. At the time he was a missionary (for the Church Army, I think) so I'm not sure if he the towing was out of respect for a holy man or a guarantee to be rid of a trouble-maker. I wish I'd asked him.

In his book about those travels, Granddad - like so many others - lambasted those who describe Suffolk as a flat county and presented the upper reaches of the Stour as evidence to the contrary. This walk takes in much of that area.

Distance: 13.4 miles
Ascent: 270 metres
Duration: 3 hours 58 minutes

Walk 28: Long Melford from Lavenham

In places it's possible to believe nothing's changed since Granddad's time. At Kentwell Downs a scarecrow still provides a low-tech solution to protecting seed and on one wall of the Lady Chapel of Long Melford church, the times-table remains as if this room was still used as a schoolhouse.

As for the church itself, the best view is from three fields away when only the very top is visible, poking out behind the undulating landscape, providing a hint about the majesty and splendours within.

Angels

Angel voices

Their voices were not as I expected. The young couple from round the corner, the man with the white handle-bar moustache, the one with the vanity number-plate, the woman who with the black dog, the man who always wears short and long socks, the lady with the perfectly kept window-boxes.

There were voices I knew well too: my smoking neighbour, the old lady from the top of the hill who always greets me with a smile and a wave, the Green Party supporters opposite and the true owner of my cat.

This evening would have been a good time to burgle Angel Lane. Twenty or so residents all congregated on The Angel Inn. Service was slow and the woman who volunteers behind the bar at the Cruising Club wasn't impressed. "They knew we were coming," she muttered in disgust.

We were there for a mundane reason: to talk about the council's proposals to make our street one-way. Lubricated with beer, G&T or orange juice, conversation flowed and the characters fleshed out.

I was one of the first to leave the meeting. With bucket and sponge I started to wash the car. In little groups they walked past, their voices familiar now. The smoker nodded towards her own car, a question in her eyes. The woman with the dog smiled. The man in the shorts stopped for a chat before breaking away: "I'll bid you a good night now."

If our new neighbourhood is even half as friendly as this one we'll have struck a goldmine.

Angels , Walks

The Suffolk I'll remember

This is the Suffolk I'll remember: wide horizons, meandering riverbanks and whispering reeds tall churches looked over by tall churches.

Distance: 8.91 miles
Ascent: 144 metres
Duration: 2 hours 41 minutes

Walk 20: Wenhaston and Mells from Blythburgh

One element of today's walk was a big surprise. I saw a peacock early in the day by Laurel Farm. It's not unusual to see one from time to time, but later at Melles Court Farm six or seven were strutting round the stubble of a cornfield.

The circular walk began at Blythburgh church. I've passed this grand building many times before but have never ventured in. I should have: there are angels everywhere. I've known for some time of Blythburgh's Angel Lane but I'd not suspected there'd be anything else.

Just outside the church, the village sign is an Angel with outstretched arms. And inside the church, the fading painted roof is held aloft by a dozen angelic figures. What a place to discover during my last month in the county.

Personal

With the guys

Today five married men took me off for the day to share their wisdom. They didn't get very far.

Instead I demonstrated a complete lack of grace, but then I wasn't a student in Cambridge so my body hasn't adapted to climbing onto bridges from punts travelling underneath. This is the lowest bridge you can climb over on the Cam. Let's face it, there was no way I'd reach any of the higher ones.

A final challenge was harder, but more fun. With a little prompting I correctly identified three out of five whiskies. Clearly more research is required here.

So what did I learn? Er... I'm not sure. Whisky good, bridges bad? It's not the conventional marriage preparation syllabus.

Tech

Love me

I'm beginning to see the draw of sites like Flickr. I'd previously clocked them as useful (somewhere to show your photos with ease) and fun (the website pretty much grins at you).

What I'd not noticed was the infectious adoration. Case-in-point: on Monday night I took a deliberately out-of-focus photo of the lights on mainstage and posted this to Flickr. Within a short time a dozen people had marked it as a "favourite" and it had risen to join the ranks of "most interesting" photos of the day, signposting total strangers in my direction.

This could be addictive.