Tag: norfolk

Suffolk Holiday August 2025 #art

Back in April 2025 we spent a week in rural Suffolk, our third visit to the county in three years. Our first trip there, in summer 2023, was something of an accident. We had booked accommodation for a week in Horning in the Norfolk Broads, but almost instantly recognised that it wasn’t a place we wanted to spend a week (too many ‘Private’ signs, too little access to the edges of the waterways, too many noisy ‘party’ boats cruising around, and so many people boozing their time away). As a result, after two less-than-great days, we decided to look online for somewhere different that we could stay that was not too expensive and not too far away for the rest of the week. After a bit of deliberation about the sunk cost of an aborted trip, we headed south to the small village of Redgrave, just on the Suffolk side of the Suffolk-Norfolk border. At the time, Suffolk was a county I had never visited before, and of which I had no great expectations, but within minutes of arriving there I felt settled and relaxed, able to enjoy walks and runs from the doorstep in the marvellous farmland countryside of the surrounding area. We enjoyed our stay so much that we returned to the same accommodation for an Easter holiday break the following year, but for our third visit, in 2025, we were forced to move to a different location. [I should note here that trips all the way over to East Anglia from our home in Plymouth were partly linked to visits to elderly family members in Norwich].

Consequently, in August 2025 we found ourselves staying in another small village, a little to the east of Redgrave and a little deeper into Suffolk. Once again, we enjoyed our stay, although the location wasn’t quite as good, with less options for walks in the immediate vicinity, and no cafe or pub within walking distance. We occupied ourselves with visits to Norwich, and the nearby village of Eye, and walks from Hoxne and Walsham-le-Willows, and we were able to meet up with an old university-friend and his wife for a quick circuit of Framingham Castle. We relaxed, we read, and, of course, I painted…

The picture at the top of this post shows a quick, and with hindsight slightly abstract, picture that I painted from a photo I took while walking from Hoxne, showing a typical view of Suffolk fields. The same walk provided the subject for my second painting (below), depicting more fields, a group of farm buildings, and some sharply lined fields. I find that the photos I take quite often feature fields with patterns of lines from ploughing or grass cutting, so it seems that I have a bit of a thing for parallel lines and angles!

The final picture (below) is of the holiday accommodation that we were staying in. I painted this one to leave behind as a thank you to the owners – a practice that has now become something of a tradition whenever we go away.

We didn’t make it back to Suffolk this year, but we did end up making two trips to Norfolk in April and May. Hopefully, at some point in the not-too-distant future, I’ll share some thoughts about those trips and some of the pictures that I painted on them, as I work my way forwards in time to bring my blog-posting-writing up to the present day.

The Lies of the Land #poem

There’s a hill marked on the map,
and so we will have to climb up.
We need to follow the river along the valley,
so then we’ll be quite far down.
Let me see, there should be a church tower…
yes, on the horizon, over there…
which means that our path will go right then left twice,
and then another turn right.
Next to the fen marsh it will probably be a bit wet,
but the stretch along the beach should be sandy and dry.
That’s the car park, just in front,
so where’s the windpump?
Behind us, out of sight.

It is helpful to be able to orientate yourself in time and space,
and a comfort to know that everything stands in order,
in its rightful place.
Believe me, there is a problem
if you don’t know which way you should face.
I think I’m pretty good at this, so let me help you understand:
Left, right, up, down, in front, behind, parched or drowned,
the truth is that you must get to know
the lie of the land.

No, sorry, wait… It’s not quite that simple…
That hill I mentioned is only five metres above sea level.
It’s so low down that it can hardly be called a hill,
in fact it’s little more than a pimple.
The water in the river flows further down towards the shore,
which means that the valley is actually up above the sea.
When we reach the church tower, it won’t be over there,
it will be our here, obviously.
And when we follow the path back, we will take a left,
a right and after that we’ll go right then left again.
But it shouldn’t be too confusing,
because we’ll be on familiar ground by then.

This isn’t what I was expecting
from the map on the visitor centre wall.
I guess there’s been so little rain recently
that the marsh is bone dry,
and there’s hardly any water in the drainage channels at all.
The tide must be on its way out,
because there are shells and seaweed all along the shore,
and so the sand is salty wet.
Anyway, it’s been nice since we got away from the car park;
I was pleased to leave that behind –
all those cars and people made me fret.
So, where is the windpump?
Have patience, don’t get stressed.
Wait for it. Ready?
There, right in front.
Are you are impressed?

It would be helpful if I could orientate myself in time and space,
and comforting if everything would actually get in order,
into its rightful place.
I definitely have problem
when I don’t know which way I should face.
I thought I was pretty good at this,
but now things are getting out of hand.
Left, right, up, down, in front, behind, parched or drowned,
I’ve really been made a fool of here
by the lies of the land.

(c) Tim O’Hare, July 2023

About this poem: While staying in the Norfolk Broads during our summer holiday we drove out to the coast for a walk at Horsey Gap, parking the car near Horsey Windpump (a National Trust site). On the way there I had been amused to notice that features that were named on the map as hills were, in fact, only a few meters above sea level and the idea that such naming was a ‘lie of the land’ was born. The poem picks up on various elements of the walk which took in fen-land marsh, a beach (with seals swimming in the surf) and, of course, the windpump.