Saturday 17th October 2020

The final act.

Some 13 months after Mum passed and thanks to delays from COVID, the Co-Op replaced the stone on Dad's grave to show resting there too, after her ashes were interred there last November.

There is not much business left to do for me in Suffolk. I have friends, but none leapt at the chance of meeting up when I suggested it on the high school reunion FB group, so as it was, just old family friends to meet with. And if I'm honest, not sure whether to do this, as most are in their late 70s or a decade or two older, so not sure if I went round to call, what news I would find.

But, as usual, I had scheduled a church visit into the trip, and a hnt for some smoked fish on top of everything else, so time could be tight. I told Jools not to worry.

But it did mean an early morning alarm call, and setting off just after six as it got light, and would involve at least 6 hours of driving, with delays or jams, could be much, much longer.

The way to Suffolk is up either the A2 or M20 to Darford, through the tunnel and either up the A12 or M11 into East Anglia. I chose the A2 through Kent, and northbound on the M20 is slowed down due to Brexit preparations. So up the A2 to Canterbury to the start of the M2 then blast up past Faversham, Sittingbourne and the Medway towns.

The radio was on, traffic was light and we made very good time, getting to the tunnel in an hour, then through that and into bleeding Essex before turning off onto the A12, which leads straight, pretty much, to Lowestoft and my home town.

I have stopped at most churches either side of the road, some I have missed, others are never open, doubly so in times of COVID, so we press on through Essex, just glad to have made it through and not met any nutter drivers. Above us, the clouds lifted and it got brighter.

Into Suffolk, turning off to pass over the Orwell Bridge, waving to my friend, Simon, who lives nearly in its shadow. I say nearly, its probably a couple of miles. But if the sun was really low and the shadows really long......

North of Ipswich until Woodbridge when the four lanes give out, and so the road twists and turns through villages and past towns. I really wanted to stop at Blythburgh, but the website said visitors only for private prayer, and I would want to take snaps. So, we press on through Wangford to Wrentham.

At Wrentham, where in the past I had turned off to go to Southwold, instead I turned down a little travelled lane to Covehithe.

Covehithe is a small village on the edge of the Suffolk coast, which the sea is reclaiming back foot by foot year by year, so much so that the path down the cliffs to the beach has been washed away. And the once magnificent chuch will in a century or so go the same way.

St Andrew sits near a couple of houses and a farm, and that gives away whey the once huge church lays in ruins, and a 16th century replacment easily fits inside, nestling up to the tall flint tower. My friend above, Simon, tells that the small village could no longer afford to maintain the church, so asked to remove the roof to save repairs. In the end a simpler and smaller church was built inside, and nature erroded and claimed the filts and walls as her own.

And there St Andrew sits, once huge and grand, now a ruin, like broken teeth piercing the now blue sky, which wasn't forecasted, but I was more than happy to have for good shots.

I go round taking shots from all angles, inside the ruin and from the outside. The small church is closed, of course, but it was the ruins I wanted to see.

And now I had.

We drive back to the A12 and then onto Lowestoft, stopping at Morrison's to buy some carnations to put on my family's stones. From there, through Oulton Broad, up past Normaston Park and to the huge municipal graveyard, where in a corner are the cremations memorials.

The new stone for my parents stood out like a becon, whereas the ones for my grandparents were covered in moss and litchen. We had brough brishes, cleaning chemicals, so got busy in cleaning those up, filling the vases with water and filling each with flowers.

I had no words to say. This is where we will all end up one day, either remembered or not.

We clear up our rubbish and I leave them, maybe for the last time. I don't know. It seems it will be a long time before I am that way again.

I decide not to go and see the old family house, best remember it the way it was. It's someone else's home now. But I did have a plan for smoked haddock. Proper with no chemicals, somked haddock.

First of all we went to a new place down on the old beach village, behind the Bird's Eye factory, but they were closed. No worries, I thought, there is the old tumble-down old smokehouse in Bevan Street, but from the car park I could see it was all locked up, so we drove out again without stopping.

I did go and visit and old friend of Dad's, Stuart, who is still a barber well into his 80s. He runs a small shop near the football ground, and it was open and he in. Buisness is slow, but he is coping, and HMRC have let him off next year's bill, but its still tough. He has a friend near my parent's house, so he tells me of the work being down: a new door seems to be the main thing.

Next we drive to Oulton to meet my Godfather: Alan in 89, and has gotten very old in the last year. There is no cheer, no joy, in his face, just the strain of two elederly people coping with ill health in days of COVID. When I saw Alan, I nearly burst into tears, that time could be so hard on such fine people, but time treats us all the same. In the end.

From there we venture into God's own county, Norfolk, to visit Dougie and Penny. Dougie lived opposite my parents with his Mum and Did, obviously, until i joined the RAF and he met Penny. Through his hard work and lifting himself up by his steel toe-capped boots, he now runs his own building business and own his own home. Among others. He also is a father and grandfather.

The boy done good.

We stay for 90 minutes, talk about our lives, and how things are now. They seem good too, and their children and grandchildren are all OK.

So all good news.

Our final call is back in Suffolk, in Oulton Broad, at a smokehouse restaurant I found through Google, though this is smoked bbq rather than fish. I had booked a table and we would meet Mum's former cleaner, who had looked after Mum when there was few others and I lived away. We had a gift for her, some cash, to try to make up the way Mum treated her more like a skivvy at times.

And then there were the lies, but as I said more than once during the meal, Mum treated us all the same in that she told us all porkies.

The food was good, I had treacle smoked briket, which was wonderful I have to say. It came with beans and corn as well as crispy fries. And they had Adnams on draught too.

We talked the lunchtime through, Jools had a cheeseburger as well as extra sides, which when they came, were huge. She didn't finich.

But it was time to leave, time to hit the great road south back to Kent. We said goodbye to Sheila, dropping her off in the Burnt Hill Estate, then heading to the A12 and home.

Too late to visit Southwold, that will have to wait for next time.


Jools snoozed next to me while I listened to the football from three, an almost normal Saturday, other than no games had fans attending.

And as we crossed over into Kent, the final whislte went and Norwich scored a last minute winner, and Cambridge had gone made and won 5-0 to go top of League 2.

We arrive home at dusk, and find that we had two cats waiting. But no kittens. So we began to panic about what could have happened to them.

Of course, we needn't have worried, but we did.

And hour or so later, Cleo came in to have a snack and was out again, but no sign of Poppy.

The cat flap kept going, and I went to check, but it was always Mulder or Scully.

We began to really worry.

Then at half nine the flap goes and a balck shadwo runs by. A small black shadow. Poppy.

She doesn't know she had caused such panic, but demanded dinner, and went to lay on the bed next to Jools who was back watching the Expanse, as I played The Blue Nile and Hounds of Love on CD through the new speakers, whilst sipping cheap whisky.

Quite a day.