Framlingham in 2019

Where the Framlingham  silver bikes go in the winter and tomorrow it'll be fifteen years of Framlingham Ladies.

Geese in Crown and Anchor Alley Framlingham?

Regrettably we couldn't stay long for today's Peter Pan in Framlingham but there was an incredibly supportive audience, as last year impressive lighting effects and twirling on off ice roller skates from all ages.

Sporting Fram has become sporty Fram, there is reason.

Heartening that there were so many people in the St Michael's Framlingham churchyard yesterday for Remembrance Sunday.

Political discussion on the Fen Meadow Framlingham  ... well it is Suffolk.

It's the Framlingham  Flyers cross country this Sunday.  It will start on the Castle Meadow though we're a bit vague about the time.  A water person at this year's 10k told us the route was changed slightly last year but surely it will still include the perilous swoop down into the castle moat.

Designated Public Place Orders (DPPOs) were enacted in a bunch of near the coast towns over ten years ago.  They aren't simple drinking bans, it's not illegal to have wine with a picnic as long as a copper doesn't ask you stop ... read the question.  DPPOs have been replaced by Public Space Protection Orders and last month East Suffolk Council resolved (didn't they vote?) to remove the DPPOs (number seven in the minutes).  Impressively they also thought to remove the signs that imply Framlingham Fen Meadow is the haunt of drunken muggers rather than sober(ish) dog walkers.

Last night in the Headmaster Porter Theatre at Framlingham College.

Standing by the Over the Moon coffee stall on Framlingham market a tiny grabbed hold of our trouser leg to help him get up on the step.  When you're that small it must be difficult to tell the difference between people and furniture.

Tragedy!  Long term Framlingham.market trader Chrissie will now only be attending at Christmas and other special days.  We recall one absolutely freezing Saturday she came into The Crown and removed three anoraks ... we will be missing her superior eggs.

Extinction Rebellion protest in Stately Terrace Framlingham .

The Framlingham  Pageant Field has temporary toilets.  When we visited the gents it was impressively clean, a choice of four hand dispensers (we chose restore), no paper towels in the dispenser and if you stood still long enough the lights went out.

Very sorry to say goodbye to Brian Tom Thomas this afternoon in the Framlingham College Chapel.

What was the Christian Science reading room in Fore Street Framlingham  has been made over with abstract paintings on the walls, uplighters, a very swish glass desk/counter and a full length mirror ...

A lost goose (or possibly duck) in the Fen Meadow Framlingham.

Presenter of tv show Coast and president of the Royal Geographical Society Nicholas Crane was on the Market Hill today and bought some books in the Framlingham Bookshop ... well they are very popular.  Tonight in St Clare's the Ladies Choir present their Summer Concert. ♫

In a Stately Terrace Framlingham garden this morning a sparrowhawk (NOT a goshawk) that had just taken something smallish.

In the miserable wet the 2019 Women's Tour passed through Framlingham  today as one single not particularly interested peloton.  In the evening on the telly (our word those presenters are annoying) Brit Abby-Mae Parkinson animated the race staying away for 20+k and then caught inside the final two kilometers.  Her bike frame looks so small there's barely room for a bottle cage.:)

Don't know who was getting married in St Mike's Framlingham  today, despite the rain the couple looked very happy but there was a mixed effect.

Remember Hassan who opened the Pizza Grill in Bridge Street Framlingham?  These days he is the California Grill in Ipswich but today was on the Castle Meadow for the Gala Fest with his baby son Hassan Jnr.  The paella looked wonderful and judging by the queue probably was.  Lots of smiles and as always the Gala Princesses looked and were princessly.

In Framlingham the oak tree on a bit of grass by the footpath to the Elms car park fell down yesterday afternoon thankfully without injury except to a fence.  Reportedly it collapsed gracefully.

We have the handbill for the 1952 British Rail special run for the Framlingham Gala (poignant as regular passenger services to Fram ended in the October of that year) but we've mislaid the 1950s Gala prog offering a bicycle as the raffle's first prize and a running race class for unmarried ladies only.

The oil seed rape is looking very yellow around Framlingham  and the Fram doctors are looking to recruit a practice manager for their forward thinking, friendly ... rural practice.

Poignant, possibly even sad, to see the Conservative Club in Church Street Framlingham boarded up.

Do you remember Alan and Henri landlords of the Framlingham  Castle Inn around 2011?  Henri moonlighted as a belly dancer?  Stumbled across them from a roadside notice on the way to Norwich, since last year they've been the Diss Emporium.

Today on Framlingham market a young girl old enough to have a mobile phone accidentally knocking her entire untasted real lemonade into her lap reacted with Ah, that was refreshing ... a future Victoria Woods.

Yesterday afternoon's birthday tea party in the Framlingham Unitarian.

The first time we visited Stately Terrace Framlingham  a ginger cat rushed up and told us they loved us.  After we moved to the Terrace we learnt that the ginger belonged to Sally our near neighbour and had been named George on the usually safe assumption that he was a tom.  In fact George was a betty as they call female cats in Suffolk.  A sunny day years later we could see George curled up asleep on Sally's garden shed roof ... an hour later George was still there unmoving.  George had passed away sleeping in the sun ... can't think of a nicer way to go.

Lot's more years later Sally who always had two or three cats also sadly passed away.  We've seen the new people in Sally's house with a tortoiseshell kitten ... what goes round comes round.

As always changes in the present continue to unhook linkages to the past.  After over ten years at the Conservative Club Film @ Fram (the club originally showed in the British Legion Albert Road ... we saw Topsy Turvy there) has moved to the Unitarian Meeting House.  A single source reports the Con Club SOLD to a private buyer.

Businesses Open as Usual in Fairfield Road Framlingham  ... that would be St John's then.

The now not so new zebra crossing in Station Road Framlingham  has had the barriers removed but no sign of the belisha beacons.

Today is Victoria's pearl anniversary in the Framlingham Bookshop.

Throwback Thursday:  Twelve years ago today much of Framlingham  had been without gas for some 24 hours, it happened again four years later.

It's all the go in and about near the coast, temporarily closing petrol stations to re-model them, not an insignificant matter when there are so few to start with.  Woodbridge (has it re-opened yet?), Co-op Stowmarket (not closed but building going on), Haynings Framlingham  (reportedly will have a 24 hour self service pump) and now the BP garage on the west bound A14 near Newmarket.  Fortunately services just off the A14 on the other side of Cambridge are copiously resourced ... three Costa Coffee machines!

Though we are and always will be blow ins we do remember Love Lane off Brook Lane and the footpath across the Fen Meadow Framlingham being surfaced.  Certainly surfacing Love Lane made life easier for pram pushers taking older children to Bobby Hitchams but it did feel like suburbanisation.  Now it's the footpath off Fairfield Road's turn.

As Lady KRJ observed of Framsden soprano Laura Wright you think of her as looking cold in an evening dress on a rugby pitch whilst fluting the national anthem.  In unseasonably good weather she certainly didn't look chilly wedding at St Michael's Framlingham  just before Christmas and as expected at a wedding statement hats.

Gill Knight reports that the advent windows in Double Street Framlingham  raised £640 for the two charities.  Three year old Idris wasn't too sure about the cow and donkey peeking out of the stable at the Castle Street end and wouldn't come near to stroke them.