Woodbridge noughties

A gray, depressing Thursday for Woodbridge market (near the main car park) was cheered by this splash of colour on Garden of Eva's plant stall, they have lots of herbs too.

In Woodbridge this year there have been nearly 30 purse thefts (there was another one yesterday) with over £2,000 in cash stolen.  It would seem the crims are targeting the elderly partly because they tend to carry more cash.  So this morning in The Thoroughfare not only advice and free purse chains but PCSOs were helping fit them too.  The chains are available free at Woodbridge police station until they aren't.

Promising looking freebie in St Mary's Church, Woodbridge next month when cellist Julian Lloyd Webber (brother of Andrew Lloyds Bank) gives a master class.

The Copenhagen Girls' Choir's patron is HRH The Princess Benedikte (we're guessing she's the one in the shiny shoes) and the choir is joining the Woodbridge School Chamber Choir for a free concert this Sunday.

Galton Blackiston is a chef and cookery writer whose restaurant is Michelin starred.  Last night as a Woodbridge School Parents Association event he was cooking on stage at the Seckford Theatre in the school's grounds.  Unlike many celebrity chefs he came across as quiet, self effacing and before the start slightly nervous; well there were chefs in the audience, including Vernon, who is still calling us Jeff!

Woodbridge Anchor  des' dinners 69

Lunchers were the Gentleman Plumber, Richard V and NaTCH, who is reasonably certain he first visited the Anchor on a cycling holiday in 1974/75?  It's a Greene KIng pub and GK own Morlands (Speckled Hen) but serving (along with GK Abbott and IPA) was Morlands cooking bitter and it was serving fine ... but it does come in at a fairly hefty 4%.  Inevitably much conversation about the loudspeaker industry and the GP and Richard agreed you always get paid more for the work you don't like doing.  Not surprisingly with Vernon as the new landlord the food was very good (pork in a cream and mushroom sauce, home made burger, cottage pie) and not that expensive.  Vernon told us they have regular music, particularly Monday nights, and yes he did call NaTCH Jeff.  (first visit  subsequent lunch  previous lunch)

Last week two people were injured in Woodbridge by a car that didn't stop and over the weekend three car park ticket machines were robbed in Sax.

Last night was comedy night at The Crown Hotel, Framlingham.  Being from a large town near Chelmsford the acts went to The Crown Hotel ... Woodbridge.

Police have made a third appeal about Woodbridge man 73 year old Anthony Smith who has been missing since the beginning of the month.  As he is fond of walks by the Deben river users are being asked if they've seen anything that may help.

Worryingly 73 year old Woodbridge man Anthony Smith is still missing and there have been no sightings despite searches by police and the Suffolk Lowland Search and Rescue team.

It's the 180th Woodbridge Regatta tomorrow.  Does it matter if it rains at a regatta?  Probably.

73 year old Anthony Smith from Woodbridge has been missing since Thursday afternoon, he has several conditions which need regular medication and his disappearance is out of character.  You may particularly be able to help if you travelled by train between Woodbridge and Ipswich Thursday.

John W Mills is a sculptor with an impressive cv, the new sculpture garden at Woodbridge School contains seven of his life size pieces.  The garden's formal opening last night was a pleasantly full monty affair with string quartet, many jugs of Pimms, Lady Tollemache cutting the ribbon and head teacher Stephen Cole telling us that the first years used to run to get their lunches but now they walk past the garden.  The sculpture in the garden will change and favour artists with a Suffolk connection.

Antiques Roadshower John Bly in Aldeburgh over the weekend and now Eric Knowles will be in Woodbridge this Sunday giving free valuations.

When the Cross Quays pub reopened in Woodbridge some ten years ago a chum who had moved to Woodbridge as a teenager in the early 70s told us he'd always known the building boarded up.  This card from the 60s (judging by the cars) shows that it was once a wine merchants called Barwells and there were traffic lights!  Barwells were a Norwich wine merchants bought by Tolly in the 1920s and there's still a Barwells off license in Cambridge.

2008 is a leap year and at 10am on leap day Friday 29th Feb Woodbridge's Mayor Councillor Nigel Barratt is hosting a coffee morning in the Shire Hall.  A quid will get you coffee, biscuits and help the St Elizabeth Hospice.

It was looking dramatically picturesque by the tide mill in Woodbridge last night but there was no shelter from the wind coming off the water and it was perishing!  So we went for an aimless along the Thoroughfare where the Georgian Coffee House and Mrs Piper's have survived, Viccy Wine's had liposuction and its roots done to become the Wine Rack with WH Smith next door in matching dark blue livery, Currys are long gone as is, regrettably but perhaps inevitably, the camera shop at the opposite end of the Thoroughfare.