A Good weekend

After a hearty breakfast (full English) in which thick, prime Suffolk pork sausages and bacon featured heavily, members of the group scattered to the four corners of the world Ipswich.

This photo of Essex is courtesy of TripAdvisor

A few headed to Pin Mill on the Orwell Estuary to look at the Thames Sailing Barges and the activity at the boatyard.

Others walked into Ipswich and met the remainder of the group at Jenny Wren's Yarn Shop to finish the yarn purchases begun on Friday evening.

A few went on to lunch, followed by the cinema to watch Philomena.





I stuck to Plan A - when you find yourself at a Spa Hotel for the weekend, don't waste time exploring the area - use the facilities. I had a twenty minute swim in the 'deep' area of the pool, followed by ten minutes in the extremely warm jacuzzi.

I had the Day Room to myself for a while, then joined those who'd returned from their outings in the bar for lunch.  Many of us were still 'full of breakfast' so had a very light snack or just a drink for lunch. I had a pot of tea and fruit Danish pastries. These turned out to be tiny, light, exceedingly good pastries (still warm) indeed. I enjoyed them so much, I had a repeat of this order for afternoon tea.

The Orwell Suite

There followed an afternoon of knitting in the Day Room before assembling in the Orwell Suite for our 'Posh' Dinner with traditional entertainment (quiz and 'name that child' photo competion.)

Earlier in the day, the local florist had delivered a bouquet of sweet-smelling flowers - a 'thank you' to Alicia, our Group Elder, who organises the away-weekend every year.








Everyone always makes an effort at Saturday evening's dinner, wearing something nice and dressing it up with a necklace and/or pretty shawl.

The Winning team

At one point in the quiz 'name the contents of this little fabric pouch', my table's team dissolved in helpless laughter at some of the suggestions of what might be contained in each pouch. My favourite was 'a tiny thimble for an Elf - probably one of the Wee Free Men's'. Despite this descent into levity, our team won the prize for identifying 22/25 mystery objects correctly. Our table also had the winner of 'name that child' photo competition on it, correctly naming 18/20 (three people forgot to bring a photo with them.)



Lots of shared laughter, diverse topics of conversation, lots of knitting, good food, good wine, and good company - all ingredients that go into making a good weeked a really good one indeed.