Back to Britain – April 2026 (Month 13)

A visit from Klaus’s daughter and her friend

The beginning of April was quiet (we didn’t do much over Easter) but on the 6th April Klaus’s daughter Lara and her friend Benita flew to Stansted to visit us.

We collected them in the evening so they went to bed pretty much as soon as we arrived back at our house. The next morning we walked into Bury for them to have a look around and get the lie of the land. That evening we had our evening meal at the Old Cannon Brewery (they had their Burger & a Pint Night) and as I don’t drink my pint was going spare… and choir chum Tim turned up and he drank it. He did quite a lot of explaining to Lara and Benita the history of Bury St Edmunds.

The next day we went for a long walk at Long Melford and then drove to Lavenham for brunch but the planned tea room was full so we went to the National Trust Tea Room at the Lavenham Guildhall – Benita had her first experience of a Cream Tea. Which she seemed to like.

That evening I had the choir so after Klaus had cooked a barbecue for us I headed off to choir. He, Lara and Benita walked to the pub later where the choir members go after the practice so we had a bit more socialising.

The next day was our visit to London. We decided it made most sense to drive to London and then get the tube in – so we drove to Westfield in Stratford (the Olympic Park) as I had not been there before. It was a good spot to park and Klaus and I wandered around the Olympic Park a bit first.

We then got the Elizabeth Line into central London and got off at Tottenham Court Road. We had an excellent Falafel Wrap from a street vendor and then went to the British Museum.

It was way too busy with tourists so we didn’t spend much time there but I did have a look at the Assyrian room and was impressed that these chaps on these Cuneiform Marbles seemed to be wearing wristwatches.

We met up with Lara and Benita back at Westfield and headed home. they had been to Camden Market and done various other touristy things – a good day was had by all.

On the Friday we did a very long walk with Aggie the cockapoo from Nowton Park to Sicklesmere.

Here she is before the off.

She was very good off the lead, and our guests really enjoyed the landscape of the walk.

We stopped for lunch at the Rushbrook Arms and Aggie tried to convince me she wanted some of my lunch – but sadly for her without any success!

We really enjoyed the walk and handed Aggie back to her owners. We decided to have fish and chips for our Friday night meal (well, our guests were veggie so they had Halloumi fries and a veggie pie).

The next day was Saturday and it was Parkrun time. Klaus had decided to start running just a week before and was following a training plan on his Garmin watch. this had him running for about 8 minutes in total with lots of walking. We said he should still do the Parkrun with us to set a start time so he did. Benita and Lara were much faster than me, of course, and Klaus had a very leisurely walk/run but set his baseline time as 45 minutes or so.

Lara and Benita both got PBs!

After we were all showered and refreshed we went to Cambridge for a bit of tourism. Klaus and I let Lara and Benita do their own thing and we had a bit of a walk along the Cam.

We ended up at the Fitzwilliam Museum and had a good look around.

We took Lara and Benita straight to Stansted from Cambridge and they flew home, having had a really good time in the UK – the weather had been excellent!

More culture

I did another U3A Church Visit to a lovely church, All Saints in Drinkstone.

A very elderly lady gave us an excellent talk about the church, including information about the new church bells which had been hung just last year.

With the Ramblers we stopped in to visit a church whilst rambling from Needham Lakes and it was lovely.

This painted screen thingie was for King Charles the Second, I was amazed it had survived the Cromwellians who did lots of damage to churches in Suffolk during the English Civil War.

On another Ramble we passed Riddlesworth Hall which was formerly the school that Lady Diana Spencer attended as a child for a short time.

It had subsequently been converted into a care home or something but was now closed and looking a bit forlorn in places.

Klaus and I also took Lottie the Miniature Labradoodle to Ickworth Park. Here she is looking like a teddy bear as usual!

Klaus and I also visited the Bury St Edmunds Guildhall WWII Operations Room which has open days once a month. We had a very knowledgeable chap tell us all about the history of the Royal Observer Corps in Bury and it was most interesting.

Klaus back at work

One great bit of news this month is that Klaus felt well enough to start back at work on a phased return. In consultation with the counsellor he organised restarting, initially with two days per week and after a fortnight he increased to three days per week. So far it is going well although he is quite tired after a working day now. We hope that he can increase his hours more again in the near future, with the ideal aim being he stays at 4 days per week working, but we shall see.

With the good weather we have been doing lots of walking, jogging together and even some cycling on the trikes. The summer is on its way and we look forward to exploring more of the area around Bury on foot or awheel.