Back to Britain – August 2026 (Month 17)

Welcome to August 2026.

August has been a busy month and included our fifth wedding anniversary.

Sing Elijah

The Elijah project started in July with lots of rehearsals and continued into August.

There was an advertising banner across the bottom of Abbeygate Street in Bury St Edmunds as the marketing continued.

I had offered to host one of the soloists and was matched with James Micklethwaite the Tenor. He turned out to be a really lovely chap and was very easy going indeed. I collected him from St Mary’s Church after the soloists rehearsal and just before the choir rehearsal.

I walked home with James and then Klaus looked after him for the evening as I went back to the church for the choir rehearsal. They went to the Dog & Partridge pub for the evening meal and were chatting away when I got home.

The actual concert went really well, although there were a lot of organisational last-minute changes which not everyone was aware of. I was in the front row at the middle so had an excellent view of the conductor. Elijah is a great sing, and luckily when the actual concert happened I had somehow just clicked with it and was able to sing lots of it from memory rather than having to have my nose buried in the score.

The singers went to the Dog & Partridge afterwards and had a good chat. Jill, a lady tenor who I had sung with a lot in the living room rehearsals, is joining the Bury Bach Choir now and had an initial initiation into our pub-visiting ways with the Tenors in the Dog & Partridge. She will fit in excellently!

Funeral in Kent

My former father in law, Pete, died peacefully aged 89 in June.

Because of various holidays the funeral wasn’t held until 13th August, in Tonbridge Parish Church which is where I got married to James back in 1993.

I was very keen to attend the funeral and was able to arrange with chum Charlotte to hang out at her house beforehand. This was good as it was another really hot day, around 36 degrees, and I had a two hour drive to get to Tonbridge, so it was good that I had a chance to relax and have refreshment before heading to the funeral.

It was lovely to meet up with so many people after many years. James’s nephews and niece had grown up since I last saw them and it was great to talk to some of his family members who I hold in great affection. It was lovely to see how many friends and family were able to attend and the esteem in which Pete was held by so many.

There were snacks after the funeral and then I went back to Charlotte’s for more of a chill out, before heading with her to the good Curry House in Tudeley where we enjoyed an excellent (and well air-conditioned) meal.

U3A Church Visiting

I go on a monthly church visit with the U3A in Bury St Edmunds and this month’s was quite a trek, in Huntingfield which is over near Halesworth. The group organiser phoned me to offer me a lift as there was a space in the car – this was very helpful as I hadn’t realised the journey was over an hour so it made sense not to have too many separate cars going.

St Mary’s Church was fascinating as it has a very famous painted roof. It was singlehandedly hand painted by Mildred Holland, the rector’s wife, between 1859 and 1866, paid for by her husband.

There has even been a novel written about this, called the Huntingfield Paintress, by Pamela Holmes.

I loved this carved chap below on the end of a pew.

And this wonderful sheet which was on a notice board – which I gather are the different bellringing changes.

The church is well worth a visit if you are near Halesworth.

Miscellany

Klaus and I carried on attending the Parkruns but he chose to volunteer and then to do his run afterwards, without being timed.

We did some of the training runs together – including a 5k on the morning of our wedding anniversary.

On our actual wedding day I had run 5k before the wedding – at that time Klaus didn’t run at all. So it was nice to do it together now, after five years.

Chef Klaus has continued to do excellent barbecues weekly, wearing the apron that his work colleagues gave him in the Secret Santa at Christmas. It is perfect.

Here is a nice photo I took of the Cathedral gardens.

And here is a rather triumphant apple cake I made when we were visited by friends again.

Klaus and I did a trip to the beach at Frinton during one of the heatwaves. It was also just before the Clacton by-election so we saw vast numbers of Reform posters which felt rather unpleasant.

But the sea was nice!

As was the Frinton cake.

Doggie walking

We carried on with our dog walking of course. We took Lottie with us to Ickworth.

On another day she came to hang out with us and had a short walk too. Afterwards she felt she really ought to be allowed to share some of Klaus’s yoghurt.

We also had a visit from Aggie on another occasion.

We had bought some balls and a carrot soft toy but she wasn’t that keen – she had a quick tug of war with Klaus before having a sleep.

Wedding Anniversary trip to Yorkshire

At lunch on our wedding anniversary I lit the candle given to us by my colleagues at Engels Kerzen five years ago.

The actual day was a Thursday and this coincided with the German Stammtisch so we went to that as normal at the Old Cannon Brewery. We had booked a night away in Yorkshire near Huddersfield at a former country house for the weekend.

I had checked out two National Trust properties for us to visit, one on the way up (Kedleston Hall) and one on the way back (Hardwick Hall).

We set off nice and early on the Saturday morning and stopped off at Kettering for tea and a small slice of cake to share.

We arrived at Kedleston Hall and were really impressed!

They had a large exhibition theme relating to items collected by Kedleston’s former owners. There were lots of items from Tibet, India and other places and there was a specific focus on the Tibetan items and what they meant to Tibetan people living in the UK. It was interesting and well done.

We had our refreshment of course.

We then carried on, heading to Denby Dale near Huddersfield where we had booked a hotel.

There was a wedding on (we had expected this) and as we had dressed up smart we could probably have gatecrashed the reception afterwards except they were all very Yorkshire and I think our accents might have given us away!

Instead we had our dinner in the restaurant with a view over the gardens, having dodged the rain to get there (we were staying in an annexe).

I had a proper Yorkshire pie.

Klaus enjoyed a cheesecake for afters.

The dinner was good and we were able to get back to our hotel room mostly un-rained-upon.

The next morning before breakfast we went out on a 5k run as we had missed Parkrun the day before. Klaus had plotted a route which was nice but pretty wet and also quite up and down which proved to be slippery in some places.

We ended up mostly walking the route but it was lovely.

We had a good view of a huge TV tower (the Emley Moor Transmitting Station) which helped us to orient where we were.

We managed the walk/run however and after we had freshened up we went down to breakfast.

We headed off by 10am and decided to visit a viaduct we had seen whilst out on our run.

We had a walk around to get a good vantage point.

I thought this mixing of old and new was interesting.

We set off in the car and made our way back to the M1, stopping off at Hardwick Hall.

I had visited Hardwick when I was studying at Sheffield Uni and I still remembered the phrase “Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall” as the building had so many windows. It was largely built in the 1600s and so the interior was lots of tapestries on the walls rather than wallpaper.

There was a room which is an organiser’s dream!

We really enjoyed looking round Hardwick Hall and you get to see a lot of rooms as well. We had some food in the very busy café before setting off home.

Although Yorkshire is 3-4 hours’ drive away it was lovely to get away and we aren’t afraid of long distances (Klaus drives to Scotland and Wales regularly for work). We enjoyed our mini honeymoon and will hopefully do another one soon.

Beer Festival in the Cathedral

Last year we dropped in on the Beer Festival. This year Klaus was given complimentary tickets by one of his customers so we went to the last day (after we returned from Yorkshire) which was the Bank Holiday Monday.

We got a nice pint glass each. Mine remained empty.

Once again the cathedral had tables and chairs for people to sit and drink their beer which was on tap in the cathedral.

When we were there a community choir were singing.

We had another Ploughman’s as we were feeling peckish.

We spent a couple of hours there and Klaus tried two ciders, one of which had a smoky flavour which he really liked. What’s nice is you can order a third of a pint so he had two of those.

The event seemed very busy (I was told later that Saturday and Sunday were hugely busier than the Monday when we went) and there were lots of younger people too. We didn’t see anyone drunk, it just felt like a fun and friendly event. I didn’t drink anything except tap water (free) so was able to donate my unused drinks card which provides some money for the charities the Beer Festival is supporting.

Next year won’t be at the Cathedral as they are having building works done at the relevant time so it will be somewhere else but it should be back in St Edmundsbury Cathedral in 2028.

So that was August, and it seems the end of the really hot weather. It is getting darker earlier now and I am waiting to see if I can manage the whole of September without putting the heating on (I really feel the cold).

Tune in next month to find out!