Back to Britain – July 2025 (Month 4)

This month has been very busy, and with some sad news.

Goodbye to Poppy

Poppy turned 15 in early June and was still very fit, despite being rather deaf and mostly blind. She went on holiday to Berlin at the end of June, spending a week there with Gudula and Frank, swimming in some lakes and having a generally good time.

Unfortunately this month she went off her food for several days and was clearly in pain internally. She went to the vet and had lots of investigations and was very dehydrated so was put on a drip.

She had an ultrasound and blood tests and they concluded she had pancreatitis and possibly also something going on with her spleen. She was put on medication for that and sent home, and she perked up a little at the weekend but still wasn’t eating, she just looked at the food.

On the Monday she went back to the vets and had another drip as she was once again dehydrated and was given some additional tablets. On Tuesday morning Gudula made the decision that she was in too much pain and as she hadn’t eaten for 6 days and was getting weak and confused it was time to say goodbye so she went back to the vets and was put to sleep in Gudula’s arms.

Poppy is now buried in the garden of the house that she lived in for 11 years. She had an absolutely brilliant life with loads of loving people around her. She went on many holidays, met masses of people, had brilliant walkies and was generally really healthy. I couldn’t have asked for a better dog. We really miss her.

The Culford Car Show

When we were visiting our letting agents a few months ago our contact there, Andrew, told us that the agents sponsor a car show which we should visit and takes place in July. So we did!

It was an interesting drive there as we passed loads of unusual vehicles which were mostly just parking in the car park, rather than exhibiting. But there were also some very interesting exhibits.

After a good look around we walked back to the church which was doing a tea and cake sale. I had a scone, Klaus had a very hearty piece of cake. They had vast numbers of cakes, but this was wise planning as the Car Show was really busy.

After the scone refuelling we went to look at some more cars.

And then we stumbled on Klaus’s dream car, an Audi Quattro.

We got chatting with the owner and he let Klaus sit inside!

We also chatted to the owners of a nice BMW Z3 who were planning to do the North Coast 500 in it, so we gave them various bits of advice.

We really enjoyed the day and will definitely go again next year.

U3A Events

I have joined the U3A and this month I had two interesting events.

The first was the monthly history lecture where we heard all about Ernest Shackleton, which was very good.

The second was a visit to a Suffolk Church, St Mary’s Church in Thornham Parva.

This was a beautiful little thatched church with some great history.

We were given a guided tour and learned about the history of the church. It had some lovely wall paintings which were covered over at some point but then discovered when some plaster fell off.

I wandered up to the balcony to look down on the church.

After the church visit we went for a cream tea at a local café and had a good chat. I really enjoy these outings!

More rambling

I did quite a lot of rambling this month, mostly walks of 5-6 miles which seems to be the sweet spot for me.

I had the first ramble in the mud, which showed me that I kick the insides of my trousers rather badly and get them muddy.

So I bought some gaiters which worked better on the next muddy walk.

I joined the Ramblers’ Wellbeing Walk to Ickworth Park which is a National Trust park near Bury St Edmunds. It was very nice.

We had another walk along a river with lots of narrowboats and some rather high stinging nettles.

On another walk we saw this sad tree stump.

The scenery was lovely with blue skies and sun for the first half of the month.

It was a bit wetter for the second half of the month but we still had some good walks in dry weather, even if the grass was a bit wetter at times.

It is always fun to see some of the beautiful Suffolk houses.

I also joined the Lion Walk walking group for a 5.5 mile walk from Great Tey. My friend Katy lives in Great Tey and I hoped to be able to drop in on her but she was away on holiday in sunny climes so I’ll. have to do that some other time.

On the walk we visited the church at Little Tey which was lovely.

And then when we got back to Great Tey I had a Steak and Kidney Pudding lunch – proper suet pudding, yippee! I was completely stuffed after this plateful and couldn’t manage a dessert!

I also did a walk with the Ipswich Ramblers where we started off with a tour of the Yum Yum Tree Fudge Factory in Woolpit near Bury. It was a very interesting tour and the place was amazingly clean. Having worked in food manufacturing in Germany, I have to say I was massively impressed by this little company. They really made an effort to do all they could for hygiene and the place felt way cleaner than the place I worked in in Germany.

At the end of the tour we could sample the fudge and of course buy it. So I bought a good selection (not everything that you see below!)

We had our lunch (sandwiches we brought with us) and then went on our 5 mile ramble. Once again, lovely harvesttime landscape, and in this photo we see two windmills.

Bury Bach Choir Tenors Ramble

The Tenors had discussed doing social things together and decided it would be nice to do a walk. The date was set and a 5 mile route was planned by Rob, our young tenor. His fiancee Sarah came along too.

We parked at the pub in Hartest, which is about 15 minutes from Bury by car, and then had a very nice stroll. It was great to chat to my singing colleagues and of course to enjoy the scenery.

After the walk we ended up at the pub for a proper Sunday lunch (the vegetables came in a separate dish),

I couldn’t resist the Pavlova dessert.

Whilst I was enjoying this poor Klaus was giving up his Sunday to drive to Scotland for work.

The Wool Towns Walk

A lot of my walking was preparing for the Wool Towns Walk which is a four day walk which visits five of the major Suffolk Wool Towns (Clare, Sudbury, Hadleigh, Long Melford and Lavenham). Day 1, a Saturday, was Clare to Sudbury.

A lady had organised car sharing as we were doing linear walks. I was collected from the main road near my house at 08:30 in the morning with a packed lunch, ready to do the 11 mile walk.

We set off and walked through some rain showers. We stopped at a bench for a tea break. There were some different walkers on this group (there are a lot who do 10 milers most Saturdays) so it was nice to see new faces and chat to them. I spent a lot of time talking to a chap Martin who was interested in cars so we had a lot to talk about.

We continued our walk and then arrived at a churchyard where we had our lunch. Opposite was a rather posh house – apparently this had been on the television as someone important’s house in the 1980s.

It rained a bit on us as we were eating our lunch but it cleared up by the time we set off and we headed on towards Sudbury.

We arrived in Sudbury at 3:30pm and there was some car-shuffling whilst most of the walkers waited in a Waitrose with tea and cake (that included me). We were soon picked up and I was dropped off at home, feeling very virtuous. This was probably my longest walk (at least in the last 40 years) at 11.43 miles (18.4km).

Plans were made for the next day, I would be collected by someone else and taken to Sudbury for the start of the walk.

An unexpected blood test result

I’d been home an hour from the Wool Towns Walk Day 1 when I got a phone call – from NHS 111. This was a bit of a surprise! The lady doctor asked if I was well and I said I was.

I had had a blood test the day before, a routine one that my doctor ordered as I had no notes from Germany and they wanted to get a baseline. It turns out that this blood test showed a major problem with my Neutrophils (a type of white blood cell). Usual range is from 2 to 7, I had 0.92. This put me in a very dangerous situation with regard to sepsis. The doctor said that if I had a fever, felt in any way ill, had new diarrhoea, pain whilst peeing, anything at all out of the ordinary I had to take myself straight to A&E to be put on intravenous antibiotics.

Not only that, I shouldn’t mix in any crowds, had to be careful what I ate (no undercooked meat), shouldn’t do any gardening or walk barefoot in the garden, etc etc. My immune system was barely functioning.

Of course this was all very scary, mainly because I couldn’t think why I was in this situation. It was potentially me fighting off a virus or bacteria (although I hadn’t felt ill at all), it could be a reaction to a drug, or it could be leukaemia or lymphoma.

The doctor told me to visit my GP first thing on Monday morning and that they would do a repeat blood test, but in the meantime I had to take great care of myself. As you can imagine, I did lots of googling of Neutropenia.

I rather lost my appetite due to the worry but Klaus suggested I distract myself by doing a jigsaw so we made a start on the 2000 piece one we had bought when we first moved here. It was a map of the UK – the plan was for Klaus to learn a bit more of the geography. I ended up doing pretty much the whole puzzle on my own over the next few weeks so he will have to do it on his own some other time!

On the Monday morning I got an appointment at 11:30 with the doctor and he did a really thorough check up on me – liver, kidneys, spleen, lungs, testing loads of different things. I still felt fine. We then discussed what could have caused the neutropenia and I told him that I had taken antibiotics before a dental appointment eight days before the blood test. He looked up my antibiotics (Clindamycin) and they have as a known side effect Agranular cytosis, which could cause my neutropenia. He decided that was the most likely cause of the problem. A blood test was booked for me early the next morning, and I left the doctors with more reminders about going straight to A&E if I felt ill.

The next day I had the blood test and then an hour later I had a call from a doctor who said that the values had increased (which was good). My neutrophils were now at 1.25 so that meant I didn’t have to avoid people now, I had a bit more immunity. I was to have another blood test early the next week.

That blood test six days later showed a slight improvement (now 1.34). So I was going in the right direction but fairly slowly now (baseline is 2). However it seems that this recovery makes the antibiotic reaction theory most likely, so I won’t be taking those antibiotics again. The doctor has written to my consultant at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital to ask if I still need to take antibiotics before dental work and, if so, which I can take (as I can’t take penicillin either).

It has all been very scary, particularly when it seemed possible this could be Leukaemia or lymphoma. I have now made an appointment with a local solicitor to do my will!

I have another blood test next week (beginning of August) so hopefully that will show continued improvement.

Life in Bury

We had some strong winds in July which took down a tree on the footpath from our house to Bury centre.

Impressively the tree was removed within a day.

Klaus was away for three weeks in July, a very tiring amount of travelling. When he got home on a Friday evening we decided to walk into Bury and have a coffee. We stopped at the same little café we have been to before, called Blend. The service can be a bit slow but the cakes are good and a bit different! Klaus went for this enormous brownie slice.

I had this very tasty Portuguese Pastel de Nata – I’d happily have it again.

In one of my visits to M&S to get some groceries I also found one of their strawberries and creme sandwiches. This was reduced to half price so I thought I’d take a punt on it. It was OK but nothing special, I won’t bother again.

Even more car woes

If you’re read this blog over the last two months you will know that Klaus’s Mercedes E-Class had a problem with its suspension which was eventually repaired but at a fairly hefty price.

He had four days in Scotland and our plan was then for me to get the train to York and he would drive there and we’d spend two nights there as a mini holiday. He took the Friday off work so we could have Friday there all day.

This was all well and good but the afternoon before he phoned me to say the suspension had gone on his car again. He managed to limp to the hotel he had booked near Darlington (he had a planned meeting in Darlington the next day and would then head to York to meet me).

He called out the AA and the chap identified a hole in the hose which had been rubbed by the exhaust heat shield which had not been correctly refitted when our local Bury garage had fixed the suspension last time. The rubbing had worn through the replacement hose.

The chap didn’t have the right hose clips but one of his colleagues did so he came and the two of them worked on the car, doing various things to try to fix the leak. Eventually they thought they had success for a temporary repair.

So the plan was for me to get the train to York the next day and hopefully Klaus would also make it to York in the car. We would then drive home Saturday afternoon, all being well. If the suspension went pop again we would have time for the AA Relay home. We would take the car straight to the garage and get them to fix it and in the meantime Klaus would use my SLK.

It had briefly looked as though we couldn’t do the holiday and were too late to cancel the hotel booking so that would have been really annoying (and expensive as it was non-refundable at that point).

A short visit to York

The next morning I set out for Bury St Edmunds railway station. There was unexpected heavy rain and I didn’t have a raincoat so I popped into Poundstretcher for an umbrella for £2.50 and it did the job.

I was half an hour early for my train so had a cup of tea in the café at the station which kept me out of the rain.

The journey was easy. It was an hour and a quarter to Peterborough and then a 25 minute wait there before I took an LNER Azuma (fast train) to York, which took an hour and a half.

York station had a really impressive roof.

The walk from the station to our Guest House was less than 10 minutes and I crossed over the River Ouse on the way.

I arrived at the Guest House and checked in. I had received a phone call that morning to say that another guest had hurt their knee and couldn’t do the stairs; we had a ground floor room so would we be willing to swap with this other guest. I said yes of course.

When I was shown into our room (up a narrow staircase) I discovered our bathroom was down two steep steps. We had a naff electric shower and the room itself wasn’t great.

Still, we weren’t going to hang out in the room too much – Klaus was still in a meeting in Darlington so I headed into York for a look around.

I found The Shambles of course.

Whilst there the variety of cakes and other goodies on display in shops made me a bit peckish so I had a cream tea looking over the Shambles Market.

I was pretty full after this. I walked in the gardens by the river that were very pretty.

I went back to the hotel to wait for Klaus who was on his way from Darlington. The good news was that his air suspension was still air suspending.

He arrived and he managed to squeeze the car in the very tight parking spot. After an hour’s rest we walked into York centre and had a very tasty pizza at a new place called Dough Eyed.

After this we shared a half slice of Tiramisu but that was still plenty!

Klaus was really pooped after three weeks of travelling around the country, and of course he had driven up to Scotland on Sunday so had only had a one day weekend. So we had an early night.

Unfortunately Klaus slept really badly as the bed was too hard for him (and it was also really narrow for the two of us – just 140cm wide and we are used to 180cm). He woke several times in the night with a bad back and also with dead arms from lying on them. At 3:30 in the morning he said he couldn’t cope with another night in that bed.

So in the morning we went down to breakfast, which was rather disappointing. I ordered scrambled eggs and got one slice of toast with eggs on it. I had also ordered toast on the side and just got one piece of toast (cut into two) for my toast and marmalade. Klaus asked for a cappuccino but they only had standard coffee. Not impressive.

After our breakfast we asked to speak to the lady in charge and told her the problems with the room. She said she would phone the managing agents and see if there was a better room. The one we had originally booked was all on one level, looked much better (in the photos) and had a proper power shower, not the weedy electric shower of the room we had ended up in. We said we wanted to cancel the second night and expected to get a refund for it.

The lady came back to us to say they didn’t have an alternative room for us but agreed to the room cancellation for the next night with a refund, so we accepted that. We packed up our things, left them in the car (with agreement from the lady that we could park there for longer than the official time) and we headed off into Town for Klaus to have a cappuccino. We then headed to the Railway Museum.

Most of the above photos were by Klaus.

It was a good museum but we had to sit down quite a lot for Klaus’s back to recover from the bad night.

After having a good look around the museum we headed back into York for lunch at a café that had been recommended to us by Rob from the Bury Bach Choir Tenors, called Bruks. It was OK but not outstanding. We both had jacket potatoes for lunch.

Klaus was so pooped that we decided to go home, rather than look around the Minster or anything else. It would be a 4 hour drive so we got going at 1:30pm. I drove to start with so Klaus could have a bit of a sleep. I was a bit nervous that the car’s suspension would suddenly give out but Carl behaved himself. We stopped for a cuppa and Brownie at a café in a village beside the A1 (Mama’s Cake Corner) and swapped drivers so Klaus took us the final two hours home through some roadworks that he is very familiar with due to his regular travels up the A1.

We were home by six and happy to just relax. Klaus needs some time to recharge from three weeks away from home (just being back at the weekends) and from lots of driving. We will take Carl the E Class to the garage that did the last suspension repair as they are partly responsible for the new problems – we’ll see what they do, but Klaus has lost confidence in them and once this job is completed we will take the car to the other Mercedes specialist (in Stowmarket) in future.

July has been really busy, plus my health scare. We’re hoping August might be a bit more relaxing. We have a number of things to look forward to, including us hosting afternoon tea for the Bach Choir Tenors – and at the end of August my sister and I are going on a cruise to the Norwegian fjords. I’m really looking forward to it!