This morning we began with a foraging trip, firstly to Samantha K’s at the harbour for fish. They have two boats, Laura K and Emma H and one goes out for crabs, lobster and shellfish, and the other for white fish which they sell in their shop daily, as well as smoked fish from Lowestoft’s oldest smoke house. I purchased a dressed crab, one of my absolute favourites and also a smoked mackerel.
We then headed back into town and were lucky to find a parking space. We did a little deli hopping and picked up a mixture of pies and some local cheese in Slate, a little quiche and a pot of mixed salads in the Black Olive and some beer and wine in Adnams. We returned to put it all in the fridge, had coffee then set out to the National Trust site at Dunwich where various walking routes lead through the heathland bordering the coast. As we arrived, we realised there was an added bonus as there were swathes of bright purple bell heather in bloom.
In fact, this whole area is covered in common heather and must be stunning in August when it flowers. We could see Southwold to the north and Sizewell to the south.
We had a walk in the heather …
… then wandered down to the beach but decided not to sit as it was quite blowy without a windbreak. We had an ice cream and decided to drive closer to Sizewell, to try and take a better picture, and we but wondered if it was a bit like morbid curiosity to be wanting to photograph a nuclear power station, however architectural it was!
The B road wasn’t particularly wide, with some nasty turns and we started seeing protest signs. We had already seen a sign in a house window in Southwold about the proposed building of Sizewell C.
EDF say it will generate enough electricity for 7% of the UK’s needs, creating over 5,000 local jobs during the 9 year construction. Local opposition groups claim the project will damage important wildlife habitats, not to mention the disruption during construction and the cost of £20bn, but the final decision is yet to be made.
We were able to get far closer than we would have expected, and parked beside Sizewell beach and took a walk. The juxtaposition of the nuclear power station, and people walking and swimming just seemed incongruous.
Yet more ruins on the way home as we passed Leiston Abbey, but in this case it was Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries to blame rather than coastal erosion! Since then it has been used as a farm, converted to a Georgian house, been a religious retreat and now is home to a trust who train chamber musicians.
Later we made up a couple of small plates with some leftovers, potato salad and the deli goodies and sat in the garden.
Off Travelling Together 