We’ve had the steps at the front of the cottage reconfigured (so it makes it less likely that people will drive into them) including this rather fine handrail made for us by Suffolk Welding in Easton.

There will be a parade of boats in Harwich Harbour (including the Royal Navy, Trinity House, Harwich Haven Authority (HHA) and the RNLI, as well as leisure craft) on the 18th June as part of this festival jointly celebrating Suffolk and Essex’s association with the sea. More details can be found here.

The Chequers has been extensively refurbished and is a very different beast to before.

The flowering cherry and crab apple in Red Barn’s garden, and all the wild cherries in the wood are in full bloom. Most likely this weekend’s wind will blow it all away….

At long last (it seems like forever!) the Chequers in Kettleburgh is reopening (9 April). It looks as if it will be a very different place to when Ron and Debbie owned the pub, but we have high hopes for it. And it will be nice to finally have a pub in the village again.

https://www.chequerskb.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/chequerskb/

The Harwich Harbour Ferry starts running from the 1 April (see https://www.harwichharbourferry.com/timetables) and a trip on the ferry is thoroughly recommended. You can get the ferry from Landguard point in Felixstowe or from Shotley Point (although the leg from Landguard to Harwich is more interesting, and you have to board the ferry via a gangplank from the beach!). There’s plenty to browse around in Harwich – lunch at the Alma Inn (https://www.almaharwich.co.uk/) is recommended, or have a look around Lightvessel LV18 (http://lv18.org) moored at Harwich quay .

Finally we are starting to see some better weather! We survived a succession of storms at the end of February, the main casualties being the TV aerial on the cottage coming partially detached from the wall (now replaced), and a tree leaning precariously across the road outside Red Barn which caused a short road closure between us and Framlingham, and loss of our telephone line and broadband (though we had a failover broadband connection which gave us a reduced service for the time it took Openreach to come and restring our telephone wire).