Yesterday we headed east mainly to revisit Saffron Walden, a town I particularly liked from a previous visit a couple of years ago. It is a reasonable sized historic town with local butchers, bakers etc. and with some interesting craft and clothes shops. It must be an affluent town because house prices are quite high and there are some up-market restaurants and shops. The town centre is very attractive and it is certainly a place that you can imagine living in. The other advantage is that is just a few miles from Stansted airport and probably commutable for both London and Cambridge. A dry lunch today in an old fashioned tea shop with home made sandwiches and a selection of 10 different tea blends all served in pots through a tea strainer. Tea bags have to be a stupid invention which we can’t now do without as the idea of emptying tea leaves into the bin is just a little too much for our sanitised lives.

I followed the “tourist route” out of Saffron Walden to arrive in an amazing little town village called Thaxted. I had never heard of it but it is a wonderful spot with lovely old houses - including “Dick Turpin’s cottage”. This was actually for sale in an estate agents’ window for the seemingly absurd price of 240K - I think it must have been a small part of the whole building though. Thaxted has also a huge church which means that in earlier centuries the village/town probably was more important and has now been by-passed leaving it in medieval splendour. A very nice place to walk around !

Then on to Colchester. I have always imagined Colchester as an Essex satellite town of London, probably with rows of nondescript houses overtaken with commuterland. In reality Colchester is an old Roman Town with a long history and an impressive town centre. Several buildings date back 500 or more years and the town centre is very attractive. It is large enough that we got lost and needed 30 minutes to try to find the car park where we earlier parked the car. Colchester used to be a centre for clock making and there is a museum featuring old 18th century clocks and grandfather clocks made in the town. The museum is in a lovely old tudor house and admission is free.

Then we decided to head off for the coast and where better to go than Clacton by Sea. I have never been here before but had always imagined it was a gory seaside place with fish and chip shops and arcades. Well it is in fact a formerly elegant place with fish and chip shops and arcades. It has obviously seen better days and several hotels are closed or being converted into apartments. We are staying at the Esplanade hotel which looked about the best available and it is half empty. Yesterday we went along the pier which is long and very wide and hosts a fun fair. The beaches are sandy and look quite OK really although the sea has that grey colour probably from a muddy bottom. Clacton lies north of the Thames estuary and the most startling feature today is the construction of a large off-shore wind farm. When this is finished it will dominate the sea view, and whether you like it or not we are going to be stuck with them for 30 years or more. I have decided to really research into what is going on with the wind farm industry as now the government has pledged to build a thousand more wind mills which I can’t help feeling is based on pure politics rather than science.

Anyway last night we went out along the front to discover that Wetherspoons pub was booming and most of the others were suffering. They have hit on a magic recipe. The beer costs almost half as much as other pubs as I suspect their volume has enabled them to negotiate supermarket like deals with brewers. Then the food is also reasonably cheap and although fairly plastic is not worse than anywhere else. They have also brought the check-out type till to the bar! Firstly there are a set number of prices and each till has a

Off Shore Wind Frm

Off Shore Wind Frm

TV screen showng you the customer exactly what you have ordered and more importantly the exact price as the drinks/food is marked up. This speeds up service and automates food preparartion etc. Wetherspoons are the first to bring supermarket efficiency into pubs, and they are making big profits at the expense of old fashioned pubs.

 

This morning we are leaving to drive back to Godmanchester via Sudbury and let’s see where else we end up.