Abbeys and castles and forts! Oh, my!

Boy, do I have some catching up to do. I've been getting the gears from several of my offspring on account of my blog-laziness. Here's a start at bringing things more or less up to date.

Sudbury, Suffolk
Waaaaaaaaay back in February, on the 23rd in fact, we drove to Sudbury, a market town about 20 minutes from here. It was market day, so we explored.


Two guys trying to look interested in vegetables


We bought some lovely purple broccoli

If you squint really hard you can see the statue in the background behind John. It's Thomas Gainsborough, palette and all. He was born in Sudbury and they're proud of him, as well they should be. Behind the statue is St. Andrew's Church, which is quite old and very pretty, and which boasts this inexplicably small door.


Vestry for Munchkins?

The best thing about Sudbury? We finally found ice cube trays. Made the whole trip worthwhile, didn't it.

Tilbury Fort
In order to get Nick and Ben to look at vegetables without moaning, we promised them a bit of military history. On Sunday, February 24th, we headed off down the Essex coast to the Thames estuary and the mighty Tilbury Fort.


Aerial photo of the fort

The fort protected London's seaward approach from the 16th century right through to the second World War.


Nick and Ben firing on Gravesend


The question is, can they see the whites of your eyes?


Not the best idea this recruit ever had

Henry VIII built the first fort on this site, and it was near here that Elizabeth I made the resounding speech that inspired her soldiers as they prepared for an invasion by the Spanish Armada.


The heart and stomach of a king...

Well, thanks to some bad weather, the Armada never arrived. Nor did the fort experience any of the action that its moats, bastions and powerful artillery had prepared it for. In fact, we learned that the worst bloodshed within the fort occurred in 1776, when a fight following a cricket match left a cricketer and the fort's sergeant dead. Hooligans.

I'm going to stop here and publish this post right now, as Tilbury was the last interesting thing we did in February. March, however... March was chockablock with fun stuff. Just you wait...