Normal for Norfolk..........: So there we were waiting for 14 elderly ladies in a charabanc to turn up on a Sunday afternoon, all expecting tea and cake.........

"Ouch! Why you little....." I muttered to myself as another spiteful blackberry thorn latches on to my arm using the arms momentum to dig itself in all the more firmly before finally giving up and letting go. Of course it hasn't finished, no, it then tears along my skin a further inch before eventually relinquishing it's hold.

Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch. Marry, ’tis enough......

No, ’tis not so deep as a well nor so wide as a church-door, but ’tis enough, ’twill serve.

Mercutio (Romeo & Juliet)

I'm still suffering from a small thorn incurred 2 years ago whilst we were scrumping, no, er... 'acquiring' some err.. 'wild' Mirabelle cherries. A thorn became imbedded in my chest and despite the best that the NHS could throw at it (basically a nurse with a needle and no soul) it still sits there today. See previous blog "The birds and the bees".

So I particularly don't like things with thorns. A little side note here, I failed to enter the r in thorns and so the spell check thought I didn't like things with thongs. You really have to be quite alert when writing this drivel you know!

The task in hand is Blackberry picking in the back garden so I could make a batch of Blackberry and Apple Jelly. Luckily the Blackberry juice matches my blood colour then.

The Blackberries and the Apple tree had been planted by our predecessor in this property a retired Vicar called Percy or PJ to his friends. We have spoken much about Percy in the past on this blog and have told of the many old acquaintances of his that have since re-visited The Old Bakery to remember their personal good times.

PJ's presence is felt throughout the house and gardens, it's not a silly ghostly thing but there is a spirituality about the place that comes very much from his input in the design and planning of the garden through to the wonky brickwork on the two chimney breasts in the lounge. I still keep his blunt old garden tools hanging on their bespoke carpentered wall holders in the tool shed, because that is where they belong. I will get them all sharpened one day although I reckon PJ said the same thing himself.
When we go to our office we are actually sitting in the Chapel that PJ built, with it's bell tower out side and inside I have not ripped out the Walkman Cassette that he had wired into some speakers so he could play music in his chapel. His long brass candle lighter and also the snuffer still sit on the window sill near the large Cross that he embedded into the flint wall with his own hands.

We are not pricked by a dogma that all of his 'work' should be immortalised here but more with a sense of maintaining a little of the history that his thirty years of occupation marked on the place.
Our commercial requirements meant that I have torn out the tiny study that he had made upstairs so we could create a bigger 2nd B&B guest bedroom. We have made several alterations ourselves, which are part of our legacy to The Old Bakery.

As I mentioned earlier we do get a lot of PJ's past friends and colleagues and one of these visited us last October, see previous blog "We are all visitors......"

This particular lady was an important part of Percy and his wife's ministry at The Old Bakery and I assured her that we quite enjoy meeting their old friends and finding little snippets out about the place. This she took as an invitation to get a whole group of past ministry participants together to visit us! Well we couldn't say no and before long it was in the diary. So there we were waiting for 14 elderly ladies in a charabanc to turn up on a Sunday afternoon, all expecting tea and cake as they made their pilgrimage to The Old Bakery.

Not too sure what to expect we prepared for the onslaught.....

Homemade cakes and tea, it all seemed very 'British'. They arrived on time in an assortment of cars, some couldn't come because of a clash with a church event so we ended up with 9 ladies and one guy.
It was a lovely two hours where we found out a little more about PJ and his wife and The Old Bakery during that time. As a group they tried to meet about once a year and so for them it was a real treat to be able to meet in the very place that brought them all together in the first place.

After tea we showed them what we had done to the place over the last 3 years, they then had a good natter with each other and then we took a group photo to mark the occasion.
It was really nice and they were clearly thrilled with the whole afternoon.

This unassuming photo of a group of ladies in front of a house means very little to the onlooker but it was quite obvious that it meant so much to them as they had so many personal memories of The Old Bakery and all that Percy brought to it.
It was perhaps all the more significant that it was a few days away from being the 30th anniversary of the day that Percy and Margaret moved into this house.

And what were Alison and I doing all those years ago on the day before they moved in?.....

Awwwwe, how sweet.

That's right as Percy was moving into the house that we were destined to take over we were actually getting married. It is at this point that I will take a little time to record just how absolutely and overwhelmingly wonderful it has been to be married to Alison. We have done so much, seen and been to so many places. We've lived a lot and cried a little. We have had two brilliant kids who we are so proud of and whom mean the world to us. But most of all we have always been head over heals for each other.
Alison thanks for everything over the last 30 years, it's been a blast. XXX

Ok so now back to me being me.....

Firstly the THEN and NOW comparison photos...

THEN