Suffolk

Onslow and I are both old soldiers and therefore have access to a fabulous holiday facility in Lowestoft.  The place we can go to is called Lord Kitchener's Holiday Centre for ex Service Men and Women and situated on the seaf front at Kirkley Cliff just south of Claremont Pier.  There are only eleven en suite twin rooms and we are provided with dinner, bed and breakfast.  The food is absolutely fabulous and we are free every day to go on cultural pursuits knowing we will be returning to a delicious dinner.

We drove down yesterday in two stages, home to Burghley House near Stamford and then from Burghley to Lowestoft.  I have wanted to visit Burghley for years but never really had an opportunity until now and built a two hour stop there for lunch and a look around into the itinerary.  It was one of the biggest disappointments of my life - the visitor experience was not very good at all.  The route for cars and parking effectively prevents a decent view of the house itself and visitors have to go through a "tradesman's entrance" via the back doors.  The experience of even buying a ticket was not very nice - the only signs displayed in the entrance hall show the gift aid prices and the request for two senior tickets was met with "you are happy to pay the gift aid rate" - without an accompanying lift in tone to indicate it was a question and not a statement.  Normally I do pay the gift aid rate but being irritated by the failure to see the best views of the house on the way in I simply said "no".  All the rooms had loads of paintings but there were no guides as to who had painted them, or who was being painted in the case of portraits.  When I questioned one of the room guides she said I should have bouight a guide book or audio tour.  Not a pleasant experience at all - Burghley could learn a lot from the National Trust and English Heritage.

We landed at Lowestoft around four which gave me time for a nice long shower before supper.  We were served carrot soup followed by an old fashioned English beef salad.  Plent of beetroot and half a hard boiled egg present and correct on the plate - along with grated cheese as is de rigeur on such occasions.  We then had a fabulous strawberry tart with custard, the tart was deliciously crisp sweet pastry with a half inch layer of a strawberry preserve topped with a frangipani mixture and was served hot with custard.

This morning's breakfast was the full English with porridge or cereal plus grapefruit, prunes and juices and as much toast as we could eat.