bleh

Sorry, I can't think of a title.
Bob took some time off work to study and relax before his promotion test. Thursday and Friday he read all day, and by Saturday he was ready to do something. We'd been looking for a "minibus" so we'd have more room in the car when my parents come to visit. We found a dealer on Ebay, near Colchester, so we planned to go down there and check 'em out.

We wanted to have cash in hand, so if we liked one we could go ahead and buy it, rather than go back again to finish the deal. Our US bank will only allow a few hundred $ in ATM withdrawals each day, but our local bank has teller services and we can withdraw as much as we like. But our money is in the US bank. So First thing Sat morning I transferred some money to the local bank. Then we looked up some other things to do in the area, and got ready to go. We went to the commissary first, as Bob had promised himself doughnuts if he passed his PT test, and also got bread and bananas for a sack lunch. Then we went to the bank, but they hadn't processed the transfer yet, so we couldn't get any money. sigh.

We came back home to call the man and say we wouldn't make it after all, and think what to do next.

We decided to go to Isleham to visit the Priory church there, and then go on north to see something else. Isleham is only 20 minutes away or so, and we got there with no trouble and even found the priory church. It was right next to the auto mechanic. There was a dilapidated information sign out front that we managed to read most of, and it said the key to the building was at Mrs. so and so's house, #18 something road, and an arrow pointing. Okay, we'd come this far... So we started off down the road to find the key. The road we were on wasn't the right one, and neither were the next two roads that turned off. So we just went in the parish church and looked at it.
That was pretty nice. There were tombs dating from the 1200's, angels on the ceiling, and a scrap-metal menorah made by London Jewish boys who lived in the church during the bomb raids of WWII. We bought a guide book for 50p, and it tells me the present building was completed in 1331. One whole side of the church is known as the Peyton chapel because so many of the Peyton family are buried there. Apparently they moved to America following the English civil war.

The road out of town led us around in a loop and back south, not the direction we'd planned to go, but it didn't seem worth bothering about so we headed back toward Mildenhall. We had a late lunch there and came home for naps.

Sunday was lovely and warm and sunny in the morning, so after church we got chicken and had a picnic in the park. The little ones ran and played until it clouded up, and we went home to nap again. The big ones played out back with the neighbor children until supper time.