We were awake at a reasonable hour and took our time getting up, watching TV in bed is a real treat. Breakfast was not available until 09:00 Sutherland House clearly does not cater for business travellers, well not the business I work in anyway.
The plan for the day was Southwold first Helen was going to do some shopping and I was going to wander round town and take some photographs. Then we would drive round to Warblerswick for a walk around the marshes there.
I went to the reading room first I thought I might try a panorama. When I got there four locals where putting the world to right. I looked around and noticed that there was a sign saying that if you wanted to take pho graphs you had to apply and put the application in the box on the door, very strange. I asked the locals who could give permissions they all looked at the guy who seemed to be holding court amongst the he asked if I wanted to take general pictures or specific ones, I said general and he have the nod. I think he was a bit surprised she got my tripod out and started taking 24 pictures, but if got the shots I needed, left a donation and made a sharp exit.
Next I went to see if I could have a look around the lighthouse but it turns out it is only open certain days and Monday mornings was not one of them, so I wandered down to the church which is quite large and very light inside. I asked out of curtesy whether it was ok to take photos and was told it was ok but a donation was required, I obliged. The church has a very high roof which is painted in blue and good at the altar end and bare wood at the other, the windows are very large so it is very light inside. I was due to meet Helen at 1100 so headed back to the high street to buy some, shoe laces and found a couple of interesting books, then headed to the free car park to meet Helen.
Next stop was Warblerwick we stopped at the church which seemed to have a very interesting history, it was clearly quite big in a former time as there were parts which were falling down, it looked like it was similar in size to the one in Southwold but the used part of the building was now just one of the side sections, the marks on the tower wall suggested there had previously been a central section and two side sections.
We drove on to the quay side where we parked up for £3 then started with a coffee and shared a piece of carrot cake at the lovely cafe on the corner. Then we headed out towards the sea at the beach hits and walked along the coast for a while then headed in land and though the reed beds back towards the church we realised that we would need to get a shift on if we wanted to get to the Eelsfoot before 1400 so we took the short route back, then drove to Eastbridge getting to the pub with 5 minutes to spare. We dumped our luggage then drove back to Minsmere RSPB.
Helen had beans on toast for lunch I had coffee and a packet of savoury cardboard triangles disguised as a health snack, which Helen had for some reason purchased for me. The weather was really quite warm there was hardly a cloud and not much of a wind, as a high pressure system was over the UK and was hold off surrounding lows. We had a good look around the north bushes area then headed out to the seaside it was perfect weather for a gentle stroll. At the scape hide there was a lot to see in terms of waders LRP and snipe the highlights. I had not seen a snipe for quite some time it was almost becoming my boogey bird, one that is pretty common but you never seem to see.
We headed on to the Minsmere sluice and had a look at the bushes there was not the usual activity there, so after twenty minutes of sitting around and seeing not a lot we walked back to the visitors centre, stopping off at one of the hides where we spotted Green Shank and Green Sandpiper which were very unexpected. Then it was back to the pub for a east and time to freshen up before a couple of pints and Adnams and some pub grub.