Monday 10 April 2017

Snape Maltings

After spending half a day driving around deepest Suffolk looking for a 30mm spanner, two jubilee clips and two lengths of hose, we ended up not having a lot of time for adventures.  However, we did pay a visit to Snape Maltings.  All I knew was that there was a concert hall and a lot of old buildings here.  The buildings were beautiful and have been very sympathetically restored.  They were originally barley maltings and the malt was shipped to breweries all across Europe.  The cargo ships and barges came up the Alde to collect the malt.  Today it is the main venue for the Aldeburgh Festival, which is an annual celebration of classical music.  There was also a wonderful barge moored up, which of course caught our attention.
There are also some lovely craft shops, food shops and boutiques within the complex.  Mind you, it was so expensive, very much for all the foreign tourists.  I don't care if the peanuts were grown in gold pots, I am not paying £9.50 for a jar of peanut butter!  Prices are a bit steep round here.
I popped into a bakery in Woodbridge for some bread.  The chap in front of me asked for a sliced sandwich loaf, which was actually what I wanted.  When the young lady handed it to him and asked for £2.70 my jaw hit the floor and I left.  We have a really good bakers in Tollesbury (with the oldest bread oven in England) and the exact same loaf is £1.30.  Both bakers could be considered artisan bakers but one is in a fashionable area and one isn't, I really don't know how they can justify the difference.  I ended up buying some bread in Waitrose, which was very good and nowhere near as expensive.
After a busy day we are shattered and Alfie has already taken himself off to bed.  I shall not be long behind him, but Pete is listening to the Arsenal game on the radio before he turns in.  I hope to goodness they win, I want him in a good mood tomorrow x










10 comments:

  1. Hope you have a great few days away.

    I can't believe the price of that jar of peanut butter!

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  2. Oh dear we are heading that way later in the year. We had better start saving our pennies! Sarah x

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  3. Totally outrageous those prices !

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  4. Jo - thanks Jo. By the way I have been commenting on your blog but the comments don't seem to be appearing? Xxx

    Sarah - You are more canny than to spend that on a loaf of bread!!

    Mel - I agree, totally xxx

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  5. What a lovely place, Fran!! But yes, that price for a loaf of bread is outrageous. Glad you found Waitrose! Xxx

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  6. Val - I love Waitrose, but can only afford to shop there occasionally! X

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  7. The harbor with the old buildings made me think of Sweet Haven. Have you ever watched the Popeye movie starting Robin Williams? It never got good reviews but Steve and I loved it. Maybe because we grew up watching Popeye cartoons. When we took our trip to Hawaii, I ran into the same thing. Prices were outrageous, then I found the farmer's market and a few roadside markets and paid a third of what the shops were asking. That happens in tourist traps. I'm like you . . . my mother didn't raise a fool, LOL.

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  8. I'm sorry to have missed your comments. I'm not sure what is going on. Do you think that there is something I can do? I haven't had anybody comment for a while and was wondering...

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  9. Connie - I haven't seen Sweet Haven, but I will keep my eye out for it. I think you are very right about how we were raised! Xxx

    Jo - I don't know the answer to that I'm afraid. I am also having problems with blogger, having to switch between desktop and app to post anything. Have you tried googling it? Xxx

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