I had thought maybe I'd go to Sutton Hoo on the way to my hotel (well out of the way to my hotel), but in the end decided to not bother, realising that I would not be ticking that particular destination off my list this weekend. But at least I now know where Sutton Hoo is, which is one step further to going there.
I had gone for a posh hotel so that I could relax and eat nice food and drink nice wine and justified the expense by figuring out that it was cheaper than going abroad. And better for the environment.
Especially given that I was staying in
a converted water mill in Tuddenham. Not that the mill was working any more, but it's the thought that counts. And presumably it could always be converted back to work if things really go tits up.
It is a terrific hotel, though I am more used to staying in the cheaper end of the market when traveling the UK. But it was way better than the Premier Travel Inn, whatever Lenny Henry tells you. There were some lovely touches like a little decanter of complimentary sloe gin and fresh orange juice in the fridge. There was a pond with swans and ducks swimming on it and an incredible restaurant with the most amazing food. As I sat eating wood pigeon breast next to the stalled mechanics of the old mill I considered whether the honest men who had ground flour here for a thousand years would ever have considered that one day that their place of work would be a luxury restaurant. How strange the passage of time can be.
Though I think the hotel had largely been rebuilt from the old days, it was still the same space where men would have worked at the time of the Domesday Book. It's a good job we don't see ghosts of the future or they would have had their medieval minds blown!
It made me think of what might become of the space in another thousand years and whether the cutlery and crockery that I was using might one day end up in a year 3000 edition of Time Team. It's a thought that I often have, due to my interest in history and archaeology and my attempts to come to terms with our unimportant place in the time line of history.
I noticed the knives and forks that the restaurant used were made by a man
called Nick Holland who had arrogantly put his name on every single item. Which means that the archaeologists of a thousand years time might know his name and speculate a little about who he was. If I had designed a fork I suppose I might like my name to be on it. But it's not like he invented the fork is it? He just made one that's a slightly different shape to some of the others. Nick Holland isn't all that. But thanks to his decision to put his name on his product he might well live on beyond the rest of us.
Shit it was nice to relax and treat myself though. I felt way better at the end of the day, even though the soft bed seemed to aggravate my ribs again. It's going to be at least another fortnight til that's better. It's frustrating.
But I drank sloe gin, slowly and looked at the stars and thought that life was pretty good. It's been a while since I've had time to myself with nothing pressing to do. And I liked it very much.
