T.S. Eliot may have to rewrite, 'The Waistband' ........ 'September is the cruellest month...'
However, I really shouldn't complain about September; the weather has been very good to us this month, especially on our Suffolk coastal holiday from which we have just returned. I am a proud son of Suffolk's neighbour to the north, a county I love to revisit - but have to concede that the coastal strip from the estuary of the Stour almost to the border with Norfolk near Lowestoft is a wonderfully wildlife-friendly part of the country; an east-of-England Serengeti. With North Sea gas, nuclear energy (from the 'Taj Mahal of the marshes', Sizewell B power station), farming and tourism we, the clientele of the Eels Foot Inn at Eastbridge, are currently framing a demand for an East Anglian Independence Referendum. Forget Braveheart; we are looking for a latter-day Boudicca.
I wonder if others have the sense that some holidays are followed and perhaps even overshadowed by national, or international, news stories. This has been our Scottish Referendum holiday - and I just couldn't stop watching, with mounting anxiety, the evening news bulletins.
The days, however, were for exploring. Our base was Dunwich Heath, an unusual, subtly-coloured, elevated plateau of heather, gorse and bracken. A whitewashed terrace of coastguard cottages, together with much of the surrounding heath or 'sandlings', are now owned by the National Trust. Staying in one of the well-appointed cottages isn't cheap but they do have the advantage of the ground floor tearooms, shop and other visitor services.
And so, taking my friend Gerd's words on 'acceptance of my lot' to heart, the morning following our arrival, I put aside my misgivings and sought out the on-site mobility vehicle. In the following days, sometimes accompanied though increasingly 'flying solo', I explored my new world transported by a battery-powered dodgem with a single elbow crutch, replicating the upright connector, slotted into its hold to the rear.
This wasn't the only such vehicle I used. Dunwich Heath lies immediately to the north of RSPB Minsmere which, as lovers of the BBC's Springwatch will know, is a showcase nature reserve teeming with birdlife. It too has mobility buggies as does the NT's collection of historic buildings at Flatford Mill; a location you'd recognise immediately from many of John Constable's paintings, particularly the iconic 'Haywain'.
Apart from the heritage buildings, the pastel-painted houses and landscapes, the big attraction for many visitors is the birdlife. I am not a very good birder. I came late to the hobby (;-). In fact by the time I've spotted a bird, removed my specs, found a safe place for them, lifted my 'bins' (technical jargon), focussed them on a distant and blurred location - I'm invariably late again.
This is why I have always favoured wildflower spotting - at least they stay put.
And yet, my buggy explorations suggested that, rather than a reserve for birds, this part of the world is really the domain of insects and spiders. Dragonflies patrolled the heath like squadrons of helicopter gunships, while the nimbler, trailing-legged, wasps and flies darted about on jet-packs in search of smaller prey. It is a bug-eat-bug world with solitary bees, digger wasps, beetles and the larvae of the ferocious ant-lion all on the prowl.
I once wanted to be an entomologist but my parents were against the idea. They insisted that insects would let me down. I can hear my mother now, 'Horrid, timid creatures. No backbone!'
The wildlife moment-of-the-week, however was the brief encounter with a young, dark adder sinuously and silently crossing my path. Now there's a spine to die for!
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