Woodbridge, Suffolk for an Annual General Meeting

Tuesday, 25 February 2003. The 2003 Annual General Meeting of the National Information and Learning Technologies Association (NILTA) was being held at at British Telecom's headquarters in Ipswich.

BT had a team dedicated to thinking about future uses of technology and it was at one of these visits that we were introduced to self-service shopping checkouts, shelves that registered which products were being sold and all things to do away with the need for human staff so that no-one would be able to get a job unless highly qualified and therefore wouldn't be able to afford food or pretty much anything else in the future... Ah... nearly there!

This was a two-day event and we were all staying nearby in a small town and port, Woodbridge in Suffolk. The photographs in this article were taken on one of my usual before-breakfast forays on Wednesday 26th.

Given that this was February, it follows that the sun was not quite at its zenith as I shrugged on a coat and grabbed my camera. Temperatures were hovering around zero. The sun was making a valiant attempt but hadn't succeeded in making itself known as yet. Woodbridge is on the River Deben, eight miles from the sea. The area has been home to humans for around 4,000 years. Somewhere behind those trees on the far side of the river is the site of the Sutton Hoo ship burial.

The Romans were here for around 300 years once they had finally managed to get rid of Queen Boudicca. That's quite a long time to wait before deciding that she wasn't coming back... Once the Romans left around 410 CE, the Angles migrated in large numbers from modern Germany and gave their name to East Anglia.

Woodbridge has a tidal mill. The mill wheel on the mill's website is described as "five metres wide" - I presume they mean "in diameter". It sits in the small extension seen on the right hand side of the mill in the photo. A mill has existed on the site since 1170 CE and it is thought that the one still existing is the third mill since that date. It is still working and can be visited. But not at 7:00am....

During the reign of Catholic Queen Mary Tudor a local woman, Alice Driver had her ears cut off as punishment for daring to likening Queen Mary to Jezebel. Being disfigured didn't stop her from continuing to have a go though and she ended up being burned at the stake as a heretic. Those were the days, eh?

The railway line follows the river and I had to use the footbridge to get to the harbour and return to the hotel. You can't help but feel that taking a train alongside the river must make for a brilliant scenic journey.

So it's now up and over as the cold and the growing pangs of hunger assault me. The rest of the day will be spent doing exercises as part of a marketing strategy. Some of the techniques we were introduced to stood me in good stead for the work that I was to undertake in the following years with JISC infoNet.

The hotel. My diary from the time says it was the Church Inn, dating from 1530 but I can't find any mention of it on the Internet now. So if anyone recognises it please leave a comment and let me know!

Work Index

Chilled...

I'm just starting my annual summer break.

Fran's still working this week so it's my catch-up-with-all-the-things-I-haven't-done-yet week. Not fun things I hasten to add, though I may try to sneak some of those in as well. Nope - there's the floor in the spare room to reclaim, the fence to paint, the photos to be re-hung in the hallway that were taken down for the central heating to go in a year ago... You get the drift...

I took the first of the boxes of old CDs, DVDs, books and bits to the charity shop yesterday. Why are they so ungrateful? They either want it or not, but if not I'd rather they said and I'll take it somewhere else. Instead I got, "Oh, we're bursting with those things, I haven't got room, well if you just dump it there I'll have to put them in the toilet..."

I almost said "Where is it? I'll drown them myself..."

So the rest can go to the tip - easier for me. You can't pass on electrical goods these days because they should be PAT tested in case they electrocute someone who might sue so the old karaoke machine is definitely destined for the tip!

We used that for the band's very first gig before we bought a PA. Sheesh that's going back a bit! Seven years in fact - we've come on a bit since then and we hardly suspected then that we would be the sort of band we are now.

Talking of which - next Thursday we are playing at Garstang Music Festival, on the corner of the car park near the council offices. Depending on the weather of course as it's an open air gig with no cover. Previous years have been kind to us and we usually draw quite a crowd of onlookers as an audience.

The photo at the top of this post reminds me of a very chilled morning. It was taken at Woodbridge, near Ipswich very early one morning in 2003, where I was attending a meeting for work. I was awake early and got up to look at the river, being rewarded by this tranquil scene. The Sutton Hoo archeological site is close by this place. It was quiet, the water was like glass. It was February.

Chilled? To the bone!