So good to be back inside - happily the coffee is just as good!

SO we are back indoors at last and all our favourite spots are open and most re-visited already. And isn't it nice not to huddle in the cold and shiver through your coffee? All together - YES! Anyway those already visited are listed below.
The coffee at all is recommended. Most know their macchiato from their latte (and the one which didn't, does now). Some use Italian brands (the best ones) others have discovered the joys of Cambridge and Bury St Edmunds coffee companies. And, to be fair, Freepack stands up well in this company.

https://thelounges.co.uk/prado/+
The only chain (albeit quite a small one) that we recognise as any good - and very good it is in Sudbury. Excellent food and very well 'signposted' for those with food issues. Now with outside seating for the warmer weather.

https://www.facebook.com/spencersfarmshop/
An old favourite - now under new management. Early worries assuaged and the cafe is reopened. The brilliant chef is still in charge, the food is very good especially anything involving pastry. The Cox family is into branding so the cafe is now Carter's at Spencers (as the excellent market fruit and veg stall holders have named their bit of the farm shop Cox's at Spencers - all very up to the minute!)

https://www.assingtoncountrykitchen.co.uk/
Further afield this one but worth the drive. The barns site includes an excellent farm shop/deli. The cafe is a restaurant as well serving very good food. Possibly the best coffee of an excellent bunch.

 
https://www.facebook.com/Thehyacinthtearoomgreensteadgreen/
More traditional this one but very good coffee. Their cakes are a speciality so if you like towering creations of sponge and cream this is your heaven. Good honest food. In a lovely old barn with excellent outdoor, covered, seating. Visit the adjacent clothing and children's shop in the post office/general store next door.

https://theforagersretreat.co.uk/
And the best is last. This opened a couple of years back in converted stabling at Pebmarsh. Carl (chef) and Beth Shillingford opened the Retreat in time to be banjaxed by Covid-19! But they survive and the coffee is excellent as is the Italian deli. But best of all is Carl in the kitchen. His food is divine all the time. He likes to ring the changes and is at home with most food styles, including Eastern. One clever trick is to prepare cook and chill dishes for home finishing; they are nothing short of brilliant.
After a coffee call we booked Sunday lunch. Now we use Sunday lunch as a test in a way. Of course, with only two at home cooking decent joints is not a sensible use of time, money or effort. But good Sunday roast is an acid test for the kitchen. Well his beef was brilliant, his pork divine, the vegetables a triumph of choice and delivery, the potatoes I wish I could buy. We did our usual - one starter for me (shared) and one dessert for Janet (also shared). The dessert deserves mention - a trio of Italian confections - tiramisu of course, lovel cannoli (home made and soft) and the other defeats my memory but not my taste recall - divine!
So there we have it; providing June does indeed bust out all over we are home and dry!

Oh, just the Fox and Herb in Halstead High Street to return to - tomorrow!

 
And of course we are booked in for posh lunch at the unbeatably brilliant emporium of Pascal and Karine Canevet at Maison Bleue, Bury St Edmunds next month. More anon.
https://www.maisonbleue.co.uk/

Flight Path has landed.... we are stardust

MAYBE a couple of times in a lifetime you  happen upon a talent that enthrals you. You know well enough why but not how*.

As a teenager my enthusiasm for the standard pop fare was muted. But then I was better moved by Buddy Holly. Of course that, and he, were short lived. Then came Carole King ( it was a while before I realised she shared her talent with Gerry Goffin). But I realised my thing was the troubadour - the singer songwriter whose canvas was life, mostly their own of course. The tapestry unfurled.

I even knew part of the why - "Woods! You are tone deaf boy. Go and do your home work". A kindly soul, old Clover but he was partly correct. I was not deaf to tone - I can hear pitch pretty well. No, my problem was conveying what I heard to my sound production apparatus. It didn't travel. An atonal dirge**. 

So my life has been a tapestry of the sounds of other voices, other talents. Many came - Don McLean, Billy Joel, Neil Diamond, Paul Simon... and more. Then came Janis Ian. Mid 70s, three albums and not  one was not on my list of top tracks. 

And for years, while I dallied with many, I reserved dillying for Ms Ian. Late in the 20th century I found more folk again - Steve Knightly especially. Then, early in the 21st I found Karine Polwart and was amazed. But it was TV that did for me.

That bloke Wallander in his Branagh mogrification and the theme... Nostalgia. I Googled. Super surprise. Not just a great voice but that magical creature - the troubadour; singer songwriter Emily Barker. I have never looked back.

The diminutive Australian, who adopted England in 2000ish (may have been in Cambridge when I was on the Science Park)  and Stroud a scant decade later. I have everything she has made (bar a couple of EPs) and seen her live three times; met her (briefly)  twice. Singer, songwriter, very good and self-taught guitarist, harmonica player (lover!) , keyboardist and independent publisher. Oh and coffee nut, too!

And today I met the muse within her. Well sadly not for real but her first serious foray into verse arrived; verse by way of album notes; album by reprise. Of course, Emily's her lyrics have ever been poetry frankly; the best always are, and she has performed some verse. But this work proves what I already knew and explains the reasons for being in thrall to her. Empathy, perception and plagency. And sharing.

I read the poems through once; then declaimed it as all poetry should be. Door shut, voice lowered but decently stressed. I am old fashioned and prefer a rhyme or two but cadence is everything really. This is very good. Really, very. It deserves being heard, read well.

Remembrances from her songs are never far away and as in the songs, all along are conveyed the people, places, philosophies and events of her life. We meet her grandmother's eyes ("there's a tear that resides..." song) and the dear river, and the smell of the jarrah  and horse leather. 

Memories of a premonitional day in Charleston as the hurricane howled down and thoughts of ancient times crowded in. Tonight I shall hear the album; re-worked genius interspersed with poetry readings. A decided indulgence!

This latest year has not been a year only of covid-19 for Emily or her fans. Most of all it has been the year of those sweeping accidental formations that flocks of birds create to pique our wonderment. Chaos theory writ in fluttering aerial fluency. And of virtual gigs in serried circles in empty halls. 

And the words tumble too in torrents of perception.  Her life events are in these verses as in her songs. Emily is a beautiful person inside and outside; we are lucky to have her here. To (mis)quote a dreadful advert, I am lucky to have found her. 

BELOW: The sleeve emblem of her latest oeuvre "Flight Path Rhymes" taken from "The Art of Flying" by Jan van Ijken; and below a stunning study of Emily by Emilie Sandy. 

https://emilybarker.bandcamp.com/album/flight-path-rhymes

*The how? It's all about your own response... to the sound, the words, the talents and the person. Obviously. 

**So now you know what I would give my right arm for!