The walk into the city last Thursday turned into a bit of a disaster towards the end when for no apparent reason my ankle turned over on Castle Meadow and I fell headlong. Managed to avoid serious injury by turning it into a forward roll, but my ankle was quite sore for a while, though it ‘s much better now. Food from M&S went flying, but that too avoided serious damage. Got bus home and had worries over the weekend trip to Aldeburgh, but miraculously the ankle was nowhere near as bad as I’d feared and hardly affected what we did.

Gentle journey south on Friday afternoon, interrupted by calling at Marion’s in Alburgh to order a Christmas cake. Arrived at Blaxhall before the light failed and found our cottage – Nelson’s Studio – without difficulty. Very rural setting, out in the wilds, though only about three miles from Snape. It was about the tiniest cottage I’ve been in, but brilliantly organised and surprisingly comfortable. It was approached up a very narrow path of large pebbles that was not too easy to negotiate for someone with a dodgy ankle – or anyone else, for that matter. But you could walk on the adjacent grass. Inside there was a small kitchen, a compact living area and a normal-sized loo and shower. Extremely narrow stairs led up to a sleeping area just big enough for a double bed and small wardrobe. Sounds claustrophobic, but we enjoyed it, though we did wonder how anyone a bit wider or a bit less mobile than us would have coped.

After taking the small amount of luggage in, we drove to Snape and Aldeburgh to work out where the venues were for the Poetry Festival. Aldeburgh is a very attractive small town which has the feeling of being extremely vulnerable to the sea: almost no protection. Lovely old houses, many idiosyncratic, and a relaxed atmosphere. Great place to live if you were sure the sea was going to stay where it was. In the evening we had a meal at the Plough and Sail at Snape. I’ve always loved the setting at Snape, and the meal matched it: really delicious.

The next day we’d set aside for the poetry festival, and I’d bought tickets for three events (total £54 for both of us). The first was at a fairly civilised 10.45am, and we were so on the ball that we were first in the queue at the Jubilee Hall. The tickets did not reserve seats, so I was bit worried about getting a decent spot, but we did well each time. The first and longest session was a reading by three poets: Ciaran Berry, David Morley and Maureen Duffy. Berry was not a good reader, and his poems were a bit too prosey for my taste, though he had some interesting ideas and lots of content; Morley was the best reader of the three and very “poetic”, making fascinating use of the Romany language which, he told us later in the day when we bumped into him, has its origins in Sanskrit, the original Romanies being a Hindu warrior caste; Duffy was quite interesting, but did not make a huge impression – perhaps I was tiring.

After this we returned to the cottage to watch Norwich beat Paulton Rovers 7-0 in the FA Cup (the unintentional timing worked out surprisingly well) while having a snack. That was us having a snack, not Norwich City, though they could probably have managed it. After the first ten minutes or so, it was a bit of a stroll. We returned to Aldeburgh for the highlight of the festival for me – an all-new reading by Geoffrey Hill. He starts with the advantage of an amazingly rich, deep voice, adds to it poetry of huge depth and structural complexity (with obscure Eliot-like references, many of which he explained), and a wonderful sense of humour. An immense figure in the poetic world, and I was delighted to have heard him. I don’t know anyone who can compare with him.

Forgot to mention that we saw Caroline Gilfillan at the first session, and I was surprised she wasn’t at this one, but of course it was sold out. After the 35 minutes we headed into town and found an excellent fish and chip restaurant, the Golden Galleon, on the High Street. Good quality and amazing speed of service, giving us time to call into a couple of exhibitions, which were not exactly compelling (though the quality of the photography in one was first-class) but gave us a chance to see the other two venues: the Peter Pears Gallery and the Cinema Gallery. We then wandered up to the final venue at the White Lion Hotel, where we had trouble attracting the interest, or even presence, of a barperson, but eventually had a quick drink before hearing David Constantine talk compellingly on Brecht as a poet. Good stuff, but I’m never sure that translations of Brecht really work: he relied a lot on the poetic sound of quite ordinary phrases in German, and they don’t make the journey into English too well. The ideas are good, though.

Wandered out into the night (which was when we ran into David Morley and had a brief chat) and then drove home, noticing the startling brightness of the starry sky, first in Aldeburgh but much more so in Blaxhall, where there was practically no other light visible. Eventually went in and watched a film – Sex in the City – before catching a bit of football and then squeezing up to bed.

Rained hard in the night, but the next day, like the previous one, dawned bright and pretty much stayed that way, though the occasional cloud drifted across. In the sun it was warm, and we sat outside an Orford cafe for our tea/coffee and cake, served disturbingly by a guy with a bad cold. Took in the ambience of a beautiful little town and walked from the quay along the water’s edge before cutting back up to the castle. Shut, of course, but often they’re better like that, and its outside shape was impressive, like a high rectangular block. Bought some fresh cod from the quayside before heading north, past Leiston Abbey before arriving at Yoxford in a bid to find somewhere Dot and Barbara could have lunch on their way down to Ipswich – well, about now, actually. No luck there (the ideal spot turned out not to serve lunch on Mondays) so we headed north again and finally found the White Hart at Blythburgh, which was so ideal that we stopped there for a drink before heading to Walberswick for a stroll on the beach and around the harbour in perfect autumn weather. Then spent some time reconnoitering the route Dot would take today from Blundeston to Blythburgh to meet Barbara – before heading home via Beccles. Found that our Humax had failed to record anything and stuck itself again, which was a bit irritating. We tried to watch Merlin on BBC iPlayer, but that encountered bandwidth problems and I was invited to download the iPlayer desktop, which I did, successfully. Must have been magic. I blame Merlin.

Later, after I had gone to an excellent Ambient Wonder Remembrance event, we watched Garrow and Match of the Day 2 live to avoid any further problems, but naturally the Humax recorded them OK. And then stuck again at 8am today. Machines – don’t you love ’em? Dot has just rung to say she has arrived at the White Hart, so it was all worthwhile. Brilliant sunshine there, raining here.