Framlingham and Minsmere

It was meant to be showery today so we planned a day out with potential shelter if we needed it. We hadn't let Ed Sheeran know we were in town as we didn't want to bother him, but thought we might just bump into him outside Tesco. We didn't.
But nevertheless, Framlingham is a really beautiful village, with some exceptionally old houses and buildings, like a lot of the villages around here. We spent the morning looking round the castle, taking in a lap of the castle walls, and trying to read and take in as much information about the castle as we could. If you'd like to know more about the history of Framlingham castle, click here:
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/place…

as I didn't manage to retain much!

We bought ourselves a picnic from the Co-op, not bumping into Ed there either, and rode towards the coast to Minsmere RSPB reserve. We didn't realise we were going to have to pay to go for a walk, but as we did we made sure we used as many trails as we could and went in every bird hide. We spotted swans, herons, ducks, and with the help of a nearby bird watcher, a Marsh harrier.
We really needed binoculars to fit in with the rest of the crowds, (and to be 30 years older) but as the ones in the shop cost more than our whole holiday, we resisted the temptation. It did make bird identification harder though. Well, that's our excuse!
We stopped for a cup of tea and cake at the visitor centre before heading back to Cotton. It was getting greyer and it did rain lightly on the way back but nothing to get us very wet.
We walked to the second nearest pub for dinner in Bacton, about 2 miles across the fields there, and 1 mile along the road in the dark back again. It was a lovely country pub which served delicious food, and our favourite local cider, Aspalls. It was trying to rain while we walked, but luckily not heavily enough to be uncomfortable.Read more