pumpkinstrokemarrow

So far, so good. But then I got to wondering how an equatorial mount for a telescope worked, something which I thought I ought to know. I got as far as thinking that there must be a spike pointing at the Pole Star and that that the spike was one of the axes of rotation - the point being that in the days before computers, a constant speed motor on that axis would enable the telescope to keep up with a star as it sailed through the night sky. Much more tricky with other sorts of mount. But I completely failed to work out how the rest of the thing worked with paper and pencil. And it took several minutes with internet stepped motion pictures of such a telescope being moved into position before I cracked it. When it all seems terribly straightforward again. But for how long?

A test of my new-found understanding would be to find out whether people who sell you telescope mounts ask you where you live. Because I think the mounting angle will vary with latitude and a mount which would do for Madrid would not do for Oslo. A test which I think I pass as I have now found a helpful picture of a mount which is clearly adjustable for latitude.

The area around Woodbridge was well supplied with churches. Most of the proper ones has square towers faced with dressed flint but finished with stone. And very fancy decorative work involving both the black flint and the white stone to the top of the towers, around door openings and such like. Clearly the subject for inter-village rivalry. It rather reminded me of the vaguely contemporary black and white work we saw on the entry facades of some of the flashier churches in Florence.

One of them, East Bergholt, does not have a tower, the good citizens perhaps having run out of money at the vital moment. Or ravaged by the French. Quite a fancy place in other regards. And in the absence of a tower, the five bells were hung in a special square shed in the church yard, apparently very old, and one of a fairly small number of such things. I have never seen one before. Assuming, that is, that hanging is the right word. The bells were mounted mouth up rather than mouth down.

Two of them, St Margaret's in Ipswich and St Mary's in Woolpit, had very flashy double hammer beam roofs to their naves. The panels in the roof of the first were also painted, reminding me again of the trompe l'oeil effects we had come across in church roofs in Florence. Is it a coincidence that both towns prospered on the wool trade? Maybe there were low country merchants who visited both?

Quite keen on St Mary in Ipswich as they had St Mary Elm, St Mary Stoke, St Mary Quay and a St Mary Tower. Plus other St Marys which we did not come across. The first of these boasted the distinctions of having the oldest door in the county and of having been fired by vandals. Fair amount of damage done, quite recently as it still smelt. The second, across the water from Ipswich proper, boasted an excellent fish and chip shop nearby. Run by a Chinese gent. with a white youth doing front of shop. Cod and chips for BH, pie and chips for me. For the consumption of which we occupied the only bench in the vicinity, thus blocking the way for a hoodie with tinnie who clearly thought he had proprietorial rights and who sulked nearby with his fag while we ate. The last, St Mary Tower, was most impressive as a church. Much the most holy atmosphere, much helped by the stained glass. The pictures on the site noted below do not do it justice; perhaps the light was all wrong when they took them and all right when we visited.

If you can't make it there in person, read all about it at http://www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/.