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Well, over a month has passed and high time to give Bessie another airing.  We are re-visiting Suffolk as there is still so much to see in this delightful county.

Readers of the blog may remember that our inaugural adventure in Bessie last month began rather eventfully, with a breakdown on the A12 on our way up to East Anglia.  This meant, amongst other things, that we couldn’t visit Beth Chatto’s wonderful garden at Elmstead Market near Colchester.

So, to rectify this, we called in on our way up today.  What a fabulous garden it is too.  All the sort of planting that we love – plenty of heleniums, verbascum, verbena bonariensis, lychnis etc and, unexpectedly, woodland and small lakes as well.  All beautifully tended.  Her gravel bed planting is amazing and no irrigation is used – perfect for the hosepipe bans!

We avoided the nursery there because we knew we couldn’t trust ourselves not to come away with more plants – it would be very easy to spend lots of money.  Instead, we treated ourselves to a scrumptious clotted cream tea which we ate outside in the sunshine.

Then it was back into Bessie for the short trip to Polstead, one of the Camping and Caravanning Club’s own sites.

We had tried to contact them all day to see if they could fit us in but there was only a recorded message.  This was in spite of the fact that I had been asked to ring on the day to book a pitch for the night.  So we had no idea whether we would get in or not.  Luckily, they had spaces although seemed unabashed that their phone had been unmanned all day.  Oh well.  Nice site – very neatly kept with pitches on gravel between hedges for privacy.

On the way to the campsite we passed through an amazing village – Nayland-with-Wissington (which apparently is pronounced ‘Wiston’).  It is chock full of the most fantastically colourful medieval houses.  Never seen as many in one place!  We have made up our minds to go back there tomorrow to have a better look and take some photographs – so watch this space!