earlier in Stradbroke

It was Cricket Force day at Stradbroke CC yesterday when a good turn out started preparing the ground for the first match of the season on the 29th.  Cricket Force is a cricket promotion involving NatWest and Jewsons which we didn't quite understand but we did get a very fine home made sausage roll.

Radio Stradbroke fund raiser tomorrow night in Syleham and Wingfield village hall (a new venue to us) with rock/indie/covers band Red Glass and a cheap bar ... sounds brilliant.

Gemma, Katie and Ellie have started a JustGiving page to fund bringing Stradbroke's two play areas up to standard.

Free wedding open day at Butley Priory today 11am-3pm.and Free (the music not the beer) beer and music (sounds like a good combination) festival at the Hoxne Swan this bank holiday weekend. ♫

Radio Stradbroke on air 8pm tonight with Summer Music Nights.

♫ At Stradisphere last night in Stradbroke as so often at events it took darkness, the approaching show end and possibly Earl Soham Vic at £3.50/pint for the good sized crowd to fill in the empty space at the stage front.  Food, sweets and witty tie died babywear stalls and we much enjoyed three no bass player piece from Norwich The Signs.  The festival continues today with Oasis tribute Definitely Maybe topping tonight.

♫ The Stradisphere musical festival returns to Stradbroke the weekend after next with this year design stall I love the 70s.  DJ Huggy (and perhaps chums) on Radio Stradbroke tonight preview the festival.

♫ Now that summer is here (on occasion) Radio Stradbroke broadcasts Wednesday evenings as well as Sunday mornings, tonight it's Kim Bannon.

♫ Stradbroke's music festival Stradisphere this June has released 50 more early bird tickets.

Radio Stradbroke fires 10:00am-01:00pm this Sunday with DJ Dave Mann.

Little Red Kings who played last year's Stradisphere are looking for a new drummer. ♫

On a Long Stratton corner opposite the Shell garage the smaller open all hours Co-op is now Funeral Services so on Sunday nights useful the Stradbroke Spar is open for travellers returning to near the coast.

Not only was the Saturday morning cafe in the Stradbroke Court House open yesterday but it was also the launch of the Geoffrey Smith archive.  Geoffrey Smith (not the gardener) was Stradbroke's John Self making photos of local life and people in the 1950s to 1980s and a good part of his massive archive is now online.

Stradbroke has a new parish clerk and half the village can now get fast fibre broadband.

The two stages at this year's highly organised (as last year) Stradbroke Stadisphere face each other and run alternately.  Last night admirably OTT rock'n roll histrionics from Little Red Kings, interesting if confusing (to us) stuff from Alfie Snoggaa (what an unfortunate name) plus youthful and impressive pizza throwing, gates open at 11:30am today. ♫

YES Yes yes, roller derby in Ipswich this Saturday ... we might faint ... and Friday and Saturday the second and very organised Stradisphere music festival though from the band list time runs backwards in Stradbroke ...

We might have to review our opinion that everything is happening near the coast this Saturday the fourth, the Saturday after the 11th is getting pretty busy.  Cretingham fete is on the 11th though we're not sure where.  In Stradbroke Stradisphere is back with loads of local bands.  Last year it was extremely well organised, let's hope this year they're rewarded with a better turnout.

The Stradbroke parish clerk has resigned, if this happened in Framlingham only the chairman would be left with permission to provide oral or written statements to the press .. mind you the remaining councillors would still be free to communicate by the medium of dance or mime ... can't wait to see their walking against the wind

10:17am  The Framlingham poll officer is already having to poke ballots in with a ruler, it does matter just bloody VOTE!

03:23pm  We're hoping to see proxies (when a person nominates someone else to vote for them) of the emergency kind in use in Stradbroke.

06:50pm  Earlier we spoke to prospective parish councillor Richard Pierce-Saunderson outside the Stradbroke poll.  He was about to vote as an emergency proxy on some one else's behalf, we found it exciting.  There was a steady stream in out of the Stradbroke poll, very quiet in Wilby, quiet in Brundish and steady in Dennington.

08:21pm  Queue back to the door in Framlingham polling station.  You have to be in the queue by 10pm to get a ballot paper ... not long to go.

10:19pm  Too late now, Riverside Framlingham.

Difference of opinion between Dr Dan Poulter (MP for much of near the coast  and a Stradbroke councillor and a prospective Stradbroke councillor.

♫ Radio Stradbroke 8-11pm tonight Kim Bannon admits We ♥ the 80s.

Saturday morning there will be a drive through scrap metal collection at Stradbroke High School, a girl guides' coffee morning and sale in the St Mike's Rooms Framlingham and in the evening comedy The Affair is at The Centre Bury St Edmunds.

 JOBS  The A board outside the Stradbroke Ivy House is still advertising for staff.

There are 122 parishes in Mid Suffolk and only nine will bother with an election this May.  Stradbroke looks particularly lively with 18 candidates for the 13 seats.  It's unclear what Stackton Tressel will do as they don't seem to come under either Central or Coastal Suffolk.  Stackton community leader Hamish McEdbanguh commented Sorry, I'm in a hurry.

12:00am:  Just firing up now and until 3pm the Radio Stradbroke with past live sessions and judging by the webcams its Huggy and Marty. ♫

This coming May Stradbroke will have a contested parish council election, around near the coast most places probably won't bother ... don't know about Stackton Tressel.  Surprisingly applications to be a parish/town councillor have to be delivered to the district council by hand, in Stradders the parish clerk will deliver it for you.

Before High Ongar in Essex was bypassed we used to pass the newsagents and sub-post office at seven in the morning.  Though they were open to get to the papers delivered they'd sell you papers, sweets and cigarettes but they couldn't conduct post office business until nine because it would be unfair competition for the main post office in Chipping Ongar.  So we were very impressed to find that not only is the Stradbroke library open on a Sunday but so is their post office counter.  But big organisations like the Royal Mail have a genetic need to cock it up and in Yoxford are insisting that the shop can only have a post office counter if it does open on a Sunday.

JOBS  There's an A board outside the Stradbroke Ivy House advertising for full and part time staff  01379 384634

Barn blaze in Hoxne (thanks Bunty).

The East of England co-op has withdrawn it's planning application for what was the garage in Stradbroke.

Today we snapped in Stradbroke and Otley near Norwich but that can wait while we try and wrap up pleasing Mr Google.

Having been distracted by Stradbroke's community run library and post office being open on a Sunday we made it to Radio Stradbroke in time for the last fifteen minutes of Kim Bannon's show.  This Sunday 10am-1pm it's Richard and Huggy with another punk show.

Life Skills 5:  If you find yourself in Long Stratton on a Sunday after 4pm the big Co-op is shut but the little one on the corner opposite the Shell/Lotus garage is open.  This knowledge is particularly valuable if you're travelling back to near the coast and haven't realised the new Spar in Stradbroke will be open.

Nearer Stradbroke than Dennington

Stradbroke launched it's village archive today with multiple computers in the Courthouse, cake, sausage rolls, a very decent cup of tea and much interest.  So far there are some 800 items of the 6,000 already digitised on www.stradbrokearchive.org.uk  and browsing we discovered there was a workhouse in Hoxne?!

The Spar shop in Stradbroke re-opened today after closing in September last year.  It was open at lunch time, had a good handful of well turned out staff and inside has been majorly made over but we can't show you because a man in a suit decided it was Spar policy not to allow photography.  We can't show you the post office in the library either because that's closed all day Wednesday ... but the water splash near Dennington was fun.

Suffolk ladies at last month's Stradisphere festival in Stradbroke, they're doing it again next year ... nice.

Despite the somewhat vague possibility that an East of England coop could open in Stradbroke the SPAR shop will be re-opening after closing September last year, not surprisingly they are looking for staff.  JOBS

♫ Realised at Stradisphere what old rockers we are when from Stowmarket the Regency Gentlemen blew a straight ahead set of Chuck Berry/Rolling Stones/Free giving us a warm glow of pleasure.  Despite this like many we were pulled to the James Grigg stage by Born In The USA but we returned to the bar stage for the cheerful punk mayhem of Red Mecca to end the night.  Stradisphere continues today in Stradbroke with free entry for under 16s and all the traditional festival stuff including dodgy toilets.

Stradbroke tomorrow am a charity football match in memory of Mike Readman.

Interesting times in Stradbroke, the post office will re-open in October but in the library and the Spar re-opening has gained a question mark prompted by the East of England Co-op expressing an interest in the now long defunct garage (so a bit like Wickham Market then).

Tonight 8-11pm is Radio Stradbroke's monthly music night with Kim and Wally.  We visited RadStrad live behind the Ivy House Sunday before last where we heard a seated blues trio, ate a burger and re-discovered how much Bunty Trevanion dislikes having her photo taken. ♫

Today we went to the Stradbroke Ivy House for Radio Stradbroke's live show in the garden, bit of a bad move as it's next week.  There was a five side tournament on the playing field but it was raining and we hadn't brought a jacket ... Useless?  Nous?

♫ Tonight at the Halesworth Cut the musical play Hey Jig-A-Jig celebrating Will Kemp's long distance dancing feat in 1600 ... and again in Halesworth today you can get your catalytic converter marked at the cop shop.  More Hey Jig-A-Jig next weekend in Lowestoft and Hoxne.

Actress Eloise Secker on stage in Stradbroke has gained two favourites on Flickr.

The Keeper's Daughter theatre company has always made high production values out of virtually nothing and Beauty's Legacy Saturday night in Stradbroke was in that tradition.  We loved the dancing, the tongue firmly inserted in the facial pouch and the committed energy of Mark Finbow's new playmates Simon Anthony and Eloise Secker.  The show may be going out on the road again this autumn, take the opportunity to see it.

The Keeper's Daughter's show Beauty's Legacy (what a bunch of possessive apostrophes) travels way out of East Anglia this spring but is in Ipswich tomorrow and Stradbroke Saturday.

Parish councils eh?  Recognise this in Stradbroke.

Stradbroke will soon be getting its post office back.

10am-1pm today Seven Inches of Vinyl on Radio Stradbroke.

Stradbroke will be getting its Spar shop back after a makeover, hopefully in March or April.

Stradbroke which doesn't have a shop or a post office at the moment is proposing to re-open the post office in the library.

WANTED by the Stradbroke Ivy House over 18s part and full time staff 01379 384634

If memory serves what was Rafe's Orchard Eggs near Stradbroke became just Eggs a while back and now the house by it is FOR SALE ... don't know if they're connected.

At the back of the Ivy House a couple of Sundays back Radio Stradbroke was having an all day fund raiser for the air ambulance.  We were particularly impressed by the raffle prizes and the witty repertoire and fine musicianship of five young men who might have been called Teen Brass ... or perhaps Brass Teens? ... no, Teen Brass. ♫

Thursday's third annual T20 between Stradbroke cricket club and a Headmaster's XI from the high school was an enjoyable and fine tribute to the memory of James Grigg.  A shaky start from the club who were soon 5 for 4 but they went on to a comfortable win.  The two ladies, one on each team, were given equal treatment including being sledged and nice to see the school being involved in the village.

Tomorrow from 11am it's family day at Stradbroke cricket club and in the evening it's open mike in the Framlingham Castle hosted by Benhall ukulele goddess Lucy Sampson.  Lucy along with John Sessions, Madam Galina, Kasaï Masaï, The Dirty Gentleman and local celebrity Neil Innes will be playing the other festival in the Aldeburgh Pumphouse next month.

♫Police Dog Hogan are a seriously creative, original and witty Americana seven piece that will overcome your prejudices about 'Country' (are you listening Radio Stradbroke?).  They are playing the Aldeburgh Pump House at the end of the month and though the Pump House is perfectly formed it is tiny, better book early.

Royal Mail is of the opinion that the Stradbroke post office closure since July last year is only temporary but that doesn't seem to be the opinion of this notice in the window.

There wasn't any prize bingo Saturday morning at the Stradbroke Court House but there was cake and an impressive turnout to help decide what the bits of the building that aren't library should be.  Radio Stradbroke was regarding an upstairs room with lasciviousness but the main courtroom looks like it's going to be a cafe ... with cake.