Holidaying in Aldeburgh - Part 2 - Recipes from a Normal Mum

In case you missed the first part of our hols in Suffolk, they’re here. Onto part 2:

I have always enjoyed dressing my kids up as bears. It makes up for labour pain and sleepless nights somewhat. Anyway, it was cold on the beach. Max didn’t care, he’s stoic like that.

Lawrence had had enough so made a break for it. Not sure where he was going but he sure did have a plan.

So it started to rain and whilst we discussed why we didn’t book somewhere hot like Dubai, we decided to take a trip to Framlingham for lunch. The Station, not only loved by Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran (what? I know… random) is also loved by us. Just look at the cutlery. How can you not love the cutlery? (Though we didn’t love the flies, they were kind of annoying).

So we ordered and we ordered big. It was raining. Between us we ate beef rendang.

A foot long hot dog.

Mac and cheese.

And minestrone soup.

There was no imminent room for pudding so we went to Snape Maltings to look at the posh wooden toys, run about in the drizzle and stare wistfully at the soft furnishings. We went for a coffee and a slice of chocolate orange cake but it was a bit dry. Sorry but it was.

The next day we went to the beach again and Lawrence was swarmed by thunder bugs which he didn’t seem to care about but me, being a fussy mum, didn’t really like my baby boy eating bugs. So we took a walk to Southwold Pier. Lucky as it was just about to rain.

So pretty.

We all love Southwold Pier. It has an excellent, rather eccentric amusement arcade.

We went for lunch at The Red Lion. There are lots of places to eat in Southwold and after many years of trying lots of them we’d recommend (for eating with kids) Enzo’s in the evening and The Red Lion in the day. Many places we have been to have not been kids friendly here, which is fair enough. Not everyone wants a side serving of crayons and snot. We played the hat game whilst waiting for our food. Despite Lawrence hating his own hat, he loves his elder brothers.

Two hats!

Luckily the linguine arrived for Mr Bell. It nearly finished him off. BIG portions.

I indulged my obsession with goat’s cheese and chose a starter of the aforementioned along with beetroot and salad. I also inherited the salad from Charlie’s burger. He’s not a lettuce fan.

Time for a spot of Martello tower spotting in Aldeburgh. Look at the sky! (You can stay in this tower, we haven’t yet but one day, one day…)

That thing on the top isn’t a person, it’s a sculpture by Antony Gormley.

Then it rained again so we went to look at lifeboats and books, in that order. And I took some pretty door pics.

Then it was time for a rather humid afternoon tea at the Cragg Sisters Tea Rooms which is very yesteryear and retro. So many of these places are all fur coat and no knickers in my humble opinion. But this was the real deal. Here’s Mr Bells Victoria sponge.

I liked the sponge but I was craving fresh cream and this was buttercream. I did LOVE my mango and almond cake.

The filter on my phone makes it look burnt. It wasn’t. The boys enjoyed sharing a brownie which I tried for them and can agree, it was delicious.

Lawrence sat patiently and waited for little bits from all our plates. He loves a bit of cake.

And a tickle.

And for dinner we ordered takeaway Thai from DPs bar. Look, the place is strange, we tried to order on the phone at the weekend. The owner went off to find out if they could take another order and just never came back to the phone. After 7 minutes listening to bar chatter we put the phone down. But it was worth the 2 day wait.