Boudica - One angry chick!

When I was growing up my parents took me to The Embankment in London to see the big statue of Boudicca (or Boadicea as she was then called) in her chariot, the one with knives on the wheels. It was an important moment in my life when my dad explained to me that it was an English tribal Queen that trounced the Roman army in Colchester and London. If anyone has to trounce the Romans you'd want it to be a hard-as-nails East Anglian warrior queen wouldn't ya. 

Boudica (hey - there are several spellings and even more pronunciations) was Queen of the Iceni tribe, a celtic tribe which occupied the land quite happily as an independant ally of Rome, in the area that is now Norfolk. On the death of Boudica's husband, the king Prasutagus, the Romans failed to honour an arrangement to leave Boudica and her daughters half the kingdom and instead flogged Boudica and raped her daughters. Understandably this made her a little cross, and her people, allied with the Trinovantes (our Essex celtic tribe) stomped the Romans good and proper. Sadly in the end she was defeated (although not without making a real mess of Roman Britain) and killed herself.

The BBC Horrible Histories website is phenomenal for sharing all this stuff with kids and getting a handle on it. I just love this song, which is not only hilarious, it seems to tell it much better than any Wikipedia page could do!

Horrible Histories - Boudica Song!!!!!

I am proud to have rampaging Iceni Warrior Queens as part of my Essex heritage. Should the Romans ever get too up-themselves again Queen B only has to give me a shout and I'll be sharpening my axe and joining the throngs to march on Londinium. (Is somebody bringing the mead?)

Burnham-on-Crouch 2nd best for quality of life

Isn't Quality of Life the only thing that matters anyway? According to a recent survey of seaside towns, by the Halifax, Burnham has been rated the 2nd best seaside town in the UK for quality of life, after Bexhill-on-Sea. Burnham has higher than average earnings, above average employment levels, residents have better health and longer life-expectancy. Incidently there are also longer sunshine hours and less average rainfall than most other places. Do not confuse the muddy and atmospheric Burnham on Crouch in Essex with the very different Burnham on Sea in the South West, although that Burnham also features on the chart at 27th place.


A few weeks ago my family & I were given a treat by a good friend, who took us out on his powerboat on the Crouch from South Woodham Yacht Club. We had a lovely cruise up the river followed by a good lunch at a lovely Burnham pub on the quayside (whitebait & salad for me, it has to be fish!) washed down with a modest amount of local real ale. Once we unhitched the boat from the town public jetty and continued on our way it was time to get our toes wet, so the most larey watersport of 'doughnutting' was to follow. All in all a cracking and very varied afternoon. (I wish I had copies of the photos to post here).

Let's also not forget that in a survey only a couple of years ago Maldon was also voted 3rd best market town in the UK (Halifax survey again, I think) and the Maldon District as a whole is in the top 15% for quality of life in the country (Experian. So all in all we are pretty happy with our lot around here!

Other Essex gems on the Halifax list include Leigh on Sea (always a pleasure) ranked 8th and Southend on Sea ranked 15th (on a sunny day, I would say). My personal favourite place in the whole of the South West of England - Sidmouths - (having spent most summer Saturdays there as a student) is also on the table , ranked 34th - but hey, least it's on there.
Let's raise a glass of Mighty Oak Maldon Gold or Crouch Vale Amarillo to glorious Essex!

Renamed again

Well, this is the third time I have renamed this blog since I began it. I haven't been able to settle on a name that was particularly appropriate for the content. The last one 'Amber Thread' did seem a bit too arty & pretentious. But as I am a real champion of my local area and believe that rural Essex is one of the best places you could choose to live, then this title of 'Blackwater Mudlark' is very much more doing 'what it says on the tin'. As I haven't managed to acquire any followers, as yet, I don't imagine it's going to bother anyone much anyway.

Well- roll on new title - an hopefully I will start to gather one or two followers, if not for the value of my wit and word, then for my appreciation of surreal and thought-provoking films (mostly recorded from Film 4 and watched when the hubby has better things to do), my literature snobbery, my big paintings or the fact that I totally LOVE Essex and will happily put right anybody who slams our county because they haven't seen what the real Essex is all about.

Wonderful Suffolk

We have also had another little holiday in the caravan recently. I should have updated this sooner so it was fresh in my memory. There are parts of Suffolk that I know reasonably well and parts which were entirely new to me. We have visited the historical towns / villages of Lavenham, Long Melford, Bury St Edmunds before. I have spent a fair bit of time in Constable country as the villages are on the Essex/ Suffolk border - Dedham, East Bergholt, Flatford Mill etc. ---

But the stunning Suffolk Coast has been a revelation to me. I expected Lowestoft to be a carbon copy of tatty, tacky seaside towns like Great Yarmouth and Clacton but, to my surprise, I was blown away by the 'class' of the sea front in the town (well, I didn't go shopping or tour the housing estates). The whole place was spotlessly clean, freshly painted and was thankfully lacking in the usual row on row of Amusement arcades, followed by tatty fairground rides. As far as I would tell - the only amusements were on the pier and the few fairground rides we saw were well presented and traditional (traditional carousel with 'gallopers', helter skelter etc). We had soem fantastic fish & chips too & the beach was lovely soft golden sand.

Next revelation was Southwold. Who wouldn't want to live in a gorgeous 'time-warp' seaside town that also boasts one of the finest breweries on the East Coast?

And then Walberswick... I'm not sure how much we missed of Walberswick, it seems to be a tiny village with (at first glance) not much there except quaint houses & fishermans shacks. Apparently it's home to a plethora of writers, artists and actors. We had a very good, although pretty pricey lunch at the main pub / inn in the village and used the opportunity to sample about 5 Adnams ales between us! The scenery is quite captivating and then you look accross their salt marsh to the large dune and realise that they have a lovely beach too. Walberswick is also home to a national Crab fishing championship. We were there 2 days too early to take part, but I can see why it would be popular with competition crabbers. We caught 79 crabs in a couple of hours and had great fun.

I Said goodbye to Spongebob

We are moving house very soon. As a result I found I couldn't keep the Spongebob Squarepants mural around any longer. I had originally painted it as a panel for our local pre-school but they are having major work done so all superfluous stuff had to disappear over the summer (sadly there was nowhere to store the big stuff). So I had managed to rescue Spongebob from the demolition trucks & bring him home - then one lucky Freecycler was the recipient of my 6ft x 6ft Tryptych (is that how you spell it?). I didn't ever put Squidward on there, which I am a bit sorry about, but that would have unbalanced the theme wouldn't it?