Antique Heaven!

As usual we were late setting out for the day as we got caught up talking! We finally made it out to explore Long Melfords long high street. Oh my what a heavenly Antiques shop we found! We were amazed at the length and breadth of it, room after room packed to the gills! Then we discovered there were two other floors! We lost each other at some points as well as losing our way out! Once outside and looking back at the building we realised it was a warehouse! It was such a cold day we had not properly looked at the place from the outside! We found more antique shops and French D scouted the place for a teashop to bring her father to. She left to collect him and I carried on down the highstreet and down side streets, discovering the wavy wall in extras! The rain started with a vengeance and I retreated back to the house.
A few hours later French D called to say her father was too tired to face a journey so I looked at where else i could visit. Most houses were closed as they don't start the new year until march, but Melford Hall just across the green was open. Only when I got there I discovered it wasn't! I wandered round the outside regardless, built in 1520 it is a thing of beauty with it's moat, turrets and trees and reminded me of the setting for The Draughtsman's Contract by  Peter Greenaway. As i was walking round two young men appeared by the entrance and as they went in the gatehouse I presumed they were estate workers. When I got closer to them the unmistakable aroma of marijuana came drifting over to me! Obviously feeling paranoid they left the cover of the gatehouse entrance and walked out and up the road! I headed back to the high street in the hope of getting some cakes - too much time spent admiring the place again and the tea shop was closed! Long melford surely is a wondrous place and more photos here.
In the evening French D packed her things as she was leaving early the next day, we watched a great old Black and White  film "Make Mine Mink"  with Terry-Thomas and Hattie Jacques then went back to the hotel by the church for a final drink together.
I don't know where the time went - so good to see French D. I felt a little guilty as I had talked a lot about issues surrounding Friend, but she told me not to apologise, reminding me she had suggested this break precisely to get me out of the village and give me time to think. Part of me strongly wants to leave the village, partly as it feels life is going on as it always has here, friends carrying on, me carrying on, it feels as if Friend had never existed. Also I still feel out of step with occurrences over the last 2 years, do I forget them and let the facade of village life cover them, or do they  inform my desire to leave. French D pointed out to me how I have quite different people as close friends now as to when she lived in the village. On balance I think I need to allow  this year to balance out and not act hastily and for perhaps misguided reasons.