Like wannabe members of the Woodbridge Cruising Club, we hiked along Hamilton Road, loafed past the library and sauntered by the sea before beating a path back up Bent Hill into Felixstowe Central. All this, naturally, in Andy's VW EcoWagon which he eventually docked on Leopold Road. Our 15-year mission? To seek out new lunches and new civilised cafes.

Us two (along with Kev and Mrs C.) experienced Unit 4 in pre-Covid 2019 when it was operating as The Mad House. That insanity came to an end when Lewis and Daniel moved in and opened The Crescent Cafe in March 2020, within a week of the first OG Covid lockdown. They've somehow battled through, like Lewis and Clark, and made the place somewhat easier on the eye. Calmer, chameleon.

The breakfast offerings were over at midday. Now, at 1pm, the separate lunch menu has everything from Crescent Favourites (hunter's chicken, gammon, etc.) to burgers to hot dogs to fish & chips and the rest; other folk on other tables are already tucking in. Andy, aka Alberto Frog, delays things further by ordering a chocolate milkshake so I may well as join him with a top-of-the-shop vanilla. To think I used to get annoyed when The Boy always chose that particular flavour from the AMT kiosk at Ipswich station.

Our tall ice cream glasses half empty, time to select savoury: for him the southern-fried chicken panini, for me the chilli jacket, a Rexel staple. Plenty of time for a ping-pong catch-up before sight of the grub: did a job, much like All Things Nice or Cafe On The Corner.

Shockingly at 1:45pm, all the cakes have gone. Freestyling, they offer ice cream (yes please, says the driver) or a fruit scone (yes from me), and that'll more than do with a decent mug of frothy flat white. Do the basics right (tick), smile when you serve (tick), and they will come.

If it was a car -- Suzuki Cultus Crescent.
If they were passing by -- Mike Scott.

Left it late to book my Latitude ticket this year and thought I'd be making the usual solo journey (see last year). Then it turned out that friend Tom was also going along on the Friday, so offered him a lift. A week later G. announced that, being desperate to see Pulp, she'd bought a ticket together with her mate. That'll be a planet-pleasing four of us in the Polo, then. planet.

Our quarter has already split along gender lines on the long walk into the site; we gents grab a Greenpeace coffee ("Do you have oat milk?" "That's all we offer.") and enjoy the lo-fi stylings of Metronmony keyboard player Oscar Cash, noodling on a Shuttleworth-esque Yamaha. Shall we try number 79, Folk Baroque? Most relaxing start. Checking my app, as everyone does relentlessly, I see that Laser Kiwi, a surreal sketch circus that was on my list, has somehow shifted from 4pm to midday. No way I'm going to make it into the far-off theatre in time. Oh well.

I catch a few upbeat tunes from sister and brother Olivia and Will in the Wasia Project before yomping away to find some writing event called We're All Poets. I'm trying to find the Faraway Forest, I ask the stewards. Dunno, mate, they say. Tried the map on the app? Which says I'm here among the trees: maybe the poets are creatively camouflaged? Back past the panoply of food stalls to picnic rug central, aka the grass area by the mighty Obelisk stage. Playing are Tinariwen, the Mali masters of desert blues. Quite like 'em, up their in their Star Wars planet outfits, and then their shuffling jam takes hold of me and won't let go and I have to stay for the whole set. Best part of an hour later and they're off. Tremendous.

Finally have the will to make the short walk to the stripey BBC Sounds tent for the final half-hour of Do Nothing. Powerful stuff ticking my art rock and post punk boxes, and with frontman Chris snarling in a suit. Realise I've screwed up the timing for An Evening with Christopher Bliss so it's over the water into The Alcove for a coupla psychedelic tunes from Max Fulcrum and The Win. Would have loved to linger but my belly needs a large £13 falafel wrap to consume while standing near the "performance interpreting" section, back in BBC Sounds, as The Murder Capital do their excitable show. Wondering where the main man is from my side-on view, I realise he's in the crowd, again.

Once again across a bridge for the opening few numbers by hotly tipped The Last Dinner Party, a female quintet already getting in the crowds. Most promising but that schedule demands I make another attempt to locate the Faraway Forest. Didn't you ask us before? says that same steward. At which point I bump into G., who's also here to watch Ben Moor, wherever he may be, and her mate S., who needs a nap. That tall weird guy in the jumper and small clearing is our man, we gather, and he'll be doing his Fringe show Who Here's Lost? Which is funny and clever and sad and compels me to buy the book a day later. Nice to sit down on the grass; not so nice to get up again 45 minutes later. S.'s attempts to grab forty winks were thwarted multiple times by kindly passers-by enquiring if she was alright. Latitude, the caring festival.

Another farewell to my wife as I walk by Luke Wright in the Listening Post on my way to spiky Dry Cleaning with Florence Shaw dressed in red declaiming in her near-constant straight face while her band puts in a shift. Great, though I'd have appreciated running subtitles, and good to see her smile at the end. And there's Tom, unseen since midday, so time for a sit-down soft drink. I fancy Panic Shack but there's a queue for The Alcove. Not for me, ta.

As the Human League once sand, there's "decisions to be made". I um and I ah and I locate a coffee-and-brownie stand to buy a coffee-and-brownie then take my coffee-and-brownie to the Obelisk, there to grab a spot for Metronomy. I loved their English Riviera album that came out in 2011 and have heard pretty much nothing since then. Enjoyed their show, their only UK appearance in 2023 (!), aided by their smiling female drummer.

They finished. Nobody moved. In fact, others surged forward. Why? 'Cos Pulp were due on stage next and that was the hot ticket. How were they? Awesome and worth the £93 alone, I'd suggest. By my reckoning the last time I'd seen them was at Cambridge Corn Exchange in March 1992, over 30 years ago, when they were supporting The Fall. My hazy memory is that we -- me and Jeff -- experienced them for one song then went to the bar. Lights, confetti, an orchestra, big tunes, and that man Jarvis. Particulary loved This Is Hardcore. Show over and curfew at 11pm, a mass of humanity all around, and we all somehow managed to meet at the L-A-T-I-T-U-D-E sign around 11:30am for the slow walk back with hot chocs all round. Easily found the car between us and mostly beat the queues getting out.

...and still missed The Beths, Connie Constance and English Teacher.

A few years back I made efforts to watch The Numbers Station, a 2013 "actioner" with John "High Fidelity" Cusack as, checks notes, a burned-out CIA agent. Some great shots of the Orwell Bridge over the credits, plus Snape and the railway museum at Chappel in Essex. Most intriguingly, it was largely filmed at the old RAF Bentwaters. Fascinating locations, frightful film. If you only catch one John Cusack picture this year, avoid this and try Grosse Pointe Blank, say.

Come 1:15pm and we're edging over the speedbumps of the Base Business Park, not expecting Cusack but keeping 'em peeled for America House. Up here on the left, it's not white, as you might expect, but SR-71A black, apart from the pink bits. Lettering screams CAFE to the left. BAKERY to the right and Harvey & Co in the centre. Four Barbie-coloured picnic benches complete the picture.

Through the black cloth strips and we're in a space both fab and groovy with mismatched furniture and aa wall illustrating the soudough process complete with a kitchen peephole, if that's your sort of thing. Much of the counter is covered with baked goodness, a la Two Magpies, with sriracha chicken brioche, cheese scones with chilli jam, authentic baguettes, to name only a trio. For some reason Andy's French toast with caramelised bananas ain't available today so he'll slum it with a serrano & chorizo toastie. I'm tempted by the Turkish eggs but go for the posh beans on toast. Love a pulse, me. Windy out so inside table for us.

That "Harvey" is Harvey Allen, he of Honey & Harvey -- see also their Ipswich premises -- who's done a Peter Gabriel and gone Han Solo. Food's fab, obviously, and clearly a bunch of their trade is takeaway. Oh, and they're also supplying various local pubs, delis, etc.

Andy, who'd passed a memory test the previous day with flying colours, so he said, couldn't quite remember if he'd ordered me that flat white I'd asked for; his chai latte appeared a good five minutes before my drink. Which was excellent, by the way, alongside a necessarily shared slab of bakewell. Driving away, did a quick check that The Diner is still there, which it is, then I got overexcited having glimpsed the familiar silhouette of an A-10 Thunderbolt. You should try the Cold War Museum, suggested the driver: coupled with some grub from Harvey & Co. what an outing that would be.

• website -- Harvey & Co

If it was a car -- Lancia Flavia.
If they were passing by -- Phoebe Waller-Bridge.