Tomboy Talk

Part of the line-up for scrappage at Kemble Airfield. ClickAir (never heard of them) is the blue plane, India Air, an unidentifiable and the yellow one, we guess is DHL.

Near AV8 Cafe one can see the Jumbos lined up waiting their turn for demolition - rather a sad sight we think.

We decided to visit AV8 today because of the fine weather. We were not disappointed - we had turned up to find several of the larger hangars open being used for some kind of "jolly" (the local wine merchant, we noticed, had two vans parked in the vicinity)! The hangars are usually shut and look rather myserious but today they were buzzing with people looking at aircraft on display. As we sat down with our customary bun and mug of tea at the cafe, the Rolls Royce owned Spitfire ducked, dived and screamed over the airfield giving us a wonderful display.

A Lynx helicopter arrived to entertain. Husband and I thought we had done well for an afternoon's entertainment all for the cost of a mug of tea and a bun!

Misty Morning

This was the view from my bedroom window this morning - the promise of another glorious day!

Unusual Fireplace

We stayed for our short break at The Priory Bay Hotel in IOW. If you look amongst the ivy clad wall you will be able to see two windows (up and down) - these are situated just over fireplaces. The smoke from the fires has to be diverted to either side in the chimney breast.

The hotel, as its name suggests, was an old priory and some of the buildings were really lovely including a dovecot (I forgot to upload that photo!!). There was a 6 hole golf course for Husband to enjoy and we could wander down to the private beach .

Within the grounds sat Churchill and Roosevelt, apparently they had many meetings there.

Distances!

Owning a pair of wonky knees I haveto be very careful about distances! When in familiar territory I am fine - I know how far it is to walk where I wish to go. Not so on holiday! We arrived at Yarmouth, Isle of Wight and Husband said we must make a diversion to see The Needles. We arrived at designated car park to find it was quite a long walk (in my opinion). Husband said "Oh no - not far, we will only be walking about ten minutes". I should have known better. Husband has no such wonky knees and has never wielded a pair of crutches only thinks in his terms. We slogged up the hill in glorious hot sunshine, but it took half an hour!! As you can see from the photo we made it to the top!

Throughout the 4 day holiday I also managed walking round a 6 hole golf course twice, a 9 hole golf course, two stretches of beaches and other small forays. Knees are now boiling hot, I shall not give up and now back home again I am off swimming this morning!!

Old Friends

I have had a lovely day today! My childhood playmates came to visit - I have not seen them for years and years - we had a lot of catching up to do. It is funny what one remembers and the other one does not! I remember a rather traumatic morning when Liz and I caught the usual morning train into Victoria to attend our various secretarial colleges. Just outside Wimbledon station the train ground to a halt. There was a deathly silence, the passengers did not talk to each other! After about half an hour a guard ordered us down on to the railway line and we had to walk to Wimbledon station. The news was that Clapham Junction bridge had fallen down. Liz and I could have caught the Tube into London but sensibly, we thought, it was better to find our way home to Leatherhead by various buses - we were worried we would have had a very difficult journey home in the evening if we had struggled on. We arrived home at about lunchtime. I rang up my secretarial college - they spat tin tacks at me, they were furious I had not carried on into London! Liz does not remember this incident at all!!! Richard, on the other hand, does not remember informing me, as we washed up the tea things in his house (his mother had gone out), that "crockery dries in the cupboard" !!!

Boobies Again!

Last night our team "The Street Walkers" sauntered down to the local pub for the quiz. As usual, the questions dealing with TV programmes, films and pop music flummox our fairly elderly brains - we could not even remember who sat in the basket with Andy Pandy!! Can you? We answered Looby Lou but apparently this poor creature was left in a corner - it was Teddy who had the favoured spot. I think my brother, now living in Oz, used to watch Andy Pandy but I thought that a sissy programme!! My idea of TV watching in those days was Hopalong Cassidy and Champion The Wonder Horse!!!

The outcome, as is now obvious, we came last. We did not despair as the kind Quizmaster always provides super booby prizes. This time we were the recipients of Scott's Porridge Oats, a tin of rice pudding, a bottle of sun tan cream, a tub of meringues and some fancy tea. The main thing is we all had a rumbustious time!

Fish Heads?

The steel bird scrappage business continues unabated at Kemble Airfield. Today I took this photo as we sped by in our car of some of the cockpits. I was not quick enough with the camera, but there are about five forlorn cockpits stacked up - they remind me of chopped off fish heads!
We also noticed another cargo type jumbo has arrived and has joined three others waiting for their final destination and disintegration.

We might be having a noisy weekend. A "bluegrass" music festival is being held on the airfield - I hope we sufficiently far enough away not to hear too much of this music at night. But, in fact, I would rather listen to "bluegrass" than "rock"!!