View From The Window

My sons have given me some excellent presents recently, I got Tankfest last year which was incredible and a great weekend and then I got a ticket for a flight in a Tiger Moth at Imperial War Museum Duxford, I had obviously been waxing lyrical about my admiration for WWI pilots. We had organised another family gathering so I ordered my flight up for the Sunday on the way home. The big day came and my granddaughter told everyone that Papa looked nervous and she was afraid for him which did nothing for the butterflies in my stomach as I pooh poohed such questions as "do you get a parachute" "what if it crashes" etc. I wondered if just in case I should tell the Memsahib I love her before I took to the skies.

The big event was delayed by half an hour as a Spitfire and Messerschmitt buzzed the field followed by a Mustang and another Spitfire, I took it in my stride. Eventually I went for my briefing and got kitted out with my leather jacket (Tom Cruise eat your heart out), helmet and goggles, I was then instructed how to enter the airplane and to enjoy the trip. The cockpit was not large but once in there was quite a bit of room for my legs, not enough to stop the joystick hitting me in the thighs as my pilot, Bob, went through his checks, and then we were off, hurtling down, OK, speeding down the grass field. It was great, once up Bob explained everything very well, there are only about five dials and a joystick, he put the nose down and up a few times and then said I could do it, only use your thumb and two fingers she is very responsive, I think I did it fine although I am not sure it moved much, I could only think of me falling out of the sky and Bob shouting to stop. He then told me to turn, no that was too much, my son paid for the flight Bob, you fly. We then did a couple of tight turns to left and right, wow. I did take a few moments to try and look around for the Hun in the Sun, you really do not get to see much to the back, it was a real struggle to turn my head, the fuselage also reduced my forward visibility which I was surprised at and to get a clear look ahead you had to either dip the nose or look out the side, and if you did the latter the wind caught you. We landed successfully obviously and I had a new admiration for those blokes who flew machines like this in combat, a great experience.

My 'kite' waiting patiently.

Tartan Baron.

Now for the other stuff, why is our customer service so bad, we got lunch at Duxford and the canteen for that's what it was, restaurant was too posh a word, was not built on the premise that a lot of people would want to visit and perhaps eat there. I will digress here for a mo, warm, lovely day, hundreds of visitors and one ice cream van with one teenager in it! It took us a while to find a table, which as usual was dirty and had scraps on it, others still had the remains of meals on them. We found four seats and needed one more, however the people next to these seats had obviously bought a family ticket as it included Grandma, Grandad, boy and bag. I kept looking while Grandma did her best to ignore me clocking the seat with the bag, just as I was about to tell her to move it my son found another dirty table with no bags on it. The 'food' turned up, a lukewarm plate of pork hot pot for me with two buns akin to my ECW cannonball door stop and three fish and chips with Tartare Sauce literally ladled over the meals and some kind of potato mush and peas for the wee yin. Mrs A., fresh from a refund on her horrendous hotel breakfast went in to action and yes, another refund, leaving in her wake a surprised and chastened waitress whom she had passed talking about her attitude while on the way to attack the manager.

Bag on his way home without Grandma.

 Did I mention the expensive, quaint, country hotel was dirty, I wouldn't floor my shed with the reception area carpets, the actual room was so tired I heard it groan when we opened the door, thankfully it was clean otherwise we would have been gone.

We have brought our granddaughter back here for a week, so a stop on the motorway was required on the way home, the place was like a refugee camp. Kids have to have a meal in a bag with a toy in it, so we were forced to Burger King, one guy on putting meals together, one guy on the till and tens of customers waiting and baying for food, no one on table duty so I actually had to go and buy wet wipes so we could feel comfortable at the table.

 Can I also say that I am not letting off the great British public here either, it seems that the word Public translates thus; you can trash, litter, break and pee over anything which is not yours and someone else can clean it up.

Now, you are a Woke, global company and you want to show your climate change credentials and decide to discuss the 'emergency'. Do you invite eminent scientists from both sides of the spectrum to discuss sensibly whether or not we have an emergency or do you instead give Harry, Meghan, Katy Perry, Oprah Winfrey and such a platform to tell the plebs where they are going wrong and the sooner we all live in caves the better. Option 2 obviously.

Bare feet, he must know what he is talking about.

The bum is Katy Perry that well known scientist, what a shower, maybe that speed boat runs on grass.