Another day, another RAF Museum

I set the alarm this morning for 07:15, leapt out of bed and showered, and returned to the bedroom to find that we had put the wrong time in our diaries and the train was actually the 10:23, not the 09:23 that we had thought.  So we had an extra hour to enjoy our breakfasts!

We were headed to Cosford, the RAF station and associated museum of that name, where we were to meet the Swan Whisperer's sister and her family as part of her significant birthday celebrations.  She - and we - would have loved us to have made a weekend of it, as the SW's other siblings had done, but sadly, this was not possible for a variety of reasons, not least that I am Planned to preach tomorrow morning!  So we just made a day of it by train.

We thought, at first, that we would miss our connection at Birmingham, since the emergency alarm went off and it transpired that a passenger had been taken ill.  So the train moved on to Coventry, the next station, where paramedics were waiting and we were about 12 minutes late by the time we set off.  Had our connection not been cross-platform, we wouldn't have made it, but we tumbled in just as the doors were closing and relaxed!  My sister-in-law and her husband met us at Cosford and drove us the few hundred yards to the museum (we were not sorry, as it was raining), where we had a sandwich and/or coffee, and then had an hour to look round the Museum.

Unlike Colindale, there was a very good educational corner which I think the Boys would have enjoyed, but I don't know what they would have made of the rest of the museum, which was mainly a display of aircraft from various eras, including Japanese and German ones from WWII.  And flying bombs and a V2 rocket.  The most interesting, though, was a Cold War display which did go into the various causes of the Cold War, and had some very informative panels contrasting life behind and in front of the Iron Curtain.

And there were also some interesting prototype planes, and a display I should have liked to have seen about the agents who were parachuted into France (often fed by my Aunt Barbara before and/or after).   However, time, and my energy levels, were running out so I went back to the visitor centre and we then drove round to the far side of the base where there was a garden centre that specialised in roses and afternoon teas.

We had a lovely tea - absolutely masses of sandwiches and scones, and a rather nasty-looking display of cakes.  I did eat a macaron, which was nice, but then there was a chocolate cup that I thought would be a truffle, but it was filled with something really nasty, not sure what!  So I ate my sister-in-law's cucumber sandwich, which she didn't want, to take the taste away!

All my s-i-l's brothers were there, with their wives, and all her descendants except for one son-in-law, who was indisposed.  But of course there were masses of photos.  I found it all very noisy and confusing, and wished I'd been sensible enough to follow the example of another sister-in-law, who has worn hearing aids for years and now knows when not to!

Anyway, we were dropped back at Cosford just in time to catch the train to Wolverhampton, and decided to risk getting a train 2 hours earlier than the one we'd booked on.  Nobody checked our tickets the entire journey, so that was all right!  And then home, two hours early, which was nice as I, for one, am very tired.  But it was a lovely day.