RAF Northolt Open Day 2015

This was my - asked-for - birthday present from the Swan Whisperer.  At first we thought we wouldn't be able to go, as tickets were sold out, but they released more tickets if you went on public transport.  They said that Ruislip Gardens Tube Station was about 10 minutes' walk from the entrance.  Which, indeed, it was - but what they didn't say was that it was about twenty minutes' walk from the entrance to the actual site! 

And the weather didn't co-operate at all.  It wasn't really raining, not really, but there was very thick, low cloud, and most of the flying displays had to be cancelled.  We couldn't even have the Queen's birthday flypast, and, indeed, the news says that much of the flypast in central London had to be cancelled.  So although there was a Chinook helicopter

driving about, it couldn't go through its paces, and another aircraft landed and stayed that way.

And it was cold!  We decided to avoid the fast-food trucks and their queues, and instead bought rather delicious Portuguese ham and cheese rolls, and later went back to that stall and bought two strawberry tartlets, which were equally delicious, but rather sticky.  We wandered round the area, looking at a few aeroplanes (they said there would be 30 in the static display, but there so weren't - about five or six at most!) and vintage cars and fire-engines.

There was a modern fire-engine, too, and a queue of children waiting to make its siren sound.  There were also a set of pedal-cars in the shape of vintage planes which the children were very much enjoying - I couldn't take a photograph, for obvious reasons.

We found a bench and sat down to eat our strawberry tartlets, in front of the arena where the RAF band were playing, and very nice too:

There was an ancient bi-plane buzzing around while this was happening, but none of the shots I aimed at it came out!  Ah well.

After this, we decided to call it a show, and set off on the very long walk back to the bus stop (we regretted not having caught the bus up to the gates), but just as we did the sun came out, and the Sally B, the only Flying Fortress (B17) bomber still flying, was able to come and display:

We thought we'd just missed a bus, but luckily another came along so fast behind that we had to run for it!  And again, we almost had to run for our Central Line train, but it meant no waiting.  And by the time we got back to Brixton, the sun had come out - too late, alas, to rescue the day.  Which was enjoyable, but really, since what one goes for are the flying-displays, a little bit of a bust.  Oh well, what do you expect in the British summer?

UK Summer Motorhome and Caravan Show

As regular readers of this blog may or may not know, the Swan Whisperer and I are intending to buy a motor home and travel around Europe now that he has retired.  To this end, we have been visiting various dealers, looking on the web, and generally doing our homework to see what sort of machine we want.

Today, as part of that research, we visited the UK Summer Motorhome and Caravan Show at the Kent County Showground today.  It was fascinating - not only lots of new and used motorhomes and camper vans on sale, but also loads of accessories, and the kind of stall you only ever find at shows, whether game fairs, country shows or shows like this one.  I always enjoy pottering around and looking.

But today was fairly serious, and we have ended up with a variety of choices, although some are pretty much out of our price range.  But we know what we're looking for, which is the main thing.  Something like this, if we can find a nice one, would be perfect.  Or perhaps this, but they are too new to have any second-hand models yet, and it is just outside our budget as it is.  This one, the previous model in the Sunlight range, is available second-hand, but it is a bit longer - over 6 metres, rather than just under.

Well, we will eventually find the perfect one.  And if anybody knows of a French bed, half-dinette low-profile coachbuilt motor home for sale, let me know!

So we came away, and both of us went fast asleep as soon as we got home!

Rebranding the Railways

Today was going to be an interesting day in terms of railway history.  Three of the Lea Valley Lines out of Liverpool Street were being transferred to TfL, and the line from Shenfield has become a totally new entity, called TfL Rail.  This is a holding brand until Crossrail is finished in a couple of years, as they don't want to use that name yet, apparently.

While changing a TOC doesn't usually make much difference, in this case it will, as fares will be changed to be in line with those charged on the Underground, which in many cases means they will be cheaper.  Moreover, one can use Freedom Passes on TfL lines 24/7, and not have to wait until after 09:30 as you do with other TOCs, so if the Victoria Line should happen to fall over on a Thursday morning we'll still be able to get up to Walthamstow.  And the boys won't have to pay fares until they are 11, rather The Boy having to pay from July, when he turns 5.  So that is all good stuff.

So the Swan Whisperer and I decided to go to Liverpool Street and see if there was any sign of the change in TOC.  We just missed a 35, but caught a 355 into Brixton and then a 133 up to Liverpool Street. 

Platforms 1-4 are now dedicated to the Overground, although the Stansted Express seems to use them as well, and those parts of the Lea Valley Lines that have remained with Abellio Greater Anglia.  But they are branded as Overground and Abellio, and lots of Overground staff were around in case people had queries.  At the moment, obviously, the trains are exactly as they were yesterday, but they will probably have new logos, etc, applied.  New trains aren't set to come into service until 2017 or thereabouts.

Then TfL Rail have taken over platforms 14-16.  We walked the length of the station to have a look.  Once again, the platforms had already been rebranded, and there were plenty of staff, one of whom asked if we needed help.  We said we didn't, but chatted to him for a bit, and he was very helpful and knowledgeable.  He said the trains would be rebranded, but the new trains wouldn't be along until Crossrail came in, again probably in 2017. 

We debated going somewhere on one of the trains, but there wasn't much point, really, as the trains themselves hadn't changed.  But I was impressed that not only the signage was in place, with new notice boards pointing to the relevant platforms and so on, but also the recorded announcements had been changed, and the station itself looked as if these TOCs had been running trains forever. 

We were less impressed, though, with the maps.  There was an up-to-date map in the Underground station, incorporating the new lines, but the pocket maps provided had not yet been updated, and, moreover, were not available on the main line platforms.  The Swan Whisperer picked up a leaflet to read on the bus about the modernisation of the Underground, only to find that it dated from 2013.  You can't win them all, I suppose!  So we came away and caught a 35 bus home.  But definitely 9/10 to TfL for the work they've done.  On Thursday I'll see how and whether they've changed the branding at Walthamstow Central.

Dinosaurs in the rain

There are only two places in London to see dinosaurs, as far as I know - please correct me if I'm wrong - and one of them is the Natural History Museum.  The other, of course, is Crystal Palace Park, and that is where we headed off to this rather wet half-term Friday - "We" being the Swan Whisperer, the Boy and me.

We met the Boy and his father at Victoria station.  The Boy felt, I think, slightly abandoned, but quickly cheered up when I said I'd found a shop that sold cheese and pickle rolls, and would he like one for his lunch.  He would, and also a bottle of freshly-squeezed orange juice, which he made last!  We caught a Southern train from Victoria to Crystal Palace, and, after a bit of confusion where we couldn't find the loos (but the kind station master, or whatever they are called these days, let us use the disabled/baby change one), we set out in the drizzle.  First stop was lunch - we found a relatively dry place to sit under some trees and eat our rolls, and then we walked round the lake, which is called the Tidal Pool (why?  It isn't!)

until we got to the café, where the Swan Whisperer insisted on drinking hot chocolate, and he and I both added an extra layer under our rather thin summer macs.  Then we set off again, and this time we found the dinosaurs!  The Boy was thrilled with them, racing from one set to the next and pointing!

 

When we were just about to leave the dinosaurs, we met an elderly gentleman who said that in his youth, one had been able to climb on the dinosaurs.  I knew I hadn't been dreaming - I'm sure that in the days when we used to take the daughter there, they had been randomly scattered around the place, and one could climb on them.  In this setting, they are more impressive, but less friendly.  And the Swan Whisperer is convinced that the mini-farm, our next port of call, used to be in the middle of the lake where is now a picnic area.

So, to the farm.  We were prepared to pay an admission fee for two pensioners and a child, but discovered that admission was free (although we did contribute to their donation box at the end).  This was a lovely place, and we saw all sorts of animals, including goats ("Are they for feeding the trolls?" asked the Boy, quite seriously)

and in the Exotic room there was a dragon, which we were invited to stroke.  "Will it eat me?" asked the Boy, anxiously, but was reassured that it wouldn't.  All the same, he was not too keen on stroking it!

The farm overlooked the railway line, so we kept stopping for the Boy to look at the Overground and Southern trains that ran in and out of the station.  He wanted to go on the Overground, and as we still had plenty of time before meeting his father at Clapham Junction, we decided to go up to Surrey Quays and then change.  The Boy made a friend on the journey - I don't know what they were talking about, but they were deep in conversation all the way!

Clapham Junction, of course, is Boy Heaven - all those trains! 

He spent ages just watching out of the window to see the trains go by.  Then we went down to the café on Platform 9 to wait for his father, but the latter had been rather badly held up, so in the end (after half a very large chocolate custard muffin and some milk) we came back to the flat, and I quickly made some Gran's extra-special macaroni cheese for his (and later our) tea, and he was still eating that when his father arrived to take a now very sleepy little boy home!

Guest post: The re-interment of Richard III

My parents were fortunate enough to attend the re-interment of King Richard III, and I thought regular readers of this blog might be interested in my mother's account of the occasion.  Published with permission.

King Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth on 22 August 1485. He is known to have had an undignified journey to Leicester, and to have been buried in the Grey Friars Church, long since disappeared and mostly built over. On 5^th September 2012 a skeleton with severe scoliosis and a battered skull was found in the social services car park in Leicester. The bones were taken to the university, where the careful process of identification began. Although Philippa Langley was convinced that they had found Richard, the scientists were more sceptical and wanted proof, which is where FitzRoy played a very small part.

Richard had no direct descendents, so in order to trace his Y chromosome DNA, the search had to go back up the male line to Edward III, and then down again via his son John of Gaunt, and his bastard son, later legitimised, John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset. Five male Somersets were tracked down from different branches of the family, two from Australia, one from Scotland and two from England. All gave DNA samples, which provided a partial match, and two other families, descendents of Richard's sister Anne, provided mitochondrial, or maternal DNA, more reliable as maternity is a matter of fact, and paternity of speculation. This also provided a match, and taken along with the head wounds, the scoliosis and the position of the bones in the old church has made it 99.99% certain that the body is that of Richard. End of history lesson.

We drove to Leicester on Wednesday, and in the evening went to a press briefing, followed by a dinner given by professor Kevin Schurer, who had led the hunt for descendants of Richard, and also of those who had fought at Bosworth, either for Richard or Henry. He said this was a mammoth task as they weren’t documented as were the descendants. This was great fun, we met distant cousins who we had no idea existed, FitzRoy is a 5^th cousin 14 times removed from Richard, so there was a great deal of trying to work out how we all fitted in. The press were very friendly, and not at all obtrusive. After the press left, we sat down to a very good meal. We were at a table with a distant cousin, a Bosworth fighter descendant, two archaeologists involved in the dig, and two members of the university team. We were shown a fascinating film taken by one of the archaeologists who had to record everything at the dig as it happened, with him introducing each day’s progress. 

 

Thursday morning we took a taxi to the Cathedral, but so many roads were closed, that we had quite a long walk to reach the Guildhall, our meeting place. The streets round the Close were packed with sightseers, and security to get into the railed off area by the cathedral was very tight, passports and invitations to be shown.

Once in the Guildhall, passports and invitations once more, FitzRoy had to join his processional group, the DNA donors. There were nine different groups, so a lot to be sorted out. The hangers on like me were escorted to the Cathedral at 10.15, once again producing identification, and shown to our seats, to be joined by our spouses when they had processed in. We were very lucky to have seats in the second row just in front of a television monitor, so we could see all that was going on. Our seats were up level with the tomb, behind the side screen, and we could see through it to a certain extent. The service began at 11.30, but there was so much to look at that it didn’t seem too long.

I don’t really know what to say about the service. It was dignified, simple and moving, and the music lovely. The Archbishop of Leicester preached on reconciliation, and the Archbishop of Canterbury preached about Moses taking Jacob’s bones to Israel, not quite sure why! After it was over, those us lucky enough to be invited made our way to St Martin’s Hall where a buffet lunch was laid on. The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester were there, and also Princess Sophie of Wessex. We met lots more interesting people, including another cousin who was there because his ancestor had fought at Bosworth alongside King Richard. The treacherous Stanleys were also represented, brave of them to come!

Next stop was the King Richard III visitors centre. Quite the best part was in the new extension built out into the car park with a glass floor over the trench where he was found, the outline of the bones being cleverly projected in lights.

After that another long walk to the taxi, and back to the hotel quite exhausted. The whole experience was wonderful, the atmosphere buzzing, and two days that I will never forget.

May Holiday: Days 9 and 10 in the sun

The weather on the Sunday couldn't have been a greater contrast to the previous Sunday in Sens, where it had rained all day.  Today, we needed sunblock!  It was a lovely warm day.  I went out after breakfast to the Carrefour City, which is open on Sunday mornings, and stocked up on what we needed for picnic lunches for Sunday and Monday, and then we went out for a scenic drive to Lac de l'Orient, one of the five big artificial lakes in France used for flood control - and, of course, for sailing, fishing, etc. 

There was a pretty stone pier, so we walked out to the end and back again,

and then drove off to find somewhere quiet and attractive to have lunch, which we did. Unfortunately, after that I fell asleep, and missed most of the rest of the drive, and being able to add ideas of where to go.  We got back to Troyes in time for a cup of tea, before heading out for a final walk round the town, to look at the Cathedral,

and the Hôtel-Dieu (now part museum and part part of the university):

Neither of us was starving hungry, so a crepe and an omelette, respectively, in a café on the main square did us excellently, and so back to the hotel for the final night.

Next morning, I was actually allowed to drive, for once, and drove the first 120 km or so towards Soissons, which we had decided to look round before heading home.  We stopped at a hypermarket and bought some fruit, and ate our picnic lunch in the car before heading into town proper, which was very pretty, with the usual cathedral and market hall (closed, naturally, on a Monday - we were delighted to find we didn't have to pay for parking!).

 

We would have gone for a longer walk, but I started to get a blister and begged off, so we decided to drive to Calais via a small town with beautiful walls called Coucy-le-Chateau-Auffrique, which was lovely, and worth it, and then, a slight but minor mistake, to shop at the Cora outside Cambrai.  This turned out to be very slightly out of our way and, fatally, we spent ten minutes more than we should have doing our shopping, which meant that, although we were not going to be pushed for time to make our crossing, we were not going to have time to eat in the Buffalo Grill first.

So we drove straight to the Eurotunnel terminal, hoping to get an earlier crossing as we were 50 minutes early, only to find that there were "perturbations du service" due to a freight train's having broken down earlier.  It was gradually restoring itself to normal, but there was no hope of an earlier crossing, and we weren't at all sure whether we would get on at our booked time of 20:20.  So we went into the terminal building, now know as the Charles Dickens Terminal, and found, to our relief, there was another place that served food apart from the usual burger joint (which has been McDonald's and Quick over the years, and is now Burger King), and we had a pie, mash and peas, which was lovely, but shockingly under-seasoned, and I couldn't find the salt and pepper until I'd finished!  Nor, alas, could I find the coffee ices (Café Zero) that I knew they sold in W H Smith's there until after I'd bought and paid for my Solero!  Oh well, that was good, too, and then finally they called our crossing, and a couple of hours later we were home, having, on balance, had a lovely time. 

May holiday days 7 and 8: Bulles de Troyes

Yesterday morning, after breakfast, we went for a walk round the town, enjoying the sights and the half-timbered buildings.

Then we went back to the hotel to change into skating kit and have practice ice before a late lunch. After a short rest, it was time to get ready to go to the free champagne tasting, but the minibus was full so we got the address from the driver and went off with a carload of friends.  The satnav found the place very easily, but being France, it was a matter of "hurry up and wait".  However, we were let in at last and told all about how they make champagne, and finally we got to taste the delicious fluid.  However, after two samples, I had had enough, and the noise was getting to me, so I went and sat in the car and fell so sound asleep I was confused when I woke!  Meanwhile the draw was going on, and the SW drew us to skate last, which was great.

We went back to Troyes with our very tired friends, who had driven from Guildford that day, and ate a fairly quick meal with them in the local Hippopotamus, before a quiet evening.

This morning, after breakfast it was time to get ready for our competition, which went very well. I haven't been able to stress about it at all, and although we made a couple of silly mistakes, on the whole we skated well and were delighted with our Bronze medals. The rest of the day was spent watching our friends skate, and cheering on Team GB.

 

And then off to the gala dinner, which was delicious, but finished late!  And so to bed, with a whole day left before we head home.