"Oh, debarasse-moi de ces chiens"

Greetings!

Once again I’m sorry for the lack of regular updates & I’m sorry for not catching up with you all. It’s the big downside to all the good stuff.

Flying.
Now I’m no stranger to air travel & obviously I’m flying a lot more lately than I usually would. I’m still not blasé to it though. I still spend half my flight peering out of the window in wide-eyed wonder like an excited kid. I had a smashing flight home on Friday. I marveled at the pureness of the sky above the fluffy white bed of clouds. The cloud cleared just in time for me to play my favourite airplane game; What’s that town down below?

My first point of focus was a great winding river which I suspected was the Thames. This was confirmed when I saw the flood barrier. Just to the south of that was The Valley, home of Charlton Athletic FC. I knew that somewhere down there in my field of vision there was an old friend. So I waved & quietly said “Whoo oo! Charbs!”
Within the next 2 minutes I flew over Upton Park, Highbury & White Hart Lane. Then London had gone. The next large place I saw I didn’t recognise, though I suspect it may have been Luton.
After that I gazed down upon what looked to be a fairly large city. I was quite puzzled. I picked out the football stadium but I couldn’t place the colours. Next to that stadium was some sort of large erection (fnar,fnar!). The whole place looked familiar but I just couldn’t figure it out. It must be Northampton, I told myself. It can’t be, I answered myself, that ground isn’t Sixfields.
I was right, it wasn’t Sixfields. It was Franklins Gardens; the home of Northampton Saints Rugby team & the erection was the Express lifts tower. A local landmark that I have driven past a squillion times yet didn’t recognise from the air. Northampton looked huge from my vantage point.

Then as we flew over the M1 (picking out Watford gap services) I started to get genuinely excited. The plane was now directly over my adopted hometown of Crapsville! I could see my work, I could see the country park, I could see Ford’s & I could even see my home! It was ace!

From there on my game was a piece of piss. Southam, Leamington Spa, Kenilworth (the castle looked fantastic), the enormous urban sprawl of Coventry & finally Birmingham International Airport.

It was a wonderful flying experience.

In sharp contrast to last night’s events...