Oliver’s Birthday/Get together with Gill and Chris

Reading time: 2 minutes...

It’s Oliver’s birthday today and we drove down to Duxford Air Museum to meet-up with the Jedi-Knight himself with Roger & Jane.

Wow! the Museum has changed – we haven’t been there for 20 years or more and there was so much more to see and do – simply brilliant!

We started off in Hangar 1 which now housed a Concorde together with dozens for other aeroplanes. Then we stopped for a break before heading off into the newer areas – more hangars, a recreation of some of the aircraft and machinery from the battle of Britain. Then it was a longish walk (brrrrr! it’s very cold today!) along the old runway to the newer American Hangar containing even more planes.

After around three hours there, we said our goodbyes in order to get home and have a bite to eat, a chill-out and a read of the papers before heading off to Gill and Chris’s tonight. Well, that was the plan – that’s before we noticed they’d closed the A14 near Huntingdon and diverted all the traffic off towards the A1198. That should have been OK, but that was congested too! and in the end, it took us around two-and-a-half hours to get home (should have taken 50 minutes!)

In the evening, we drove over to Gill and Chris’s.  It was good to see them all again after the last time – at our Wedding; and with their girls at Uni, it was strangely quiet!

As always, Chris demonstrated his skills in the kitchen and served up butternut squash soup, followed by steak. Gill sorted dessert and we tucked into fruit strudel.

Having sorted out the world’s problems and debated the state of the training industry, we said our good-byes and head home. The roads were strangely empty, given that it was only around 11.15pm – where were all the Saturday-night ravers?

Thanks Chris, thanks Gill – it was great to see you both – our turn next time!