Fanciful thoughts..

A couple of miles away from my village of Rippingale, is a village called Aslackby - Lincolnshire pronunciation -azzel-bee, and on the other side of the village is a wood, Temple Wood. This wood adjoins an old WW2 Airfield that was once RAF Folkingham, operational from 1940 through to 1963 and now derelict. In this part of the world this would have been a bomber station and I often think that the people who lived in my cottage would have watched the bombers going out every evening and perhaps counted them back in the morning.

There are still extensive road-ways etc. beneath the tree canopy and in the distance, surrounded by cultivated fields, you can make out the bunkers that once housed coldwar missiles. The north-south runway still survives, though this is not accessible to the likes of me, and is used to store rusting excavators, earthmovers and the like, hundreds of them, like an elephants graveyard.

I regularly walk the boys, Fletcher and Floyd, in this wood, it is extensive, it is generally deserted and it is peaceful. On Sunday last, a beautiful sunny day, I was ambling along whilst the dogs ferreted about when I heard a distinctive engine note above me. Looking up through a gap in the trees I saw two planes from the WW2 memorial flight, a Spitfire and a Hurricane heading home, to RAF Coningsby.

I just love seeing these planes, I love the sound of their engines and their simple elegance.

I glanced around when they had passed and I fancy that I could hear men's voices, a shout, a mingling of Yankie, English and Polish accents and I could just catch the drone of Merlin engines warming up..

Now how fanciful is that?