Venice - Fantastic!

Here we are at the apartment in Venice. Snug little place out of the way. Weather is perfect and, despite the crowds in town, it is as lovely as ever - timeless but modern!

Some Biennale art seen so far is frankly crap and the write-up sheer tosh. It's what you expect but, fingers crossed, there will be something worth looking at somewhere in the exhibition.

Hey Ho ... Four Hour Wait ... That's Travel.

There is nothing more boring than sitting in a regional airport waiting for a flight. Now four hours seems to pass reasonably fast so long as you are a sleep; I'm not and the cafe not that good. Marmaduke reads her book so that's no problem. Maybe I should turn into a football fan and sink 8 prints of Wife Beater so I can make a complete fool of myself on the plane. No, that wouldn't get me a gold star. Most annoying is the repetitive taped instructions about security. Rap by the paragraph! A new art form ...

Wow! Its Cousin Harry!

A day out in the country; lovely, sunny weather. Time to visit Tatershall Castle - last time I was actually 'young'. St Michael's next door is also worth a visit; in we went, looked and left. Lunch under a willow - a English late-summer day; perfect. Until ... the earth moved for us.

Nearby RAF Conningsby is where the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight is based. So, when our quite picnic was blasted by the sound of kerro burning, we were delighted to see a Eurofighter (Typhoon) going into a a full-burn hammer head in the azure, Lincolnshire sky. A quick dash to the car park where we watched a mouth-opening display of aerobatics that would have put the average air display to shame. Brilliant times 1000!

We jumped into the car and

drove - carefully but at speed - to the airfield where kindred loonies stood, binoculars deployed and waiting for the aircraft to return. It did and taxied passed the admiring group; they waved and, you guessed it, the pilot, who was clearly visible grinning his teeth off, waved back. Hey, he's family so it's natural to be chuffed! I wondered if this was history (certainly my boyhood) repeating it's self. Afterall we were in Lincolnshire.

600 Plus Churches

Lincolnshire seems to be littered with Satanic Mills. We've been to most of those in Lincolnshire which are looked after by the Churches Conservation Trust and more as we passed them on our travels.

It makes me realise how much we, today, have forgotten all the personal effort and suffering that brought about what we now regard as our 'right'. One place has a human history that dates back to pre-Roman settlement and, there in that one building and it's surroundings, you can still see the various developments of the habitation. That is in a small village; not a 'historic' town. Just ordinary folk doing their 'thing'; nothing has really changed ... we only think it has.

More to come ...