A Hurricane and a Mosquito!

Thursday 13th September, 2012 in Thatcham.
It was a bright morning both in Thatcham and in Reigate, with a clear blue sky and very still. R walked up to Costa in Thatcham town centre for his breakfast while M, in Reigate, had to content herself with humble porridge!
Our wonderful bus passes are only valid from 9:30am on weekdays and recently the local bus company changed the timetable for a bus that passes the house at Meadvale from 9:31 to 9:26, so M was amused to find that the bus driver refused to let her on the bus this morning as it was now before 9:30! So she had to wait for the next one and only just managed to catch the train at Redhill as the doors were closing.
R met her at Thatcham at mid-day; the station is so close that he only left MM when her heard the level crossing warning as the barriers came down - and he was still on the platform well before the train arrived!
It was such a lovely afternoon that we decided to stay put and have a quiet day.

We were thrilled to see a Hurricane fly over, following the same flight path as the Red Arrows and the Lancaster of the last two days. R did some research and discovered that they are all heading for airshows on the Channel Islands. All we need now is a Spitfire to pass overhead to complete the collection!
While doing the research, R discovered that the De Haviland Mosquito being built in New Zealand is due to fly for the first time this month. It has taken seven years to build and cost three million dollars. It will be the only airworthy example in the world since the last flying example crashed in 1996.

Check it out at: http://www.facebook.com/Avspecs
We set off for a pre-dinner walk, heading downstream towards Woolhampton, the route that we shall take tomorrow.

It was a lovely evening, and a walk of four miles was perfect. We were interested to see repair work being carried out near Midgham lock to strengthen the embankment side with steel shuttering.

After dinner, we watched the Elstree Studio classic "Whisky Galore" with very young examples of Joan Greenwood, John Gregson, James Robertson Justice and Gordon Jackson among others. A sheer delight!!
Today: Just 1.4 hours to charge the batteries.