Sunday, March 23, 2008

Happy Easter

Just a few pictures taken this morning as I came home.


The date today is March 23rd


Easter Sunday


Oh well, the garden won't get done today.


Happy Easter to you all from festive Norfolk.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Wheeeee !!!

I have been in a blog vacuum for a while but as Dive said he was going to show some scary views, I thought I would mention the view from the plane I was in this week.
I have been over to France with work Monday to Wednesday for the last couple of weeks and this Monday we trundled to Stansted with joy in our hearts safe in the knowledge that our flight would be cancelled due to the storms etc.
So as we flew across the channel in our "not so cancelled" 737, the pilot informed us that the crosswinds at Dinard airport were "on the limits for this aircraft but we will attempt to land anyway".

Thanks matie.


As we came out of the clouds it started to get a bit bumpy, but I have been on lots of bumpy flights and this wasn't so bad.
Then it got more bumpy and, as we approached the runway, we went up diddly up up, and down diddly down down, and then sideways for a bit, then the right hand wing flipped up about 10 degrees and we went sideways and down again. By this time we were about 50 feet off the runway and having fun when the pilot must have thought "fuck this for a game of soldiers" and put on full throttle and we went up diddly up up at a rate of knots.
When we got to about 20,000 feet the tannoy calmly announced " you may have noticed that we had to abort that landing as I deemed it a little dangerous" No shit Sherlock!!

We then flew on to Brest where the gale force winds were blowing directly down the runway rather than across it.
The pilot got us in first time, although it was bloody rough. The end of the much shorter runway at Brest was very close when we finally slowed enough to turn back to the terminal. (that's not a good word for an airport building).
As we filed off the plane, the pilot stood at the cockpit door with a smile on his face. I said "That was interesting" and his reply was a silent intake of breath and raised eyebrows as if to say "thank fuck I got that down in one piece".

He earned every penny of his wage on Monday, thanks Captain.