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| A Harrier of Falklands War vintage. The tail of a F-35 is visible in the background. |
I found a new favorite aircraft museum, after the
National Naval Aviation Museum and the
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, of course; the
RAF Museum, London. The museum is on the side of London, only about 1.25 hours from home.
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| A Spitfire in the lobby. Did you know that the U.S. was one of the many countries to fly the Spitfire? |
We met the Beyer's, our American downstairs neighbors, at the museum and explored the buildings. The museum was much larger than I expected and had exhibits ranging from a 1909 Bleriot to a current age Eurofighter. The hands-on children's area was fun for Matthew and the Beyer's 4 year old. At the Harrier GR3 display, a French gentleman engaged me in a discussion of the replacement for the Harrier, the F-35 (which was displayed nearby). He believed that the U.K. should have kept the AV-8 until the capabilities of the F-35 are improved. The bomber building even had a
Vulcan bomber. It amazes me that a plane that massive was operational in the 1950's. I think that you could have built several tennis courts on the top of the craft.
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| Lori and Matthew enjoying the view from the mezzanine. |
We had a sandwich and tea / coffee at the snack bar and stayed until closing time. We never made it to the Battle of Britain building or the WWI aircraft factory. I guess we will have to go back one day soon.
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| I wanted to climb inside this beautiful P-51 Mustang and take a ride! |
En route to Thame for dinner, snow started to fall, The forecast called for 5-10 centimeters of snow fall and all of the motorway digital signs displayed severe weather alerts and grit trucks were spraying pebbles over all the lanes. Isn't severe weather warning a little overkill for only 4 inches of snow???
We all ate dinner at
Prezzo; Italian main course with English dessert. We need to learn to make sticky toffee pudding at home! The roads were slippery with 1-2 inches of snow on the way home with little traffic. We drove slowly but still managed to slide right by the final turn onto our street. Matthew and Jacek threw snowballs and Matthew rolled a big snowman-sized ball.
This morning, we saw on the news that many people ended up sleeping in their cars last night on the M40. The BBC even showed video of a section of road that we passed over yesterday. Most airports are shutdown and the government is asking people to stay home because we actually had 15 cm (6 inches) of snowfall. No one in WI would have blinked at this little snow storm but I see now why the warnings were issued here.
