633 squadron should have bombed fens

September 3, 2010

tags: 633 Squadron, Cote D Azur, Currencies Direct, Dambusters, Living In France

And so to Lout without an h. We arrived at Stanstead, the current Mrs France delighted with her new chip passport, which would have allowed her to jump the huge queues at passport control, had they chip and pin option actually been open. So a long queue for both us was followed with travelling miles and miles in the gathering gloom across the fens, the flattest and most boring countryside I have ever witnessed, a bit like the Australian outback but without the warmth, the colour, the kangaroos and the charm. They tell me they drained the fens to make this land in the 17th century, but they did tell me why. I think Henry VIII summed up the area perfectly when he said “the most brutal and beestlie of the whole realm”

But I am determined to make the best of it. They was some drinkable beer when we arrived at what I presume is the only pub in Lincolnshire. They even offered me some fish, which stupidly I accepted before remembering that all fish served up north comes surrounded by fourteen times the weight of its own batter.

The locals though are charming, at least that is according to that nice lady decorator who speaks the lingo, her having been brought up in nearby Yorkshire (actually that explains a few things, I may return to that theme). Of course they are utterly incomprehensible to me, a London boy. There is also the preponderance of high foreheads and some eyes are rather too close together, and I am not certain the barman did not have six fingers.

We managed to follow someone back to where we are billetted for the next few days, through the swirling mist and temperatures hovering just around freezing. I say billetted as a reference to the Dam Buster 633 Squadron which was based at nearby Woodhall Spa in the 2nd World War. I guess the only reason they didn’t bomb this are is that they would have had nowhere to land! Also, I guess they would have become really bored, imagine the maximum size of dam needed to dam the fens? A cricket ball dropped from a hundred feet would probably do it.

I was always a little suspicious of why we arrived on a Thursday for a wedding taking place on a Saturday and this morning the reason was revealed, we are required to go to the reception venue and help prepare. I presume this means clearing some forest, or draining some fens or clearing animal slurry or some such awful pastime. I am so glad I only packed by Gucchi loafers, I am sure they will be up to the task.

One thing I did notice is that it is very cheap to eat and drink here, this is because of how I have become used to a depressed euro rate (you didn’t think you were going to get through this column with out a plug for my important work with Currencies Direct did you?).

My picture today was going to come from Mark Gurdon, son of a general and former alumni of Wellington, but as I, and many of his contemporaries no doubt remember, he is a cad and a bounder. After promising to exchange photographs, I of course, kept my word, as is the unwritten rule in the bleak ghetto’s of South London where I came from, but Mark “silver spoon” Gurdon, with all his education and upbringing has broken his word.

Crop circles in Wiltshire, but look, hills!

Instead, I show a picture of some crop circles I took in the summer. It is not that I like the picture. I had previously rejected it, but after travelling for what seemed like several thousand miles across a flat landscape, I just wanted to see some hills.

Chris France

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