AN AFTERNOON IN THE AIR

That leader of the '20 minuters', The Lord Flashheart, breezed in ,this afternoon after tiffin , in his Gypsy Moth and persuaded me to go for a spin with him. "Biggles, you old bugger!" he shouted (must be too much flying making him deaf), " Stop this blogging business for a while and come for a quickie above this funny little Isle you live on. Woof ! Woof!, you know what I mean."

" As long as there's no low level stuff over woods" I replied " and yes, I would be delighted to get off the sofa".

What a wonderful late afternoon over Thanet. As we circled above Birchington he shouted;

" What's that refugee camp down there, I thought they were all at the Nail and Rock?" I shouted back that he was looking at Two Chimneys and that it was a Caravan Park. He sped across the field at Manston, buzzing the Tower and looping the loop whilst I looked out for a yellow tailed Monarch Airlines jet chasing a red and white Oasis Jumbo; no sign of them thank goodness.

Pegwell Bay looked lovely in the afternoon sunshine as we roared down the coast to Ramsgate. " What a strange place you live in, Bertie", he shouted as we passed over Ramsgate Harbour, " A bally beach in the middle of a harbour, how odd!". I did not even try to explain, as he followed the coast round to Broadstairs, he would never have believed me.

" What's that POW cage doing in Ramsgate.... strewth there's another one glistening in the sunshine down there in the middle of Broadstairs". I remained silent.

We came onto Invicta House, Millmead and went round it twice in a right banking steep turn and he then turned west back to Birchington. " My God " he shouted " can't see a damn thing" as the reflected sun from new fencing at Dane Valley Allotments blinded us both. " I knew these bally commie Brownites were building more prisons" he shouted over his shoulder " but three new prisons in Thanet is a bit bally OTT isn't it?" I just kept quiet in an embarrassed sort of way.

I was rather pleased to get back to my sofa at the end of it. How does one explain the strange goings on in Thanet to an outsider, I thought, as I chewed on the wish-bone of a lightly roasted green parakeet that mistook Flashheart's Gypsy for an exotic mate?