February 27th-29th, 2024
On my second last full day in Weymouth, my cousin Sid came to
Weymouth for a dentist’s appointment and then worked online at Auntie Shirley’s
in the afternoon so that the three of us could go out for a late afternoon drink
at another one of Sutton Poyntz’s pubs, The Springhead. They had a nice fire burning in a modern fireplace
that had glass doors on two sides, so it is a real focal point in that part of
the establishment. After dinner, we played
a three-person game of Trivial Pursuit and even with a new rule I introduced
which should have helped the losing teams, Sid still, unsurprisingly, won.
I went for a hike the day before. This is the view towards Weymouth:
The next day Auntie Shirley and I did one last trip to
Dorchester to visit the Keep. I was amazed to find out that Shirley had
never visited it before since she’s been living in Sutton Poyntz for over 15
years! The Keep was built around 1880 and
it was part of a collection of buildings that were the barracks for the 39th
Dorsetshire Regiment of the Foot and the 75th Stirlingshire Regiment of the Foot…infantry
soldiers. Most of the other buildings
have been demolished and new structures built in their place.
The Keep:
The Keep is now a regimental museum, honoring numerous
military entities from the area. Both Auntie
Shirley and I were pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t too bad of a museum. One story near the start of the exhibition
was incredible…get this:
On
10th May, 1915, flying a Martinsyde Scout, Louis Strange attacked a
German aircraft at 8500 feet over Menin.
During the dogfight the Lewis gun on his top wing jammed and he stood up
in the cockpit to change the magazine.
His aircraft flipped suddenly over on its back and Strange was hurled
from the cockpit. Hanging by his fingertips
from the jammed magazine, he felt the aircraft begin a flat spin downwards. Strange struggled to swing his feet up in the
cockpit above him. At 500 feet, he at
last managed to get his knees astride the joystick. The aircraft suddenly righted itself and
gravity thrust its pilot back into his seat!
He survived and went on to live to 75 years-old!
We worked our way up the four floors and finished our visit by enjoying the view from the top of the keep.
The following morning, I caught an early train to London
Waterloo and then took the tube to Heathrow airport. While sitting at a high table at a pub I
overheard a British couple, who had just sat down at the table, mention a
location on Vancouver Island and they were debating a question about it. I couldn’t help but give them the
answer. We struck up a conversation and
they were heading to Comox, on the island, to visit their son. Amazingly we figured out that the lady had
grown up in Redruth, Cornwall,
a town of about 15,000 and is where my grandparents used to live and my dad and
oldest sister were born!
The flight from London to Calgary took off around 3 pm and
was landing at 5 pm, local time in Calgary.
We were going to be chasing the sun for the whole flight so I made sure
to get a window seat on the right side of the plane (so I wouldn’t be looking
into the sun). Although most of the British
Isles were covered in clouds, there were some nice views of northern Scotland.
An hour or so later, we flew over Iceland which was cool to
see. I wondered whether the other side
of the plane could see Grindavik, where there is currently a few fissures in
the Earth that are causing lava to threaten the town. We were probably a bit too far away.
Approaching the coast of Iceland:
As we made our way to Baffin Island, all of the windows were
electronically dimmed. What?!? It was 6:30 pm London time, where we just came
from, and 10:30 am in Calgary…why on earth would we want to go to sleep right
now? That will definitely give you jet
lag. I couldn’t undim my window and I
was not impressed as the views of the frozen north had been fantastic. I found a flight attendant and asked her if
she could help and sure enough, she was able to brighten my pane. I was surprised that over the next couple of
hours, only a couple other people undimmed their windows to enjoy the amazing
vistas 36,000 feet below us.
There was hardly any snow on the ground in Calgary, but it
looked frozen and cold. Snow started to
fly as we taxied to the gate. Once off
the plane, I quickly found out that my flight to Kelowna was delayed for half
and hour. Half and hour turned into
three hours, including sitting in the plane for 45 minutes while some component
was being replaced in one of our engines.
It’s not common to see the cowling of the jet engine open with a man
sticking his head inside with a full boarded flight!
I arrived into Lumby at midnight local time (thanks for picking me up that late
Terry!), or 8 am London time…so apart from the twenty minute snoozes I had on
each flight, I’d been up for 26 hours…but that paid off as I hardly had any jet
lag.
What a trip…England, Germany, Austria, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania and the Czech Republic…wow!
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