Off to See the Planes

Friday, March 04, 2016
Colindale, England, United Kingdom
There was only one thing on our itinerary today, and that was to visit the RAF museum. We have been braving the underground for the last few days and while it is great when it is off peak, travelling between the hours of 7:30 and 9:30 is when you take your life into your hands. People have their heads down and just instinctively walk in the right direction. People like Graeme are a bit of a nuisance to them and they tend to push him a bit. Victoria station is our main hub and one of London's busiest underground stations. There are no lifts and masses of stairs, not a great combination when you have to negotiate several hundred other passengers with a walking stick and a hoppy leg! We managed to cram onto the train for the 4 stations to Euston and then we found the Northern line and hopped on the train bound for Colindale. This time the train was almost empty and it made it much easier for us to negotiate the short 20 minute journey.

From the station we caught a bus as I’m trying to help Graeme to not have to walk so far . The bus dropped us right out the front of the museum and we had to wait for a couple of minutes as we were early. There was a wheelchair booked and I pushed Graeme around the 40 or so planes in the museum. He had a huge grin on his face and recognised a lot of the planes before we saw the signs. There were a couple that he had really wanted to see: spitfires and a messerschmidt B109. He knew all about the planes, who flew them, where they originated and how good/bad they were as fighter planes. We were able to climb a few stairs and see into the cockpits. Very cramped and not beautiful! The hydraulic hoses were all behind the pilot’s heads. They all looked like workhorses; not built for comfort. I almost dropped the kiwi into the cockpit while trying to take a photo!


Finding our way back out of the museum, we caught the bus to ASDA and bought a few snacks for the train trip tomorrow and headed back to the station and the train to Euston and then Victoria . We stopped in at the pub on the corner and had a lovely late lunch. We shared a bowl of Scotch broth… really yummy with thick brown bread and a dob of butter. Then for mains, Graeme had fish and chips with mushy peas and I had a cheddar cheese, spinach and potato pie with peas, beans and parsley sauce and smooth mashed potato with a jug of gravy. We waddled back down the street to our room at around 3:30pm, intending to go back out again as the weather was beautiful, unlike yesterday. That unfortunately was a pipe dream as we both fell asleep. We are still not used to the time change. I woke Graeme up at 7:30 to shower and take his meds! So we didn’t get out… not to worry, with such full stomachs we probably wouldn’t have been able to walk too far anyway.

We found London to be a lovely place to visit but I wouldn’t like to live here. There are far too many people who smoke and we found them to be a bit less than careful with disabled people. Off to Ireland tomorrow viaWales and the ferry…
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