Vaccination Planes

 So, I've been for my shot yesterday, and today enjoyed all the news about how my Astro Zeneca shot might give me a blood clot if I'm horribly unlucky!

On balance however, I'm glad I've had the shot. 

It was quite a strange feeling. Most of the folk were older people there for their second shot of Pfizer, while us very few younger ones - I reckon I was the youngest - were ushered down the fast lane for AZ. 

I say fast lane, but there was an awful lot of paperwork that seemed to be needed to be done in triplicate as I'm sure many of you will know. There shiny clinical setting that the jabs were done in was also slightly offset by the fact that the reception area, and then the post jab area you had to sit in for 15 minutes afterwards in case you keeled over, were both essentially cowsheds used for the agricultural shows that the showground puts on. 

What was surprising was that the injection itself I never felt at all, unlike the flu shots which seem to need screwing into my bicep. Sadly, I didn't get a massive plaster over the jab to show off, although I did get a sticker.

Afterwards I treated myself by riding over to the air museum and getting a few closer up shots of the planes. And then having a bag of chips from the works canteen.

Because that's healthy, right?

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 07.04.21

Journey to Vulcan

 A later start today but I still got out and walked for just over two hours. 

It was an odd sort of walk really, for it was hardly a scenic or pleasurable route. The main purpose was actually to see how long it would take me to walk from work to my vaccination appointment on Tuesday. Gee the glamour of the outdoor life. 

However, it wasn't all tarmac and traffic fumes, although it was mostly that. I saw a massive hare on the showground, a hare so big that I thought it was a deer when I first glimpsed its flashing white tail. Buzzards were circling in various places, and once the sun was out it was a reasonably pleasant day. 

I also saw the big Vulcan bomber at the air museum, although I couldn't get as close as I thought. It's a historic aircraft that arrived at the museum by actually landing on the runway next door, part of the old RAF Winthorpe site. 

I remember seeing a Vulcan Scramble at an air show at RAF Waddington. Those aircraft were BEASTS!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 03.04.21

Helicopter Funs

No cricket for me today, and even if I hadn't been working at our rather large works summer fete, it was  rained  off anyway so no loss.

It really is a large event, and on a personal level it involves a lot of social interaction both one to one and one to many and so I find it totally exhausting on top of what was already a long day.

But it went well, which was very gratifying, and one of the highlights was the landing of the local Air Ambulance helicopter, whom we support.

I've never been close to a helicopter landing before, and the noise was a grinding road, the downdraft sufficient to blow a sign onto my legs.

After it had gone just as dramatically, I saw a swallow swoop along the same tarmac with barely a sound. They still win, do the birds.

Apart from at taking people to hospital.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 29.07.18

Nottingham City "Airport"

I love airports. I love airliners. I love aircraft. I love airlines.

But small ones. Does Heathrow have any charm? No, it's just a huge people shifting factory distinguished for probably having the greatest concentration of multi coloured cocktail cigarettes in the known universe. The planes are large, white, sleek and characterless, while the airlines are megacorps spouting advertising designed to make flying seem a joy rather than several hours trapped in stale air within a metal death tube.

Today I was at a rather different sort of place.

Nottingham City Airport is actually Tollerton airfield, a large expanse of land with a few mid size business units around it. I was there today for work reasons, but there was time to take a few photos for myself.

The centrepiece of the place is the rather rustic and tired looking control tower, not a busy place as not a plane was flying due to the terrible weather. Underneath this was the "Chocks Away" cafe, which despite being at a small airfield in the middle of nowhere, was absolutely rammed. Apparently the local mums like to bring their kids there to watch the planes.

Speaking of which, most of the aircraft seemed to be low wing Piper types, used by private clubs and flying schools. Wind socks were horizontal in the cold wind.

Oh yeah, I wore a gold suit. I do that sometimes.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 25.05.18

Back from the Sick

Aploogies for the absence, but literally while on my bicycle ride to work on Friday I started to feel very ill, and in the end was sent home with some form of norovirus or other bug.

Heaven only knows how I managed the ride home, but I did, then had a really nasty day feeling terrible and my body doing terrible things. Luckily, it was only a 24 and a bit hour virus, and I was able to go into town for supplies by Saturday afternoon, but I was very annoyed at missing a game of cricket on Saturday.

Luckily I was able to masquerade as a father for the "Lads versus Dads" match the next day, which was a lot of fun, and today, I found myself doing a reconaissance of the route I've worked out for a charity cycle ride I'm arranging with work.

To be honest, I didn't feel up to it at all, but I needed to get it sorted out before the event.

So, I found myself out and about on a lovely day, making my way through the cricketing villages of South Notts - Car Colston, Flintham, Syerston etc - with all their churches, and village greens grazed by animals, and wildflower meadows.

The most bizarre sights, however, were at Screveton, a village I've never seen in my life, where cycling towards FLintham, I was suddenly confronted with a giant green statue of a woman doing something "farmy".

There seems to be a few of these in these fields, made of a substance akin to, butchers grass and a handy information board was in place to tell the visitor about them.

In virtually the same place, was a memorial for the crews of two aircraft that crashed into each other during World War 2. There were a lot of incidents around here, as a lot of airfields in the area were involved in training and heavy bomber conversions. This was one of the worst, however.

In the end, I did nearly 40km, and saw more village signposts than I ever have in my life.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 30.08.16

The Other Kind of Gannet

As part of BBC Nottingham's "Big Day Out" today, a lot of museums and attractions in the county were offering free entry today; with Newark Air Museum on my doorstep on a decent spring day, it was a no brainer to head out there.

Certainly a lot of people had the same idea as me; the place was packed with families getting stuck into bite size scotch eggs and bags of Haribo on the picnic tables while the serious aviation geeks queued up to be photographed in various open cockpits, struggling to get into the tight spaces because of tem billion pounds of photographic guff hanging round their necks.

I just wandered around, lining up shots of the big planes, and with also an eye out for any wildlife amidst the masses of cold war jets that form the bulk of the museum's collection. I was rewarded with a pied wagtail sitting atop the cockpit of a Canberra bomber, and a pair of mating peacock butterflies in the gravelled auto-jumble car park.

My favourite aircraft in the collection is the hysterically misnamed Fairey Gannet AEW early warning aircraft. Neither fairy like in its lightweight delicacy, nor gannet like in its sleek swiftness, this particular Gannet is a maritime patrol aircraft with all the aerodynamic qualities of a concrete piano. Laden down with a radar dome like a pregnancy of octuplets, how it reached the end of its carrier take off run without plummeting straight into the sea is beyond me.

With a top speed of 250mph, it was painfully slow even by pre-war standards, let alone the jet era it flew in. But it must have been successful as it had an operational career of 35 years and was exported to several countries. I think that's why I liked it.

Like me, it has a fat belly and lumbering speed, and still managed to succeed despite its disadvantages. OK, maybe not that last bit. For me.

Yet.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 17.04.16

Vulcan XH558 Drops By

She seemed like an ideal test subject for my DA-DA-DAAAAAA brand new Fuji S8650!

OK, it's the last one in the shop, a display model, but it works, and as soon as I'd rescued the SSD card from the compact camera I had dropped, I headed off for Newark Air Museum to take some thrilling shots of the mighty Vulcan V-Bomber on her last flight.

As she normally does, she honoured the museum with several circuits and a dramatic roll and climb, the engines roaring. And as I stood next to the main road, I found immediately how tricky it actually is to take photographs of a moving aircraft with a 36X bridge camera. The focus tends to struggle to keep up!

The extreme shakiness of the photographer doesn't help either!

(looking now at some online reviews, it appears that the focus is renowned for being a little slow on zoom shots, but the camera in general gets a good write up.)

Anyway, here are the best shots I could get of the Vulcan.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 11.10.15

Newark's RAF Parade

A change in your regular programming here, as I present pictures of the RAF commemorative parade in Newark yesterday, complete with proud veterans, marching band, and a spitfire.

It was certainly a glorious day for it, and there was a good turn out of folk watching. The RAF regimental band is certainly a very powerful entity indeed!

Research reveals that the spitfire displaying was MK356, a mark IX, who's history can be seen here

The march approaches along Cartergate

The RAF veterans contingent

Local RAF cadets

This fellow with the stick was very shouty indeed

The band by the new museum

The Spitfire - A mark IX - turns behind the spire

Searching for the hun in the sun

Close up of Spitfire MK356