Pete, Ive had a thought about your last post, a sort of what if as it were.

Youve just warned the boys about the folly of their antics, been abused by them so off you go, however as you walk off they get into trouble and shout for help. Now, bearing in mind theyve just hurled abuse at you you would be well justified to walk on and ignore them, so you do……….. there might have been witnesses who would recount to the police & press that “a man walking his dog had a heated discussion with the boys and just walked off” no mention of you warning them about the dangers or the fact that they hurled abuse at you, and what happens, Pete gets hammered by the press & society.

As I say just a thought.

Bex

Don’t worry Bex, abuse or not, I would have run back and dived in to save them, even though I’m a crap swimmer and hate cold water, I did it for one of my dogs once in the same spot.
Another little incident last week, kids roar about on mini bikes and more, down the river, and I can hear one now, the police actually take a dim view of this and spent a weekend doing everyone they found.
I was walking the dogs as usual when 2 kids appeared on a track bike, they dissapeared, but walking round a corner, there they were.
They were really nice kids, loved the dogs, and we had a chat, they had no protective gear, nothing and had a frigging great bike, I pointed out that the police tended to clamp down hard on this and would confiscate their bikes, they were about 8 or 9 years old, hadn’t a clue that what they were doing was against the law. What the bloody hell are their parents about, sending their little kids out on a big bike, no helmets, nothing.
They are the one’s who deserve a good kicking, bloody irresponsible parents, but at least they were nice kids, and we had a good chat.
But then again, you talk to kids and get branded as a peaodophile, as my missus pointed out, hopefully, my scout leaders file will justify my concern, but everything is dodgy these days.

Hmmmm, I live in a pleasant North Essex town, our road is a typical middle class surburban row with the bonus of beautiful countryside and river walks at the bottom of the garden. The junky scum are a minority, they know it’s a safe bet to lurk and deal down here. It would be simple for the police to wade in and sort them out, but do they, no way.
You’ll like this, last evening, I took the dogs for a walk down the river and a couple of little kids, aged about 8 or 9 were stripped to their underpants and diving in the river off the bridge over the wier, dangerous thing to do.
I said, ‘Blimey kids, it must be cold in there’.
The retort, ‘What the f#### it got to do with you’, and more, nice one, would you have said that to a alledgely fit and young looking 56 year old, wish I’d taken my 13 year old with me, he could probably got away with punching their lights out, they deserved it, with that attitude what hope is there. At least my kids are respectful, but streetwise and bloody sane, and big enough to kick ass when they need to, but it doesn’t help when the scum have a knife or a gun. Hopefully, this sad episode in Liverpool may produce some results.
And to top it all, my boy, a very intelligent, sensible kid at Uni, was driving through Safron Walden last year with a bunch of mates, one of whom produced a bright green plastic water pistol and guess what, they were pulled over and arrested for having an offensive weapon, can you believe it, what is going on here, my son delivered it to the police station with great humility, and there it stays, university kids threatening the public with a bright green flourescent water pistol, I give up.

You young lads would listen to any old tripe..get a hold of Michael Buble’s greatest hits for a smooth CD

Yawn, I’m not a young lad, far from it, the first record I bought was Tom Hark by Elias and his Zig Zag Jive Flutes back in 1958, cool or what, but Michael Buble, no way, I’d fall asleep before it started. Purchased from Barnstaple last week, the latest offering from White Stripes, it’s really quite different, trouble is, madam keeps it in her car, along with the best of the rest.

Ah ha, it was the Nimrod I saw then, definately flying with 2 Huricanes.
Yesterday afternoon, spitfire heading south, Hurricane heading north.

Strange formation

About an hour ago we were delivering straw bales to the stables near Finchingfield and spotted a very strange formation.
Alerted to the sound of Merlins, 3 a/c flying extremely close together flew north to south, over the village but about half a mile away so I couldn’t see clearly. I’m sure that two of them were Hurricanes, but the one in the middle was a complete mystery to me, Gladiator, not sure about it being a biplane, Mew Gull, who knows but they were very close together to the point of giving me a cold sweat.
Probably from DX, anyone have any idea, it was very odd and I’d love to know what they were.

Interesting development.
While we were on holiday, Liz’s dad stayed here to look after the dogs, good move for him, he could do what he pleased.
One day, he let the dogs out and wandered down the pond to see his mate the pike, Meg the spaniel went to have a drink out the pond and was startled by a grass snake, curled up and enjoying the sun, it reared up, hissed at her and hid under the sweet peas, Meg was terrified.
Haven’t seen it yet, but the weather has been crap, too much happening in a small garden.
The woodpeckers are still knocking hell out of the telegraph pole, the bats are going mental every night, but we have a lack of butterflies and large moths, the bees are also missing, very worrying.
Could be a good brewing of elderberry wine though.

Ive been using firearms since i was 5yrs old, Ive fired everything from pistols right up to machine guns. What I cant work out is why on earth kids are running around the streets letting off rounds for the hell of it. What has changed since I was a kid to today? What can we ban next to make the streets safer? Nothing really because we’ve banned just about everything, but funnily enough the weapons these prats are using are either illegal firearms or more worringly, modified replicas / blank firers.

Bex

Can you lend me some weapons Bex, I’d like to take out the drug dealing junky filth round here that the police won’t do anything about, when my 65 year old father in law was innocently taking the dogs for a walk last week, he was threatened, what did the police do, f### all.
They prefer to attempt to hunt them down from the safety of a helicopter, that really works doesn’t it, nor does the ‘secret tatty van full of coppers’ that we crack up with laughing every time we pass it innocently parked up the road.
Go in bloody hard, thats my motto, but they won’t, my neighbours are getting too frightened to go out, my problem is that I won’t be bullied by these s#### so I could end up as another statistic, we’ll see what happens, I’m being careful, don’t worry, I’ll put sulphuric acid in with the veggy oil next time I pour it on their meeting place and hopefully burn their b###### off.

Back to brambles.
When I was involved with our local Scouts, one of the leaders worked as a woodsman, lucky bloke.
One of his contracts was to regularly clear out and coppice the wood south of Andrewsfield Airfield, ironically called Boxted Wood.
He always told me that the wood was full of bits of a/c, now the Rebel Air Museum used to be at Andrewsfield and I suspect that their B-26 rear end, wherever it is now, came out of that wood. I’ve always fancied having a look but the profiligation of ‘Keep out’ signs has kept me away, does anyone know anything about this place, I notice on Multimap that there are straight roads inside it that makes me think it was the bomb dump.
There appears to be a public footpath that passes nearby, but it seems to start on the grass runway, if the weather improves, I might have a look this weekend.
Incidentally, I measured the local primary school grounds at 120m, not as big as I thought, take the fence down though and you could land a Vulcan there, not a suggestion 558, you would have to line up over my house and the roof might get in the way.