Jack is Walking - video

 

Toby Runs St Albans Half Marathon

 

To Verulamium Park to cheer Toby past the finish line as he runs the St Albans Half Marathon for the ninth time.

Bentley Priory

 

To Bentley Priory, headquarters of RAF Fighter Command during WWII. The RAF moved out in 2008 and the main building houses private apartments. The central part is a museum. 

We were lucky on the day we visited. The car park was almost empty and so we had the museum virtually to ourselves, after  lunch sitting in the sun on a terrace overlooking the garden at the rear of the building. Britain's effective defence against air attack in WWII was 'The Dowding System' where planes were plotted using combined inputs from Chain Home station's radar and Observer Corps' sightings which enabled controllers to get defending fighters in the correct place to meet attackers.

The first plotting room has been reconstructed in its original room, with resin statues modelled on the real personnel.

A huge underground bunker was constructed in the grounds, and the plotting room moved there for safety. It was extended and adapted during the Cold War.

The first Commander-in-Chief of Fighter Command was Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding. We saw an excellent AV presentation in his office, and we told that in the 1969 film Battle of Britain, with Laurence Olivier portraying  Dowding, was shot in Bentley Priory.

Dowding's office overlooks the rear garden and is behind the pillars on the right of the photo. At the end of the movie he steps out onto the balcony behind the pillars and the garden with its fountain is shown. But the scene where Dowding looks out from his office at the red sky from  bombed burning London was not possible, we were told, as the rear of Bentley Priory doesn't look towards London. 

Oslo Court Tarte Tatin

To Oslo Court for the first time this year. Neal offered me this Tarte Tatin .

Flamstead Walk

Lovely warm sunny day for a walk at Flamstead and along this path through a field of broad beans.

Redbourn Ford

A hot sunny day so a stroll around Redbourn Common and then across the high Street and along Waterend Lane to the ford over the Ver.

Just past the ford is a large patch of land with some large polytunnels. There was a sign reading Nursery by the gate so we went in for a look and met the owner who told us that his father had cycled from his home in St Albans at the age of 14, saw the land was for sale and knocked at 'the big house' which was answered by a butler. 

The butler showed him over the field and was told that the 14 year old would buy it when he could. And he did buy in in 1941. 

Now his two sons and daughter own the land, grow plants for sale in the summer and rent out allotments. We bought some flowers and climbing French Beans.

Walking back around the common the cricket was continuing. The boundary crosses a road and the footpath on the opposite side makes an arc to stay outside the boundary.

Jack at Grand Junction Arms

 

To Tring to lunch by the canal at the Grand Junction Arms with Emma, Toby & Jack. It was forecast to be the hottest day of the year so far, so an outside table had been booked. But the sun hid behind clouds and a chill wind blew. It wasn't warm.

Jack has started to walk. He can totter for a few steps, and I expect when we next see him, he'll be fully mobile.