New pages!

Woo hoo, I am adding pages.  Thanks to Baz for the help on adding a photo page.  Why on earth does Blogger not have photo albums?  Stupid, stupid.  So I am going to put my photos on FlickR and then I can post a sort of gallery on my photo page which will take you to them if you choose to click.  I like to have photos posted for my friends to see.

I keep all my photos on my own hard drive and I also have Live Drive which is in the cloud and copies every single thing on my hard drive for extra safety. In theory I shouldn't ever lose anything ever again!  Consequently I am not worried about FlickR vanishing.  Not worried about my Multiply albums either. 

You can just share directly from FlickR and it puts them in a blog post which is ok but I kind of like the idea of having them on a separate page.  You do have to post them as a blog first and then copy the html so it is a bit of a faff.  I may get bored with it!

You will see the links to my new pages at the top.  There is a quick note one where you can leave me a message, then there is Jilly's blog which will take you to my other Blogger site where you can find all my old Yahoo and multiply posts.  Finally there is the photo gallery.  I think I will add another one for recipes....eventually.

I am getting to like Blogger and I am finding my way around.  I still do not like that it is much harder to see your sites and posts.  I have the Rss thingy going and the Google reader but it is so much messing around!  I HATE that I can't delete stuff from the reader too. 

Hey ho, guess I will get used to it.  Still have not got to grips with Google + and can't really see the point of it.  I cannot see what it will add to my blogging experience.

Bed time now.  Nite nite!  XX

A busy week

This is the last week of the school holidays for Simon.  He will be back at work next Tuesday.  Consequently the week is flying by quicker than ever. We seem to be constantly busy and yet at the same time there is so much stuff that we wanted to get done during the holidays and we haven't done it.

The main reason is the garage extension. Simon had originally hoped that by the end of the holidays he would have it up and could be getting the insulation and electrical work done inside.  This is not going to happen.  The tremendous day after day rain  made it impossible to work for weeks on end.

Progress is being made though.  There are now quite a few more panels up and some have been cut for windows.  My sister is coming tomorrow with her husband Pete who will help for the second week running.  Hopefully if the weather holds they will get quite a lot done. Unfortunately he found out today that the roof timbers which should have arrived by the weekend will not be here until the beginning of September.  This is a blow as it will hold up progress and until the roof goes on it will not be totally sound.  It is partly his own fault because he should of ordered them earlier but didn't.  Typical of Simon!

My sister is bringing my Dad up with her tomorrow and he is going to stay a couple of days.  Hopefully the weather will be nice as we are planning another family picnic on Saturday.  We started the school holidays with a picnic so now we are finishing with a picnic.

Today we had dentist appointments so we were out this morning.  Our dentist is in Spalding which is about 20 minutes by car.  We found out that our dentist Theo who we have known for years is actually quite ill.  He has cancer.  Really hope he makes a full recovery.

On the way back from the dentist we stopped in the village of West Pinchbeck to visit a butchers shop that Sam had said is excellent.  He warned us we may have to queue as it is very popular.  In the event we didn't but it was busy with a constant stream of people.  We spent quite a lot on lots of stuff for the freezer.  It has won the best butcher in Lincolnshire award for about the last 10 years.  We had pork loin with stuffing wrapped in puff pastry for dinner and it was lovely.  Best of all it only cost £2.70 and was more than big enough for the 2 of us.  We shall go back there again.

Most of the rest of the day I have been continuing to move my old blog posts over to Blogger.  I have 450 still to go.  Nearly there.  It is driving me potty but I do want to save them.

Might not be on here much the next few days as I will have my Dad here and will no doubt be busy.

More on RAF Folkingham

We have been doing a bit more digging around for information on RAF Folkingham. It is really interesting.   On  the 6th of June 1944 (D-Day)  transport aircraft operating as part of Operation Overlord flew from Folkingham to Picauville in France to drop US paratroopers  in an attempt to bolster the Normany landings. 4 aircraft were lost that day and many damaged.

After the war and before the missiles arrived it was actually used as a test track by British Racing Motors (BRM) Formula one team.

When the military finally moved out the land was sold to a local man, one Mr Nelson.  He is now dead but the family business is still run by his sons in the neighbouring village of Kirkby Underwood.  They deal in all kinds of heavy machinery spares.

Simon was talking to our next door, but one, neighbour Richard who has lived in Morton all his life and knows everything.  Seems to be related to most people too!  Sure enough, he used to know Mr Nelson and in fact his own sister is currently married to one of the Nelsons.  He told Simon that there used to be many more vehicles parked up there.  As many as 5000 at one time and it was estimated that there would have been around 20 million tonnes of scrap metal!!!  Simon said the current price of scrap is about £70 a tonne so that gives some idea of the value.  Obviously over the years this has been reduced as they used to take the parts and sell them.  You couldn't do that now as they are too far gone.

The Nelson family were apparently very wealthy and when the railway from Bourne to Sleaford closed he purchased the whole lot including the land. buildings and rolling stock.  Richard said the first thing he did was to remove the tracks.  He had over a million sleepers which he sold.  The rails all went for scrap.  Then he parked diggers and tractors and all kinds of heavy machinery on the land.  According to Richard who can actually remember this as the railway line went through Morton, there were thousands of them. It must have been a very ugly sight.  

At some point he would have made even  more money as the land is now covered in a new private housing estate. I am talking about the land here in Morton. I don't know about other land but that line went quite a long way so there would have been a lot of it.

I have kind of gone off the point here!  According to various websites, when the military departed they left behind the war time bomb dump, and abandoned bomb stores in the forested area to the east.  Plus the 3 Thor missile pads made of reinforced concrete are still in situ as they  were considered uneconomical to remove.

Here are some web photos which are much better than mine!

THEN

NOW 

We spent quite a lot of time on Sunday evening studying the area on Google Earth.  It is fascinating.  We were particularly intrigued by lots of odd shapes in the woods.  They appear to be about car size but you cannot see what they are. We had read that there are more vehicles dumped in the wood so we though that must be what we were seeing.  We could also see 3 distinct triangle shapes along one path which we thought must be the missile bases.

Yesterday we loaded the bikes into the trailer and drove up there to explore the woods.  The area is known as Temple Wood and is managed by the Forestry commission.  There are some clear paths which it is perfectly possible to cycle but the vegetation off the paths is so thick and high that in most places it would be hard to get through.

The woods are really nice and very peaceful but we were disappointed as we couldn't find anything at all except a couple of look out towers and a pile of broken concrete!

We could not see evidence of what we could see on Google Earth.  We did find the triangle shapes but they are just that, there is no evidence of any missile bases so maybe we had made a wrong assumption.  It is really intriguing. We did discover that one path actually comes out right onto the airfield.  There was a big earth moving machine sort of blocking the way but we think that would be to prevent off road cars.  There was nothing to say private property but I guess they wouldn't expect epolpe to come crashing through the woods.

Simon is going to go back one evening with Sam and they will go in that way through the woods.  Simon wants to try and locate what those things are in the woods and find the missile bases as well as check out the "grave yard".

Evie you would LOVE this place.

A bit about me

Since I have moved blog sites I have acquired some new followers who I realise will know nothing about me so I think a quick potted history is in order.

I am coming up to the 7th anniversary of my 46 years!  Work it out!  I have been married to Simon for nearly 33 years, well over half of my lifetime.  We have 5 adult children, 2 boys and 3 girls.  Samuel is 31 and married to Lisa they have our 2 little granddaughters Ellie who is 5 and Jessica who is a year and a half.  Then we have our eldest daughter Coralie  who is 30 and married to John.  They have given us our 2 little grandsons, Evan who is 4 and Flynn who is nearly 3.

Our middle daughter is Verity who is 28 and married to Steve. Then comes our youngest daughter Saskia who is 26 and finally Joshua who is 24. Sam is a carpenter, Coralie a midwife, Verity and Saskia are both teachers and Josh is a technical adviser for Mastercard.  Verity teaches primary age children and Saskia teaches dance.

My husband Simon is also a teacher.  He  is currently on school summer holiday and when he goes back in a weeks time he will be doing 4 days a week,  This is a move towards retirement.  I am a housewife.  In other words I do not do paid work outside of the home.  Come to think of it I don't get paid for the work I do inside the home! That was a joke.  I do appreciate that I am very lucky to be able to be at home all day.  I love my own company and am never bored as I have a gazillion hobbies that I never have enough time for.

I have been learning how to sew for the last 18 months so I spend quite a lot of time on that.  I also do card making and scrap booking.  Then there's my family history research, which is time consuming.  I do embroidery and blogging and I love to enter competitions. I also read loads.  The list is really too long to go on.

I am also very busy in the house. As well as all the normal housework I am busy making things such as curtains for our new home. We moved here just 10 days before last Christmas. We had been in our previous home for over 25 years.  This is our first home without children. We moved from the city to a small village in the Lincolnshire Fens so life is now quite different.  We love it.

I am a huge dog lover.  I have adored them all my life.  We have 2 Dalmatians, Alfie and Loulou who are brother and sister. They are 12 years old.   I am hoping to be able to do some volunteer work in a local dog rescue home soon.

OK, that's it. Sorry if it was a bit boring for those of you that have known me for years.  I just wanted to get new contacts up to date.

RAF Folkingham

I told you yesterday about the airfield that we visited or tried to.  After some investigation we have found out that it is, or rather was, RAF Folkingham.  Seems that it is now known locally as the Digger Graveyard!

RAF Folkingham was an air station from the second World War.  It was built in stages on a convex hill top by the British RAF.  The initial use of the site began in 1940 when it was set up as a decoy for RAF Spitalgate. The intention was to make it look like a real airfield so that it would draw aerial attacks which might otherwise have been made on active stations.  It worked.  It attracted the attention of the Luftwaffe on at least 3 occasions.

However, early in 1943 the instruction was given to actually build a proper airfield to class "A" standard. This took nearly a year and during that time it was allocated to be lent to the US army air force, troop carrier command. 

Vital statistics:  The main runway was 6,000 feet long with two 4,200 feet  auxiliaries, aligned 01-1.9, 07-25 and 13-31 respectively.  There were 50 hardstands all loop type and all, including the runways, were made of concrete.  There were two T-2 type hangars and scattered domestic accommodation to cater for 2,189 people.  All of this was built by Bovis Ltd.

From 1959 to 1963 Thor intercontinental ballistic missiles were set up as a deterrent in case the USSR was to threaten a war.  The base was finally closed in August 1963.

Today it is a very different place.  The runway and loop hardstands have become home to literally 1000's of diggers, tractors, Lorrys and other heavy machinery which have been laid to rest there.  It is a grave yard.

We have found the above information from the net.  I have put it into my own words.   We have no idea, so far, who owns the land today and indeed who owns all of those vehicles.  There is also the unanswered question as to why they were put there and by who?  How did they get there?  It is extremely interesting.  

Simon has been doing some more investigating this evening and has discovered that there are even more there than we thought.  The airfield itself is surrounded by woods.  Woods that are open access.  Those woods are also full of old decaying vehicles.  Lots of diggers and tractors.

When we went the other day we parked our car by the entrance to the woods and blocking a bridle way was this:  

We never imagined that the woods would be full of such things.  It is totally bizarre and a little spooky.  I wonder why they have just been left there?  They must be worth a fortune in scrap metal value.

Simon and Sam are intending to go and have a proper look around.  Simon is going to go over on his bike in the week to take another look.  I know it says private but it seems clear that people have visited as there are photos on the net.  I can't see what the harm would be.  Apparently it is donkeys years since anyone has actually been prosecuted for trespass in the UK!

A funny thing.... I can remember as a child seeing those signs that  said " trespassers will be prosecuted".  They used to scare me.  I didn't really know what they meant but some how I thought it meant that you would be killed!  Maybe I thought prosecute was like execute!  I  didn't know the meanings of the words!

If we find out anymore I will let you know.  If you are really interested you can see it quite clearly on Google Earth.

Sunday 19th August - weekend catch up

Over half way through August already.  Where did the summer holidays go?  Simon only has one more week and then it will be back to the grindstone.

This weekend has been quite pleasant.  Simon worked a bit more on the garage extension yesterday while I worked on shifting more blogs.  In the late afternoon we decided to go for a drive as it was so nice out.  Warm and sunny but not muggy with it like today has been.

We drove out to an old airfield that Simon had seen on the local ordnance survey map. It is about 2 miles from the neighbouring village of Aslackaby.  A funny thing... I had always thought that was pronounced as it is spelt..... As-lack-a-bee. I met a villager recently and discovered that it is actually azel-bee.  Like hazel with out the H.  Weird.

Anyway, I digress.... Simon wanted to go and take a look at this airfield and have a walk around.  In the event when we found it, we couldn't go in as there were signs up saying private property, no trespassing and 24 hour surveillance.  We could however look over the gate and what we could see had us dumbfounded.  In the far distance we could see loads and loads of old vehicles. It was too far away to work out what they were.  I tried to take photo's but clearly I need a better camera.

We decided that our best bet was to drive around to the other side to see if there was a better view from there. It was quite a drive as it is a large area.  We couldn't get any nearer but we could see that there were even more vehicles than we had first thought.  We agreed to check it out online to see what we could find out.

By this time it was gone 6pm so we stopped off at the Five Bells in a neighbouring village of Edenham for drinks.  This was our first time trying out the Five Bells and it proved to be very nice.  As the evening was still in the seventies we sat outside in the garden; me with a nice big glass of the red stuff and Simon with a glass of cider.  We sat there for ages enjoying the evening warmth and chatting.  Quite in depth chatting actually about how every decision taken throughout your life brings you to the present moment.  I might blog about that.

We sat there for so long we decided to order dinner.  That was a good decision as the food was really good.  I had pan fried salmon with pan fried potatoes and crispy leeks.  Never had crispy leeks before... they were superb.  I must try to find out how they did them.  Simon had daube of beef with garlic mash and veggies.  A kind of rich casserole.  He said it was lovely. Neither of us had any room for dessert so we made our way home.

Simon went online and checked out the airfield.  It was very interesting. I shall do a separate blog for it.  I think we will go back and chance our arm for a look around.

Today we went to the Great British Craft Festival at Donnington.  It was an hour and a half drive.  When we got there we were told that it was all sold out!  Apparently this was the first time this show had been held and they had totally under estimated the numbers.  Due to health and safety restrictions they were not selling any more tickets.  We were told that yesterday they turned away thousands!

However, a very nice staff member told us that if we went and waited by the exit we could ask people coming out if we could buy their tickets from them!  The tickets were not being marked in anyway when people entered so no one would know.  I wasn't too sure about this idea but Simon was!  He said we have come all this way so we are going in.  We were lucky, we only waited about 5 minutes and 2 ladies sold us their tickets for the face price.  They got a good deal!  We actually gave ours away for nothing when we came out.

The show was good but wasn't really my thing.  It was mostly for paper crafting, card making and scrap booking.  I do all of those things but I do them on the cheap.  I don't buy all the bits and bobs.  I did make a couple of purchases, you have to, don't you?  I got a little pack of silver herat shaped beads for use on a wall hanging that I am making.  On the same stall I got 5 beads that will fit my Pandora bracelet.  They were only 30p each so not the real thing!  They are pretty though and will look nice.  The other thing that I got was a kit to make a Christmas hearts and bells decoration.  Will show you once it is done.

The Create and Craft team from the shopping channel were there and I noticed that they were going to be demonstrating the Slice Fabrique machine.  I have had my eye on that for ages so we decided to sit and watch.  It is a really brilliant bit of kit.  I nearly got one.  Probably still will get one but they are expensive and I have only just had my Sizzix Big Shot machine a week ago courtesy of a lovely hubby.  They do different things so would be complimentary to each other.  I shall think about it.

The demonstration was being broadcast live from the show and it was no less boring seeing it live than those things are if you ever watch shopping channels.  One of the presenters was Anthea Turner, she is a bit of an old has been.  She used to present various proper TV programmes, the most notable being the children's programme Blue Peter.  She is one odd woman.  Totally over the top and saying really quite odd things.  I wouldn't want to have spend long in her company.

After that we decided that we had seen all there was to see so we got a coffee and walked back to the car. We stopped on the way home in Melton Mowbray (home of the famous pork pies).  No we didn't have pork pie we had Kentucky fried chicken.  Hardly ever have that but I do enjoy it and it always brings back memories of our first visit to "Merika" in 1979.  Kentucky fried chicken had not arrived in the UK back then so it was a novelty for us and we virtually lived on it while we were travelling.

We got home about 3.30pm  by which time I had a pretty rotten headache.  I think it is due to the weather.  it is very heavy here today.  Hot, humid and muggy.  Head achy weather.  We probably need a storm to clear it.  There were a few claps of thunder but that was all.  Since then Simon has been in the garden working on the garage. I think there are 3 more half panels up.  They will have windows above them.

I have been resting upstairs.  I need to move myself shortly and get dinner under way.  I don't actually feel hungry but I am sure Simon will be.  It's roast lamb so it will be some hours yet anyway.

I shall try to get back tomorrow with a blog about the airfield.