Dave Hunt

Well, the weather did indeed put paid to my hoped-for trip to Attingham Park this afternoon. Instead I tried to fix our ancient Technics record deck of at least 25 years of age which refuses to do anything remotely connected with playing a record. Sadly I was unable to find what is wrong so transferred my efforts to looking for someone who can fix it. I think I may have found one in Nantwich, which is only about 15 miles away so I've sent an email asking whether they can, in fact, help and hope to hear from them on Monday. My sons think that I should embrace new tech and get an Alexa or something rather than persist with vinyl records and such but although I have gone as far as CDs and even iTunes I still like playing my old discs. Dinosaur, me? I've even got an electric soldering iron! Dave

Babycham. Ah, Jill's tipple of choice as a teenager, always requested with three cherries. In those days our favourite watering holes in Liverpool included the Rose of Mossley or in town The Philharmonic. The latter has the only Grade 1 listed gent's loo in the country. Dave

In 2008 a chap who had been something high up at Bass bought a somewhat decrepit pub with a plot of land attached in town here and set about resurrecting the Joule's ale brand that had been produced in Staffordshire until the 1970s. His main reason for choosing that particular site was that it included a well, the water in which was from the same acquifer as that used by Joule's. From being a scruffy, run down pub it is now a very nice place to drink and enjoy some good pub grub with its own brewery making some decent beers. It also owns or runs some 15 or so pubs within 25 miles or so. Dave

That figures - I was planning to go for a walk at Attingham Park this afternoon. Dave

Does my double garage and 35ft x 20ft shed get me on the list then Bear? Dave Oh, and the fact that I’ve got cake in stock?

When Jill was a girl her brother would sometimes put a well-worn sock in her pillow case 😖 Dave

When we lived in Singapore our house didn’t have air conditioning, just ceiling fans, so Jill used to keep her makeup in the fridge. Like many other RAF wives she also kept freshly laundered knickers there as, “There’s nothing quite like having a shower then stepping into an ice cold pair of panties.” Dave

We have recently had the same happen to our conservatory roof but judging by the amount of splatter it must have been a South American Condor on its holidays. Unfortunately I can’t take the conservatory to the car wash and since at present I can’t ascend ladders we’ll just have to pray for heavy rain. Dave

For mice read DH’s forefinger (which nearly got chopped off as a result). Dave

Welcome aboard member No. 3. Dave

The most regular visitors to our garden are pigeons, blue tits, robins, blackbirds and various LBJs.* We used to have a family of greater spotted woodpeckers visiting daily by then a couple of years ago they suddenly disappeared and haven’t returned. We also sometimes see long tailed tits and starlings a bit more infrequently. * Little Brown Jobs - sparrows or dunnocks or whatever. My bird identification skills aren’t up to differentiating between them all. Dave

I’ll try to take some and report back . Dave

As a famous German fighter pilot put it, "The three most useless things are fuel you've used, runway behind you and height you've lost." Dave

At least it wasn't green (or Flying Scotsman 😝) Dave

There was a famous incident in Vietnam when a USAF F4 was hit by flak and lost all his fuel in short order. The crew were then faced with ejecting over hostile territory but the formation leader got the stricken aircraft to drop the arrestor hook then came up behind and lodged the end of the hook into the rain clearing slot just in front of his windscreen. He then pushed the other aircraft back to the south and when near base backed off so the crew could eject over friendly territory. I believe he got some sort of medal. Dave

The situation wasn't of my making - honestly. I actually got praise for coping with what could have been loss of an aircraft. It's too involved to go into in detail but it resulted from rapidly deteriorating weather that hadn't been forecast and multiple screwups by air traffic and operating authorities. The thing that saved me was that I got so p!ssed off with what was going on that I declared UDI and ignored what the above mentioned nerks wanted me to do, which would have resulted in us running out of fuel and jumping out. Dave

Since much of today has been the overflow from my birthday, I was presented with a second birthday cake….. …… complete with finescale Thomas. There was no need for anti bear and hippo defences as it is a coffee and walnut cake (not on Bear’s list) and HH is currently hors de combat. It has been washed down with a couple of glasses of bubbly and there is a piece left that later could well accompany a libation of the Talisker 15 that I was presented with yesterday. It’s a hard life sometimes. Dave

I won’t go into detail is but the closest I ever came was landing a Phantom one night in Germany with the low level fuel light having been on for quite a while and about 250 lb showing on the gauge. There was a warning below the gauge that indications below 600 lb were unreliable. The next day the senior engineering officer told me that the amount of fuel they had put into the aircraft was the same as the book said it would hold. He reckoned that I must have had less than a minute of useable fuel left. I didn’t actually have brown strides but it was close. Dave

Sometimes disguised by “Errr, any gravyboats (tankers) on towline (standard refuelling area) X with a few tons giveaway?” or, “Errr, Firebird 3 is just nipping into Keflavik for a spot of fuel. See you later.” Don’t bother asking how I know about such things. Dave

Apologies Bill. It will come as no great surprise that it took me three goes to pass O level German. Dave

We ought to start the OFWAT club, Bob. Nothing to do with water supply regulation but rather the Old Farts Walking And Tottering club. We seem to be on the same sort of regime at the moment with walks of a mile or so before various body parts start to complain. I managed just under a mile and a half to the Sainsbury’s Local and back today before my back and legs gave out then had to have a rest. My reward will be cake and bubbly starting shortly. Dave

In German, “Zwei kleine Ente,” to which the reply is, “Flak, flak.” Dave

Bingo means you have reached a fuel state where you can just complete the sortie as planned but have none to spare. Joker means you have just got enough fuel to get home with none to spare. Dave

That day is so marked in both the schools I attended and in the RAF. Funny that….. Dave

We tend to buy meat, fish and some fruit and vegetables from market traders on a Wednesday and Saturday and bread, cakes and pastries as well as cheese from a local delicatessen. Milk is delivered in glass bottles to our doorstep three times a week. Other things are mainly bought from a supermarket but we don’t use delivery services because we prefer to see what we are buying, want to reduce the amount of single use plastic we use and to help preserve the existence of real shops. Dave