SA2011 take 1: Return to UK

SA2011 take 1: Return to UK

After almost 2 weeks in Durban, it was time for me to return home alone, leaving my wife and children staying with Granny and Grandpa. I had a rental car to take back to the airport, so our tearful goodbyes were said on the driveway, before I headed out to the airport. Roads were clear and I was soon there, with plenty of time to spare. I had contemplated spending R100 for a visit to the Bidvest Lounge (pre-booking rate) but decided against it - after all I'd have 2 lounges to visit on my return in December.

The terminal from outside.

I had some time, so I went outside to look for a Geocache, but with no luck I returned into the terminal.

Statue of come cows, that were accompanied by one of the airport's namesake, King Shaka, but was removed as apparently it looked too much like a cow herder.

13/11/2011
DUR-JNB
BA6210
ZS-OKG

Checkin was a breeze, in fact checkin was still open for the previous BA (Comair) flight to Johannesburg. I handed over my luggage, and proceeded to the security checkpoint. I had completely forgotten that I had recently downloaded the BA Android app, that allows for mobile paperless checkin - if I remember I will give it a try for my next BA flight. Security was easy, so I went through to Departures and had a look around. I bought a copy of Getaway magazine, as it contained an article about the resort that my wife and I had spent our honeymoon (Umngazi River Bungalows, well worth a stay if you're in the area!)

FIDS. My flight at 17:55

Looking along the terminal

The previous BA flight departing

A red-nosed 1Time MD preparing for departure to Cape Town

My aircraft on stand

By now it had started to rain heavily, at the old airport boarding was only by stairs, so thankfully we now had air bridges to board.

View from the window still on the ground

We boarded and I took my seat. Load was good, around 80%, though the middle sear next to me was free. The captain gave an announcement that heavy turbulence was forecast, so no hot drinks would be served, and to expect lots of movement during the flight. We took off to the south, and immediately entered the cloud layer. After a while we entered clear air, and cruised comfortably. Aside from a few small bumps, the ascent was smooth.

Mini burgers and beer

The crew started their service. The "meal" on board was mini burgers - which were 3 very small bread rolls, two of which contained an inch square piece of cheese (nothing else) and the middle one a similarly sized piece of chicken in a mild periperi sauce. They were ok, nothing special though, and the cheese ones a bit dry. No hamburger patties at all though! Still, slightly better than the birdseed another A.netter was served recently! I took a beer with it.

Sunset over the Drakensberg (not that you can see the mountains under the cloud)

More clouds

We started our descent, all the while I was expecting major turbulence, but there was very little except when going though the clouds. I spotted a lake below, but my seatmate said that there were no lakes in this area, so it must be cloud. (I later found the Vaal Dam on Google Maps - I was right!) We landed with a jolt and taxied to the domestic terminal, where we parked at a remote stand and boarded busses to the terminal. Bags took a while to come through, as before they had been sealed with cable ties. After thinking this was a Lanseria Airport idea, perhaps it's a Comair (BA and Kulula) idea. My next domestic flight is on Mango, I'll see then if it continues. I picked up my rental car and headed for my brother-in-law's house in Centurion, though the occasional downpour and thunderstorm.

The next day I headed back to the airport, and dropped the car off at the rental returns, after filling up at the petrol station that is on the roof of the car park. I headed inside to checkin.

14/11/2011
JNB-ADD
ET808
ET-ALP

I presented my passport, and put my luggage on the scales - it only weight 7kg so no worries about being overweight. I was given my pre-selected seat that I had guessed was a bulkhead seat, but turned out not to be - Ethiopian publish seat plans on their website of each aircraft, but there was no way to guess what actual aircraft would operate the flight! Still, the more pressing issue was that I could not be issued with a boarding pass for my 2nd flight, ADD-LHR, as this flight had not yet opened. I was advised to ask at the gate.

FIDS above the checkin desks

After leaving my bag, I decided to hunt out the viewing decks at the airport. The first was above the International terminal, which involved going down some corridors that appeared to house general office space, not looking promising at all, until it reached the end where the viewing gallery was. The view was great, I managed to get a few good pictures.

Cathay Pacific 747 at the gate immediately below the viewing deck. This was the gate that my flight was due to depart from, but didn't, as a BA 747 arrived in the meantime. I'm not sure what it would arrive then, perhaps it was late.

A statue of some pioneering aviators

I decided by this point to head airside. I used the security point between International and Domestic, that usually is empty, but it seems that more and more people are becoming aware of it. Since the originally allocated gate was by now taken with the BA arrival, our new gate was right at the end of the new pier.

BA 747 at gate behind the Saudi

Pair of A380s waiting for their return night flights. A 3rd, belonging to EK, was out of shot to the left.

First sight of my ET 767

A crowd was gathering at the gate, and boarding was called. There was no preboarding announcement for anyone - business class, status passengers, people with children, noone. People did form a kind of queue though. When it was my turn, I asked about my 2nd boarding pass - I would get it on arrival in Addis, I was told. I then headed down the bridge to the aircraft.

Front on shot of ET-ALP

The Star Alliance logo is a little premature? ;)

The legroom shot. Not bad.

Once everyone was on board, we pushed back, and headed down the taxiway to take off northwards. Load was close to 100%. Takeoff wasn't very powerful, though JNB has very long runways.

Engine view, somewhere over Limpopo province

View from my seat

I set my IFE screen to the airshow, and left it there. The system was quite basic, with only about 6 films on loops, so not AVOD. One of the cycles showed the direction of Addis, much like sometimes the direction of Mecca is shown on Muslim airlines, though it seemed to be somewhat pointless as it was almost always directly in front. Not long into the flight, the meal was served, it was quite substantial and of good quality.

Meal

There were two large pieces of chicken under the tomato sauce. I had a white wine to go with it. After a few hours, a juice round was offered.

I spent the time dozing, and watching the airshow, until it got dark, and soon it was time to land. We came in low over the lights of the city, and landed very smoothly. Unlike Nairobi the previous year, there was no mention of any photography ban.

Pulling onto stand

As we got off, there were plenty of uniformed staff waiting, so I asked about my boarding pass. They referred me to a desk behind, next to an escalator upwards to the main departure level, instead of the baggage reclaim and exit. I waited here, despite several people pushing in front (including an African lady with a t-shirt with Bible quotes on it), until I was served. I was told to go upstairs to the gate, there I would be given my boarding pass, so upstairs I went.

Departure level of Addis Abeba airport, glass wall on the right, behind which are the gates.

There are 8 departure gates, in a line, and 2 security points, one at either end of the terminal. The gates themselves are separated from the rest of the departures area by a glass wall, with the 2 security points being the only way to get from the duty free shops area, to the gates. The FIDS told me that the London flight was from gate 2, so there I went. The guy at the security point said no, London was from gate 8, and he showed me a piece of printed paper showing this. So I went to the other security point. No, they said, gate 2 is for London. Still, I went through the security (with several women in Muslim robes pushing in front) and along to gate 2 on the gates side of the wall. At gate 2 was the flight to Tel Aviv, so the agent advised I take a seat and wait, which I did.

Seating area at Gate 2

14/11/2011
ADD-BEY-LHR
BD904
G-MEDN

The Tel Aviv flight left, and an agent came around advising all London passengers to queue and have their documents checked. This I did, and by this time one agent (called Benjamin) arrived in BMI uniform. He said to wait, and he would arrange for my boarding pass to be brought here from checkin. Also by now, the flight to Rome and Stockholm was also supposed to be boarding from gate 2, and the 2nd agent was dealing with this flight. Benjamin had taken my passport, and I was a little worried about it, so I stood near the desk. Rome and Stockholm passengers' boarding passes were checked, and they were invited to board through the door (or rather, downward stairs) at gate 1, despite the paperwork being dealt with at gate 2. By this time, a BMI A321 had arrived at the gate.

Benjamin disappeared down the airbridge, but I'd got my passport back before that. By now the scheduled departure time had been passed by almost an hour. Benjamin came back holding a boarding pass, mine! The other agent had started the boarding process, when people started coming back up the bridge into the departure area. Noone knew anything, and we were all advised to sit and wait. After another 30 mins or so, we could all board again, those whose boarding passes had been torn off as well as those (like me) who hadn't got this far yet. I hadn't been given my pre-selected window seat, instead I had been given the aisle, but I wasn't complaining at this point.

Anyway, once we were all aboard, it became apparent that there were no more than 30 people on the A321, most of them belonging to a large family group. The captain came on the tannoy to apologise for the delay, saying there was a computer problem and they rebooted the system and it appeared to be working again. We pushed back, and waited for a while until the captain again came on and said the same issue had reoccurred, and that we would be returning to stand for an engineer to come and look. This happened, the system was rebooted again, and we pushed back again. This time the problem did not reoccurr, so we were ready to take off, only 3 hours late. I wasn't too worried about the delay, as originally the flight was due to go via Amman, leaving 6 hours later than now, so I had pre-booked a train ticket home from London leaving plenty of time.

View from my seat

Once airborne, the drinks service began, followed by the meal service. I had a G&T (dedicated to Gabrielchew), only the one though, despite the steward offering me a 2nd G and an 2nd T.

G&T

Then came the meal, a type of pancake containing scrambled egg. Not bad tasting.

Cooked breakfast number 1

Airshow

I then put the airshow on the IFE. Our route was rather strange, in that we headed almost due east to the Red Sea, then followed the sea northwards. Does BMI have a problem with both Sudan and Eritrea? I then fell asleep, and woke as we arrived into Beirut.

Arriving on stand in Beirut

View of the city of Beirut

The crew changed here, they had spent a few days here before doing a round trip to Addis. Our steward was a young French guy, he was chatting to the one passenger in the row in front of me, as the rear-facing crew seat at the exit row was facing him. His place was taken by a Spanish lady. As for the other seats, the load jumped to almost 100%. A father and son (who was probably about 8) had the seats next to me, the father asked if he could have the aisle. Of course I complied, and moved to the window seat.

Boarding in Beirut

We took off towards the sea, and climbed through the cloud layer. Another cooked breakfast was served, an omlette this time with sausages (that tasted like beef sausages), the rest of the meal was identical though. I took a juice this time, no more alcohol for me as I was working that night!

Somewhere above the Rhine canal in Belgium

I like this picture of the sharklet

Antwerp from above

Antwerp docks

I spent most of the flight dozing. As we approached London, we were put in a holding pattern above the East End, with occasioally the Olympic site poking through the clouds. We then headed westwards accross north London, to approach Heathrow from the west, coming in to land smoothly. The boy seated next to me started to vomit though - his father handed him a plastic bag, it looked like it might have safety holes in it though so I handed him an air sickness bag from the seat pocket. In the end, I think he must have had a bug of some sort, as I was sick with it a couple of days later. We were soon on stand at Terminal 1.

Arrived on stand, notice the bus.

We disembarked through the jetbridge, but were led down some stairs to the waiting bus. I assume the aircraft was next to be used on a domestic or Dublin flight. The bus drove under the bowels of Terminal 1 to another part, where we entered.

Our aircraft from the bus. Other side was the Lufthansa retrojet.

Baggage took an age to arrive, but it did eventually, and the queue for passport control was huge, except I used one of the E-gates with had a queue of 1, and I passed through quickly.

That is almost all, though I took one jumper with me to South Africa (it was summer after all) but I couldn't find it when packing. So I arrived into winter England wearing a t-shirt and a light rain jacket. I took the bus from Heathrow to Feltham where I bought a thick jumper from Asda, and had a cup of tea in McDonalds (after a fortnight of foreign tea, even McDo's PG Tips was lovely!). I arranged to meet my sister in Shepherds Bush, as she was in London for a few days, and we had lunch in Pho noodle bar in the Westfield Centre. Then I took the tube to Liverpool St Station, for the train home. I'd pre-booked a cheap First Class ticket, that allowed me to use the lounge at the station. The ticket cost £12, booked in advance, compared to over £90 bought on the day.

Entrance to the lounge

Interior of the lounge.

Offerings were a hot drinks machine (but no milk to put into the tea) or water.

My train. The loco stays at one end, either pushing or pulling the train.

My First Class seat.

I tried to sleep on the train, but the continued announcements over the tannoy prevented this. Still, I got home after walking from Norwich station, got into my car and drove to work for a night shift, which was completely knackering.

SA2011 take 1: In South Africa

A few pictures from our time in SA together.

The reason we came, Blake and Andy's wedding.

Matty and cousin Emma sitting by the pool.

Looking at the fish at Ushaka Sea World.

Feeding the sharks at Ushaka.

Looking at the sharks

Watching the seals and pirate show.

Intently...

Playing on the "beach". Well, there's sand and water...

Bazinga! At Lucky Bean cafe and play area in Assegay.

A local cockroach.

A visitation of flying ants.

More of the flying ants, in the garage.

SA2011 take 1: Norwich-Durban with toddler and infant

SA2011 take 1: Norwich-Durban with toddler and infant

Background.

Rewind to January 2011, it was time to start planning our annual trip to visit the in-laws in South Africa. This year we would be there for Christmas, but to make things interesting, my wife's brother had just proposed to his girlfriend, and set a date for the wedding at the beginning of November. What should we do? Go to the wedding and forego Christmas? Or leave the wedding and head for Christmas as planned? None of this was made any easier by the fact that my wife was at this point pregnant, due to give birth in September, 6 weeks before the wedding. In the end, the plan was decided: we would fly out on the 2nd November in time for the wedding on the 5th. We would stay in SA until after Christmas, my wife being on maternity leave the whole time. Then, I would purchase for myself a ticket back from SA to the UK to return to work, before heading back south just before Christmas. We would be apart for a month, but at least my wife would have her parents on the spot to help her look after a toddler of 2 1/2 and a small baby.

Baby Amy was born on the 12th September, as planned by C-section, and after some drama relating to anti-DVT medicine and flowing blood failing to heal the wound, my wife came home with Amy. This was the start of the marathon, as her birth needed to be registered, passport photos taken, countersigned, and the passport application sent off and received within the remaining 5 weeks before departure. In the end, all was well and Amy had her little red book permitting international travel in plenty of time.

Eventually, the day came to depart. We booked a taxi to take us the 10 minutes from home to the airport, arriving before the checkin desks even opened. Soon, a queue formed behind us, and the staff came to man the desks.

Our large pile of luggage, wife, baby in Baby Bjorn covered in blanket, and toddler sitting in pushchair.

We soon had our boarding passes, though to Johannesburg, bought our "Airport Development Fee" tickets (£5, doubling in January to £10) and proceeded to security. We were among the first to get here, and we've flown several times before with Matthew so we had our proceedure prepared. Tam went through first carrying Amy and holding Matthew's hand, whilst I folded the pushchair to go through the x-ray, put our other hand luggage on the belt (including the rucksack with 2 laptops in it) and prepared the bag with the baby food and drink to taste. Unfortunately by this time Matthew had wiggled his hand out of Tam's and ran back through the metal detector to me. This was enough to trigger proceedures making him the subject of extra search, but getting him to stand still without crying was hard, especially for Tam holding Amy as the Baby Bjorn carrier also had to go through the x-ray. In the confusion I forgot to take my phone out of my pocket, so I had to be patted down and waved with the wand as well. Through to testing the food and drink, Matt's kiddie juice bottles had to be thrown out, but we were allowed to keep the juice itself if I tasted it and we decanted it into a baby bottle! Eventually we were through, but then we were told we could have been moved to a private room for screening - this would have been fine, and not held up the people behind us so much.

Through into the departure lounge, we tried to give Matt his breakfast of cereal and powdered formula milk, but he was still unhappy - he ended up eating 2 yoghurts instead. It was almost time to board, and when boarding was called we joined the massive queue. People requiring extra assistance were called forward first, but by the time we had gathered our things, general boarding was well underway. We left the pushchair folded at the foot of the steps and climbed up into the "big blue plane" (a Fokker F70!)

02/11/2011
NWI-AMS
KL1502
PH-KZL

We had seats ACD near the back, the 2 on the left of the aisle and one accross the aisle which I had. We had hoped to be able to move to seats on the 2 side behind each other, but the flight was close to full so there were no seats. Normally this is a very short flight (I've done it in 25 mins before) so as soon as we took off, the crew sprang into action distributing cups of orange juice and a biscuit each. Matthew was accross the aisle from me so I opened his juice for him, he's never had this type of cup before with the foil lid, but managed to drink it all without spilling it! By this time we were over the Dutch coast covered in cloud, and we were put into a holding pattern. A few circles later and we came in to land on the Polderbaan, followed by a 15 minute drive to the CityHopper apron. The steps were brought in, the passengers descended into busses - our pushchair was waiting for us, so I picked it up and carried it to the 2nd bus. Tam and Amy got one of the few seats, and we moved to the main terminal.

02/11/2011
AMS-JNB
KL591
PH-BQA

In previous years, on arrival at AMS we've had an hour or two to visit the baby room, feed children and let them have a sleep before heading to the JNB gate, however this time we needed to go straight there, despite the inbound being only about 15 mins late. Bizarre, perhaps the JNB flight time was brought forward this year. Anyway, we headed to the gate, this time at a G gate instead of the usual F pier. People were already heading through security into the holding room. This time, though, security was a breeze (despite having to throw away the bottles of water we'd bought in Norwich - d'oh, should have drunk them!) and we were soon waiting to board. After a few minutes of looking out of the window at the plane, families were called to board, of which there were a few. Looking at our seats, we were allocated 36ABC, standard seats by a window, despite me emailing a few weeks before to request the baby bassinet location, and that email being confirmed by reply. Still, we sat down and arranged our things. A stewardess saw us, and said that she would see if we could move to the bulkhead seat, so Amy could use the bassinet - we were very thankful at this, and a few minutes later she beckoned us forward.

Matty studying the safety card.

We moved, and brought all our bags to the locker over the centre seats (one side was taken by the demo lifejacket and a stack of blankets). Total load was probably around 65%.

The obligatory legroom shot.

Takeoff was on one of the nearer runways, and was surprisingly gentle. Once the seatbelt signs had been switched off, we got Matthew the first of his toy bags. We had arranged about 10 small cloth bags, each with a few small toys or activities in, so that periodically we could get one out and entertain him for a while. I forget the order, but some contained small jigsaw puzzles, others finger puppets, some pipe cleaners, Bob the Builder character toys (his current favourite) and some wind-up jumping toys, and books. By this time the crew started distributing the special meals, of which Tam and Matthew both had gluten free meals. Tam took hers and ate (by now Amy was fast asleep in the bassinet) whilst I fed Matthew. The main meal consisted of chicken pieces in mushy peas, with mashed potato, with a salad and fruit salad, and some GF bread. Being the carnivore he is, Matt ate all his chicken, and nothing else. Not even would he eat the fruit salad, even though he normally likes fruit, so I gave him some rice cakes and raisins. Soon enough, my own meal arrived, which was almost identical but the chicken was in a curry sauce with rice. Very impressive, despite its small size.

Amy sleeping soundly in the bassinet

The crew came round and took the rubbish away, by which time it was Matt's normal afternoon sleep time. At home, he would sleep from anything between 20 mins to 3 hours after lunch, so we were hoping for a long one :) We got his sleeping bag and put him in it, gave him his dummy and bear (he only has these for sleeping now) and thought how to arrange him... By which time he had put his head on the seat and fallen asleep!

Matt's unusual sleeping position

He stayed there for about 1/2 an hour, before stirring, so I was worried that was all the sleep he would have, but he seemed still drowsy so we laid him on the seat curled up, the seatbelt around his bottom to stop him falling to the floor, and he slept for another 2 hours. Result :) During this time Tam watched a film on the IFE and I took a walk around.

View of the rear cabin on the 772.

Wing view, over the Sahara somewhere.

There was a small tray set up near the rear galley with some drinks and snacks for people to take if they liked, mini Mars bars, sweets, ice creams, juices, fizzy drinks and water.
Matt then woke and had some of these sweets, and watched some of the children's programmes on the IFE, interestingly he was quite happy with the headset, unlike last year when he refused to use it and watched in silence. This time he had leaned to put up with the minor discomfort to have the benefit of the music and talking! Also around this time a snack was handed out, bread with jam for the GF meal, and a cheese sandwich for normal meal, along with ice cream. The icecream was coffee flavoured, which I hate, and also had biscuit pieces in, so none of us could have it. I was somewhat disappointed in the sandwich, it was nice enough but what a reduction in service from 12 months before when the 2nd meal was an actual meal.

Another few hours later, and another service began. This time it was another full meal (my fears over the sandwich evaporated!) Again, the GF meals came first, a vegetable risotto. Tam ate and enjoyed hers, but Matt didn't want any of his at all. Thankfully we'd brought some Marmite crackers for him, he usually has a light meal at tea time of crackers or sandwich, which he ate happily, but still he refused all the other items, including the yoghurt that he normally likes. I ate his risotto, and yes it was very nice! Then my own meal came, a piece of pizza with the same accompanying items. It too was nice, small, but then ok as I'd eaten Matt's.

The 2nd gluten free meal.

By now it was almost time to land. The crew came and picked up the remains of the meals, and everything was stowed. Landing seemed to take an age, but we couldn't see much as the windows were so far away. Tam said to me "how much further?" just as we landed with a bump. Almost no ear popping, but then JNB is at a high altitude. We were amongst the last off, picked up the pushchair in the airbridge, and headed to passport control. Between us we were 2 South African passport holders (Tam and Matt, both dual) and 2 British only (myself and Amy, whose SA citizenship we will sort out on our return) we headed to the SA passport queue, only to be waved to the Crew and Diplomatic queue - probably because of the baby. We were all stamped in in moments, and headed to the baggage reclaim. We had just arrived when our bags started arriving. Good timing! (we had brought a car seat, and were meeting Tam's uncle at the airport with our other car seat, so both children could be strapped in securely. The infant baggage allowance is only 10kg, no extra car seat, so the day before I'd been off to buy a large bag that the car seat would fit in, so we could then pack more clothes etc around it.). We were out into arrivals in no time, and couldn't see Tam's uncle anyway. A quick phone call revealed he was there, we just hadn't seen him, so we easily met up.

When we originally booked the trip, we were going to stay with Tam's brother and family in Centurion, near Pretoria, so the next day's flight I booked from Lanseria, Johannesburg's 2nd airport, on the other side of the city but equidistant from my brother-in-law's house. However, he and family had gone down to Durban a few days previously. They had still offered their house, but it would involve picking up keys from his wife's parents, and all that that entails with extra house visits, and it was already almost 11pm, very late for Matt. So we arranged to stay with Tam's uncle in Benoni, very near JNB but a lot further from Lanseria. We headed to the rental offices to pick up our car. It was a VW Polo, more Golf sized for UK readers, but was still a push to fit everything in, but we made it - 4 people, 3 large cases, 2 car seats, 4 hand luggage bags and a double pushchair! We headed to Tam's uncle's house, 10 minutes away, and when we got there, put the children to bed and crashed ourselves, especially as he was leaving at 9am (7am UK time! bearing in mind it was now gone midnight) the following morning to go to Durban himself.

We were woken up at our request, showered, got the children up, and packed the car, as Tam's uncle too locked the house and headed back to JNB. We started our jouney to Lanseria, via Sandton City shopping centre for drinks, snacks, and some local Pay-as-you-go SIM cards for our phones, so we could use the cheap calling and mobile internet (and sat-nav) functionality without costing a bomb. The road from Sandton to Lanseria is not exactly a motorway, but it is well signed from the N1 Johannesburg orbital motorway, and I had a mental map anyway, so we we eventually arrived, and left the car. Checkin was a breeze, and Kulula even cable-tied our bags closed, for security.

30/11/2011
HLA-DUR
MN515
ZS-OAP

We went through security here, easy as Amsterdam (why is it only UK regional airports that are so pedantic?) into the departure lounge with its single gate - our gate was downstairs (or rather, down a very slow, but interior door-less lift). On the apron was a BA liveried ATR, and some biz jets, until we spotted an arrival - the Europcar logojet Kulula has. I'd been on it once before (not surprising as Kulula only have 7 planes), making it only the 2nd aircraft I've been on more than once (since I started noting regs).

ZS-OAP on the apron

There were good views of the apron, only it is a shame the there's not much traffic to watch! We watched the incoming passengers disembark, and soon it was time for us to board. As before, we left the pushchair at the foot of the steps, and boarded by the rear stairs. This flight was quite uneventful, calm. We bought some drinks and biltong from the BOB, with which Matt re-acquainted himself with the dried meat, and also played with some more of the toy-bags - plasticine this time, and a sticker book. Load was probably around 80%, flight was on time, and our bags came off the carousel together at Durban. We headed to the car rental offices here to pick up our car for the weekend, this time something a bit bigger, a Hyandai i35 SUV.

Overall these flights were satisfactory, shame about the pre-booked bassinet not being allocated - for the return I will make sure to phone them, and also check at checkin. Food on board KL was very good, free, but portion size could be improved. Kulula's BOB offerings are ok, despite being branded Woolworths, a department store food hall.

Matthew and Bear on Bure Valley Railway

Matthew and Rhys Bear went on a steam train. We went to Aylsham station. Before leaving we looked at the other train in the station, a diesel train.



We bought our tickets and got on the train.
Here is a video of us on the train.



We only went as far as Brampton station, which was very small.



We had some biscuits while waiting for the train back.



On the train back we had a drink.



Going home from Aylsham we fell asleep in the car!

Here are Matty and Rhys back at home watching TV.

City of Norwich Aviation Museum

The other day I took Matthew to the museum, to look at the planes. He is starting to become interested in all things mechanical, as well as animals and natural history.


The museum's Nimrod, from up close.


Matthew admiring the museum's Westland Whirlwind helicopter ("Heckle-ber")


Watching a butterfly by the fence.


Matthew admiring the Fokker F27 Friendship.


Some BAe146s stored in the airport boneyard. There were also some former Air France F70/F100s there last time I went past, but they have been removed.


A pair of Arik Air Boeing 737s in storage


Further information about the museum can be found here.