REVISITS TO LEEDS AND CHATHAM

Sunday dawned late because we have gone to daylight saving.But the sun was shining and there was a lovely blue sky so we decided to take another trip across the river and visit the rest of the Chatham Dockyard. We packed a picnic (amazing what a bit of sunshine will do) and set off. At Chatham we did the 40 minute audio visual tour of the Wooden Wall shipbuilding diorama. An excellent display which went through the stages of building a Man of War in the 18th century. From the pattern floor, where the design was laid out, the saw pits where two fellows cut 8 inch planks from logs of oak, the caulkers,the carpenters - an amazing demonstration which showed how these great ships were built.

The we went into the Dockyard museum which traced the history of the yard from the days of Henry v111 right through to the Falklands conflict. This would be a wonderful history lesson for school kids, and it was filled with relics/descriptive paintings,models and everything needed to instill the importance of Englands reliance on it's navy. The Dockyards built hundreds of ships, including modern naval vessels and submarines. Sadly it was closed down late in the 20th century.

Leeds Castle we had previously visited in November last year, and as our entry tickets were valid for 12 months we took advantage of the largesse and had another look. The gardens there are superb and we started off by having our picnic with jackets and scarves tightly wrapped around!!!

A walk through the castle was enhanced by tremendous floral displays which had been created for the Spring Flower Festival. Each room had its own display prepared by various organisations, and although having been on show for nearly a week, still gave a wonderful touch.

We walked around the gardens and admired the black swan and her babes, then went to the Maze and the Falconry where a free flying display was to be held.

The African Spotted Owl (photo above) was the first participant, and he flew around the enclosure performing to his trainers wishes. He came to sit on each fence post in the post and rail enclosure, and as you can see dropped in to the post right in front of me.The episode finished when he simply refused to cooperate with his trainer any more, and sat on a ledge totally ignoring the commands/pleas of his trainer who finally had to walk across and pick him up.

The next participant was a kestrel, which when released did a very fast fly past over the crowd and then flew off to sit on the weather vane of an adjoining building. From here he simply enjoyed the view and ignored the tempting titbits being offered from afar. He finally flew of out of sight!! All quite amusing.

And so back to Langdon Hills and the enjoyment of daylight extending through to 8pm.