As last week I was on holiday I failed to get an article written. That's mostly due to climbing mountains in Dorset (the wife claims they weren't mountains, however they fit the Oxford English dictionary definition!). I'm from the Fens, so I've spent my life between 0-15m above sea level. We get to Dorset, a county in dire need of ironing and the wife starts taking us up rises that are nearly 252m. I should have spotted the trend on Sunday when we went to Lulworth, and went along the range walks, we started off going up Bindon hill (168m). I was lured up there by promises of tank wrecks to poke. But here's as close as I got (taken on maximum zoom):
I do like the armies new HESH target though:
That night we were sitting there at our rented cottage when a Spider dropped in through the open window. Lets be clear here, it was massive. Its size was best described as "Australian". At first I thought it was a moth it made such a loud thump as it hit the table. The wife, whom is in no way arachnophobic, squealed and ran. Luckily we have three dogs, one the size of a German Shepard. This gave me my first clue to the location we're in. Dorset is known as "The Jurassic Coast", and it really is the land that time forgot! Mobile signal is extremely limited, about the only time I had full reception was on top of the Eggardon Iron age hill fort (252m). I worked out why as well. I kept seeing smoke from bonfires, so I reckon the locals communicate with smoke signals. The entire area we were in seemed to have missed the modern age with no
cash points, banks or shops. Its like the entire place closes down for
the weekend.
We also went up Golden Cap (191m).
But I did spend a very nice two days down Bovy archives with some fun discoveries!
Anyway, as an emergency article, a couple of months ago I went to a 1940's weekend at a place called Ramsey. I've been saving the pictures from that for busy week, so here we are.
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| At these sorts of shows you always get lots of quality German kit for sale... |
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| A "Yellow Goddess". Basically a Green Goddess painted yellow and fitted out for Northern Ireland |
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| Wouldn't kneel there... those things are made by Volkswagen! |
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| A real M36 Slugger? |
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| "You alright, mate?" |
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| The Germans had a 1:1 scale Airfix Panzer III |
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| Elite British front line troops... |
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| ...and proper British quality Engineering! |
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| Tank rides were on offer, but my brain was very confused. I was getting Germanic Marder signals from this IFV, but I can see its not a Marder. |
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| The only Russian in the show. |
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| More Quality British stuff, this time an APC... |
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| ...especially when you compare it to this shoddy US product, knocked out in four hours or so unless I miss my guess. |
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| POW (Prisoner of Woofing?) making a break for it. He didn't achieve a home run. |
