THE DAYS OF PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES

 Planes

When searching for a property in Norfolk it quickly became apparent that airfields are to East Anglia as 'boudoirs' are to Amsterdam. It is hard to turn down a lane or byroad without running into an airfield, or an ex-airfield at least, as they easily out number the operational ones. Every time we found a possible property I had to painstakingly check on Google maps the area surrounding it over a large area to ensure that there was no 'live' airport nearby. There are several Airports that are so close to each other that it beggars belief that there have been no accidents. Just north of Huntingdon there is Alconbury airport (ex- USAF now disused) and just the length of the runway away there is another airport, RAF Wyton, then Upwood Airport (old RAF) is just two runway lengths to the north east. There was one house that I found near Thetford which was very cheap, not too surprising when you realise that there are two massive RAF airports which are just three and a half miles away from each other!
      So we found this place eliminating all such threats, admittedly we have since discovered a small airstrip on the edge of the village but have never seen anything take off or land and less than 2 miles away there is a disused airport that I missed, honestly the place is riddled with the things. Well the thing is I think we get the best of both worlds now as I love watching the odd Tornado or Euro-fighter Typhoon come blasting across the sky. Sometimes they go really slowly, so slow that you wonder how they stay up there, so slow that despite my children's protestations I have to act on the urge to wave to them. I don't know why the kids are embarrassed, they are unlikely to ever meet the pilots and anyway when I was young my grandparents used to take me to Kings Cross to see the Steam trains and we always waved to them. The other day we had two American F-15 Jets flying in tight circles just north of the village. The circles were as tight as they could fly and it looked like they were playing cat & mouse, the G force must have been extraordinary, they continued for about 10 cycles then shot off into the distance. Who needs air shows?

Trains

As Amsterdam has canals so Norfolk  has private railway lines. We are surrounded by 5 private railways including steam locomotives, diesel and electric. Four of these lines plan to link up and make one large circle that would go right around the north central area and also connecting to the Main line too. See the attached link:

http://www.norfolk-orbital-railway.co.uk/

Mr Beeching destroyed the railway infrastructure and local preservation societies have been struggling to rebuild them piece·meal ever since. So if they can pull this off then it will be one in the eye for the dead guy!

Automobiles

There are more bicycles in Amsterdam than there are cars in Norfolk. According to Wikipedia there are about 700,000 bicycles in the city. Each year, about 100,000 of them are stolen and 25,000 end up in the canals. 

Well truth be told I have absolutely no idea how many cars there are in Norfolk but I just had to make the title of today's blog a bit cooler as it really should have been THE DAYS OF PLANES, TRAINS AND CHURCHES. You see that as I travel around the area I have been interested in the amount of ruined churches, they too seem to be everywhere. I can think of at least 6 such ruins that I have seen and, once again, we have our very own ruin in the village. If it was not for the rather spooky tentacles of Ivy roots climbing the tall church tower looking like some kind of Salvador Dalí designed organ pipes the tower itself would have fallen down too.

FACT: There are more Churches in Norfolk than in the whole of the rest of Great Britian, some 800 of which are medieval! Well I guess that there is an argument that proportionally there would also be a lot more ruined churches here. However my gut instinct (the same one that makes me wave to jet fighter pilots) tells me that the Norfolk builders in days of old were,   well,    were a bit crap. 

I mean for the most part they were only bungalows, tall bungalows but just one storey buildings none the less. No floors to worry about, no lavatories (the congregation should have had a wizz before going to church), no kitchens and no bedrooms, I mean it was the easiest thing to design in the world. So it has to have been the builders which is a little frustrating really because if you ask the Monty Python team you will find out that one of the MANY things that the Romans did for us was give us the best specification for both concrete and mortar. They just had to make the sticky stuff into a box shape and stick a bit of wood on top with a tower on the end and if possible point it towards Jerusalem to boot. How hard can it be?

They must have been a bit like the 'cable guy' today, paid by how many they could knock up, if they did a church a bit quick they could get a couple of chapels done before tea. There is a village not too far away called  Reepham that had 3 churches at one time. Once again one of them adds to the tally of quite literally 'God forsaken churches' but the other two are still standing (see left) and there is just about a yard (meter) between the two buildings. If both churches had Harvest festival at the same time there would have been a hell of a cacophony of clashing harmonies and imagine the who-har if one church is having a wedding whilst the other a funeral. Even worse the two get confused and they start singing "here comes the Bride all white and died" as the realisation dawns on them that they have the stiff and not the bride at all!

   If you were Scottish you could arrange you wedding the same time and day as another couple in the other church and then not have to pay the choir or organist just accept the hymns that next door are having and simply join in. You could even save on the Bell ringers, just run out quickly when you hear them start for the other couple. It would probably be pushing it to try to squeeze into view in the back of their photo shoot, but hay, in for a penny in for a pound!

  So my words of wisdom to you are DON'T BUY A CONVERTED CHURCH because it appears to be NFN that churches around here and perhaps along with Christianity were not given a very long shelf life and now many are past their use by date!





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