The Weekend That Was

So last week I was very busy. Friday, Saturday, Sunday - I was out everyday, and it was hot and sunny every one of those days.

York

On the Friday we went to York for the day. We spent most of the day at the National Railway Museum with a minor adventure to track down the nearby McDonalds - can you believe that their McFlurry machine had broken down due to the heat? Seriously, an ice cream machine broke down because it was hot outside.

Anyway back to the museum, we hadn't planned to go during a particular exhibition but purely by chance we visited shortly after the opening of the exhibition celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Mallard's steam locomotive world speed record breaking run.

And especially for the occasion the Mallard and it's five surviving A4 'sister' locomotives were brought together at the museum for 'The Great Gathering'.

I would really have liked to have inserted a clip here from Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End of Captain Barbosa saying 'There's not been a gathering like this in our lifetime'. But I couldn't find one of just that... or started with that - it was the whole trailer or nothing... so you'll have to do with out.

So anyway this was the Great Gathering...

L-R Sir Nigel Gresley, Dwight D Eisenhower, Union Of South Africa

L-R Bittern, Mallard, Dominion Of Canada

Waddington Airshow

And so on to Saturday when we were up bright and early(ish) to head off to the Waddington Airshow at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire.

Momentary blip when we got stuck in traffic whilst approaching Lincoln we didn't do too bad for time when it came to getting there. And we arrived with just enough time to get to a good spot to watch the Battle Of Britain Memorial Flight arrive.

There was also a special flypast for the 70th Anniversary of The Dambusters Raid which included the Lancaster Bomber (pictured above in the centre) and a Tornado jet currently in 617 Squadron (the squadron that took part in the raid 70 years ago). However I didn't actually get a photo of that but I did get a photo of the specially painted tail of a Tornado that was in the static display.

And amongst other flying displays of course there were the Red Arrows and the Vulcan Bomber XH558 which we were actually able to see being moved in to position ready for it's take-off.

Red Arrows

Vulcan Bomber XH558

Bridlington

And finally on the Sunday we went to Bridlington.

Of which I only took one photo.

We had fish and chips, waffles with fruit and loads of cream and went for a paddle in the North Sea - which I might add, no matter how hot the weather is the North Sea is always icy cold.

I made it through this weekend with only minimal sunburn thanks to applying copious amounts of sun factors 30 and 50 sun lotion* every two minutes (tiny exaggeration there). I say factors 30 and 50 because I actually had two different sun lotions with me.

*I have come to the conclusion that my skin only does two shades - pale and burnt to a crisp, so lots of sun lotion is a must.

So what did you get up to last weekend?