into the skies

Friday 

26 July 

Day 26

70 to go

After a busy day yesterday, we were happy for a quieter one today. We started with a well needed sleep in. Once out, we slothed around in the lounge, watching the news and having breakfast. By 10am, we were ready to get our day started. Having had a couple of non-walking days, we were keen to get our for a wander. The Hitchin markets were on, so we wandered into town and checked out the various stalls, most were bric-a-brac and of no interest to us. 

We continued through the town, which was quite busy with locals and then completed a round circle back to Chell’s. We had time for a quick change and then it was in the car to head to Stevenage, so we could spend our afternoon with Dario.

We arrived just after midday and found Dario in his lounge with the cats. We chatted with him for a short while, before heading into the old town, where we parked up and found a pub to enjoy lunch and a long chat. 

With lunch done, Paul was keen to check out a small brewery tap room at Six Hills Brewing, so we went in search of the premises. We needed to do some back tracking, but we located it eventually. Paul enjoyed a couple of brews, before we made our way back to Dario’s to continue our lovely afternoon. 

By 5pm, we realised we needed to head back to Chell’s. We said our goodbyes and then joined the evening commute, arriving back shortly after 5pm. We caught up with Chello’s news and then we decided to go out to the airfield, so that I could go up in the plane with Chell. We packed up things we needed, drove out to the farm and then unloaded at the other end. 

Chell readied the plane and by 8pm we were in the air enjoying the glorious view of the fields, towns and soon the cityscape of London. Chell gave me some flying instructions and then I was in control of our journey. I found it quite enjoyable, maybe I can do it when I retire. 

We stayed up for 30min, before touching back down once again. The landing was a bit bumpy, but was easy enough. After scrambling out of the tight cockpit, we waited for Chell to do all he needed and then w were ready to head back, but it wasn’t as quick as we would have liked, as the car died and needed to be bump started. Thankfully we made it home. 

Once back, we tuned into the final part of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony. What we saw was pretty impressive. By 11pm we were well and truly ready to go to bed.