Where's Bertie? He's on a 5-pitch campsite a mile outside of the village of Melbourne, just SE of York, where it costs £16 per night, plus 27p per unit of electricity.
Weather: Sunny intervals, and windy, but pleasantly warm (shorts & t-shirt without a fleece)
We were sitting at home a couple of days ago when Mick read that the engines of the Nimrod at the Yorkshire Air Museum were going to be run this weekend. "Well, let's go!" I said. We'd no reason to be at home and, in fact, there was even greater incentive to go away, as Erica broke last Monday morning and the garage couldn't fit her in until next Thursday, so we were without a car.
Mick booked this campsite, and we drove up on Friday. It's a nice site: a flat, mown field split into five enormous pitches, each with an electric point, a tap and a waste water point. Payment for both the pitch fee and electricity use is on an honesty system.
The downside is that it's not close to anything - although under normal circumstances I wouldn't think anything of the 1-mile walk to the village, but right now my left shin is only just starting to forgive me for the abuse I gave it last weekend.
It is, however, only a fifteen minute drive to the Air Museum, and that's where we headed this morning.
We spent the best part of five hours there. Just before we went in search of lunch in the cafe, we nipped over to the Nimrod and chatted to one of the volunteers, whose time at RAF Kinloss coincided with Mick's. At the end of that, Mick asked if they ever had open days when you can go inside the aircraft, whereupon we were invited to hop over the rope and do so there and then.
Lunch then filled the next hour, before we returned to watch the engines be fired up, run up to 80%, and all the moving bits (rudder, flaps, bomb bay doors) get exercised. It's a process they try to do every month, to keep it as a 'live' aircraft - one of only two remaining Nimrods in that state.
With the engine run complete, a group of people were asking questions of one of the volunteers, who in turn pointed to Mick, and said that he had first hand knowledge. There ensured a lengthy Q&A session - Mick and one chap in particular could probably have carried on for half the afternoon!
We didn't quite see everything there was to see on the site, or at least some of it we only saw at a glance. After four and a half hours, we were flagging. However, our ticket is valid for a year so it's not impossible that we'd find ourselves nearby again during that period.
Our intentions had been to go from there to the pub in Melbourne for tea, but it transpires that the pub changed hands in the last couple of weeks, has only just re-opened and today was their 'Midsummer festival' with live music and a barbecue. We drove past, but I declared it too busy, so we didn't trouble ourselves to find somewhere to park, instead returning straight to the campsite.
I recorded a video of the whole engine run process, but otherwise only took these three take photos..
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