A nice day for a barbeque, was it not? With horizon to horizon blue, and the thermometer steadily climbing throughout the day, the answer was a resounding “Yes”! So the shed doors were flung open and out came Mr Weber’s finest 22-and-a-half inch kettle, and various charcoal arranging/lighting (none of your gas nonsense here!) and cooking activities ensued. We had already consumed the small pepper-encrusted steaks and pork and ginger burgers, and whilst I was working on the next round of minted lamb kebabs and sweet chilli sausages, I became aware of a low frequency beat, rapidly rising in volume, somewhere off to the east.
In just a few seconds our afternoon reverie was shattered as over the ridge came a loose, low level formation of HM’s RAF eggbeaters – 3 Pumas with 6 Chinooks right behind! A lone Puma trailed the formation at a short distance – perhaps this singleton was the camera/spare/whip ship? One of the Chinooks was clearly wearing the 28 Sqn 100th Anniversary scheme.
What a racket! They circled the village and disappeared back east over the ridge, and the now less obtrusive sounds indicated they had likely landed at RAF Little Rissington. Shortly thereafter the idling engines could be heard winding up again, and a repeat audio thrashing of the village ensued, but this time the formation of nine was much tighter and neater, and they continued west out of sight.
My attention had, of course, not been entirely focussed on the barbecue in those few minutes so the kebabs, in particular, suffered from being rather well done on one side, ha ha! No matter, as they ended up tasting just fine, and with the sounds of rural Gloucestershire returning to normal once more, we resumed our afternoon relaxation, finishing off the meal with a rather good rhubarb, strawberry and orange pavlova. The entire meal was, of course, helped down with a very pleasant bottle of medium dry cava!
Cheers to the rotary folks, and thanks for the chest-thrumming, ear-slapping flypasts! Do I need to put in a heads-up call to RAF Benson or RAF Odiham for when I next have a barbecue? ;-)