Leeds Castle, Kent & The Loft at Home

Easter Monday was spent with the family on an expedition to Leeds Castle Kent, on a bright but very cold day. Walking around the grounds it seemed we were mixed up in some kind of  'child buggy' grand prix with hundreds of tots being pushed around the network of paths surrounding this 'Loveliest of castles'.

The best part of the visit was the Falconry display which consisted of a lazy Eagle Owl shown above in one of it's more active moments, 2 Harris Hawks and a superb Peregrine/Saker Falcon cross.

The Harris Hawks gave a superb flying display and chased a 4 year old girl across the arena who was towing a 'bunny lure'

The peregrine/Saker Falcon was released and it promptly flew away gaining an altitude of 1,500 feet and was not seen again!! Well not by us as it was bitterly cold and a hot drink beckoned.

Today has been spent mostly in the dark of the Loft in my own 3 bedroom castle.....there have been a few collapses and falls of boxes during the past 12 months and I have decided that a major tidying session was needed to;  find stock for Saturdays Shoreham Aeromart, to find kits and figures for my new focused approach to modelling and wargaming  and to make room for the build up of 'stuff' collected in the past year and to free up the study and modelling room.

It has been a journey into the unknown and a bit like my perfect Christmas as there were kits and figures I had totally forgotten about lurking in the far recesses of the roof space. I have managed only to circumnavigate one half so far but found a lot of what I was looking for.... a few pics will be posted of the gems soon but they included a poster of Emerson Fittipaldi's McLaren from 1974 which used to be on my wall at home in the 70's, an original boxed Airfix 1/32nd Strongpoint and the remains of my first Airfix Waterloo Farmhouse!