The Flying Dutchman

I crossed the North Sea this evening in a city hopper plane from BHX to AMS. The sea was pitch black. The sky even darker. I was thinking of T’s uncle who lost his life in these waters returning from an RAF air raid on Nazi Germany in WW2.

As I approached the Dutch coast I made a number of significant observations.

1. My flight this evening , and countless millions of others, was, in part, made possible by the bravery of that wartime generation.

2 This was my first foray back into continental Europe since Covid and Brexit. The fear of the former saw me wearing a mask all the way and the shock of the latter was having to have my EU passport stamped as I was no longer a citizen of The European Union.

3 Most worryingly of all was the reality that in Central Europe a war is being fought again. My ultimate destination tonight is to a country that shares a short border with Ukraine.

“The history book on the shelf (really is) … always repeating itself”.