Pose

I walked from Waterloo station to the Royal Air Force Club yesterday morning.  I was to join other (formerly) young colleagues from my first frontline squadron (No 20 Squadron, flying Jaguars in the Strike role from RAF Brüggen in German) in a reunion, our annual get together.

I walked instead of the Tube or the (free) bus ride because I've recently acquired an old Fujifilm digital camera and I wanted to do a bit of "street".  It was a delight to use: the slower speed of operation didn't bother me and the small Fuji 35 ƒ2 lens did a great job.  This girl was on her own and had just asked some strangers to snap her in front of the Palace of Westminster (see Extra).

I found it curiously depressing crossing Westminster Bridge and passing the Parliament buildings; so little of any use has happened there, and a great deal that has damaged the country, in the last eight years.  Brexit was paralysing Government departments even before the pandemic and that paralysis was a dreadful drag on effective action when Covid arrived – we now see from the inquiry that is under way.

But the reunion was a success.  I had no problems on the trains, although it took me about an hour to find my Veteran's Railcard on my iPhone, so cleverly had I hidden it!  Luckily the ticket collector was ex-RAF, so we spent most of that hour discussing different aircraft etc . . .