THE OLD WOMAN AND THE WINCH
I wonder what Papa Hemingway or Ernst Gann would have made out of Bicester had they lived in our time! Hemingway´s The Old Man and the Sea might have been called The Old Man (Woman) and the Winch. Ernst Gann might have written a moving story of the Bicester insiders living here, who spend the evening in a bar chatting and putting the World right and between 10 - 11pm the group starts finding their sleeping places around the airfield. One by one they disappear into the Bicester darkness. Some climp to the top floor, there are some rooms there, some live in caravans around the place, there is a motorhome on the other side of the hanger. Everybody has got a place to put their head down and sleep. I have not seen anybody sleeping under their aeroplane wing. That is the most romantic thing in the World, sleeping the night under the wing! I have done it a few times in Finland when arriving to the airfield too late to arrange an accomodation. All I need is a sleeping bag and a hope that the bears and wolves will leave me alone. They do, I am quite comfortable going to the forest on my own without a gun where they live. The wolves and bears need to know that I am there, so I make lots of noises, normally I sing loud, so animal hide and let me pass. We Finns, wolves and bears have a unwritten rules, which we all respect. So far it has failed only once, some years ago a bear killed a jogger in a fores in Easter part of Finland. He failed to make noises, let the animals to know he is there. Jogging on a soft undergrowth of the forest is almost silent. He jogged between a bear and it´s cub. There is no way to survive that.
The day, Tuesday 1st of May, when I closed the Bicester airfield gate behind me, I left the outside World out there and entered a new one. Just like they do in Rotary Clubs around the World! Yesterday was a turning point for me, I found a TV and the news! I have not seen nor heard the News for couple of weeks. I had already forgotten that there was once outside World out there! Yesterday night at 10 o´clock news I got to know that France has got a brand new president! And in Russia Putin is back in power, of course he never left the power in the first place. "Russia is Russia, even if you fry the country in a butter", as the old folks used to say in Finland when I was a child and long after. We Finns have a long relationship with Russia, 1800km of border to start with.
It seems so far away when I was still cooking roast chicken, beef, pheasants, wild ducks, making soups, stews, lunches, suppers, creating nice desserts and having bottle of good wine to go with. And having a nice malt or port afterwards. And to start with, Gin and Tonic, the mother´s ruin! I could drink buckets of T and G! So very English. Now I am creating a new way of living. I am planning to start cooking from the scratch. I don´t want to survive on ready made meals even that there is Marks and Spencer in town.
I look scruffy. We all do. There is no space for make up, high heels, sexy clothes when around planes and gliders. I left even my beautiful hand bags behind in Finland. This Summer is for gliding and flying. You know what, I am not even changing my socks everyday anymore... I am getting totally wild here... and that is just after couple of weeks... what about after a few months... would you even recognize me... we will see..........
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