General Chat

What a clever idea said one of the cowboys from Cowboy Town. Otherwise it will cost you a King's Ransome to off the island on the pirate run ferries.

But Allan didn't have a King to ransome - so does he have enough budgies for lift off?

Allan explored more of the Isle in the hope of finding more flying power.

On the north coast he was suddenly aware of an approaching noise.

Dashing across the Solent was a hovercraft.
Now that might be the answer.
He could harness the energy of all the hot air and build himself a craft ..........

Meandering across Tennyson Downs, Allan picked a few flowers to give to OH to sweeten the case, that if push come to shove, they would have to doggy paddle over to the mainland. Allan wondered if the ether contained a few soldiers from The Charge, that would get them out of trouble, and horses can swim, cant they?

OH quite fancied the idea of staying the night in Vick and Al's old drum, Osborne House...…

By now Allan was extremely confused.

He had never been to the Isle of White in his life. The closest he had been was a fortnight spent at Winterbourne Gunner when he was in the Army Reserve.

To be honest, he never really liked going south of Waterford. here you had to scrape the woad of your body (hence the expression 'all woads lead to Rome') try to appear cultured and act as if you enjoyed 'civilization'

Give him the wild North where you were free to be.

Free to be what he wasn't sure of, but then neither were any other Northerners, so that was fine.

This meant that he had to get of this Island come hell or highwater.

The comment about the hovercraft and hot air stirred something in Allan's mind.

Now that they had been miraculously re-united (Allan was probably asleep when that happened) if he could get her to talk incessantly (no problem there) he could sit on her back and use her as a human hovercraft.

Brilliant!.

Before this idea had chance to dwell too long and evolve into commonsense, Allan persuaded OH of the wonderful opportunities ahead if they headed for the mainland and so they followed the route of the hovercraft and found themselves in Portsmouth.

Allan had heard a few rum tales about events in Pompey, but decided to explore for himself.

First stop, the nearby funfair and amusement arcade.

Allan was bored going around and around in the chair-o-planes. He looked towards the Spinnaker, but what was that he espied?

HMS Victory...……….well that was that! If it was good enough for Nelson, then it was good enough for him.

Before you could say Kiss Me Hardy, Allan and OH were aboard.

Never having been in the Glorious South before Allan wasn't aware of it's many glorious sights......so obviously he'd be taken with the sheer splendor of HMS Victory.
They thought it wise to check the ship out before attempting to sail it...at this point Allan was grateful he wasn't overly tall as below decks was comfy in a closed in type of way. OH was running her finger along every surface and drawing her breath deeply before tut-tutting loudly. Allan knew this was not a good sign........

What Allan needed was a couple of salty sea dogs to swab the decks, check the rigging.

Allan put his fingers to his lips and whistled. A couple of mangy mongrels came aboard. Not exactly the sea dogs he was thinking about......

Meanwhile OH always one to love a man in uniform had let her wandering eyes roam a tad too far.......suddenly she spotted.......

..........The unmistakable pork-pie shape, not of Melton Mowbray delicacies, but the head wear of some approaching sailors.

Now these looked interesting.
They looked a confidant bunch and spoke with an American drawl.

The huge USA aircraft carrier was visiting the port.

Maybe they would be interesting to befriend, as it looked as if Victory was going nowhere fast, being in dry dock.

OH went over to meet them, clutching her amazing bag.

'Howdy Ma'am' said one of the sailors with a distinct Texan drawl.

Oh, blushed furiously and giggled.

Allan did not like that one bit, and burst into a chorus of Rule Britannia....

Wondered when the dry dock bit might emerge :-D

OH never one for original thoughts had nothing better than "Hello Sailor" to say to the American Sailors......
That got them laughing....."Why you limeys are a funny bunch"......OH took umbrage....having lived down under for many years she couldn't work out why people mixed up the accents.....she reached into her copious bag and found......

...........a large map of southern England.

Where better to get a better understanding of their location than to make the climb up the Spinnaker Tower and take in the panoramic views of the surrounding coastline and city.

OH was not to be parted from her wonderful bag, so Allan, OH plus bag ascending to the dizzy heights.

The views were spectacular., although the glass floor was unnerving.

Allan was wondering whether to head west towards Southampton, east to aim for Dover and continental links or perhaps go inland and see where that led.

Then he noticed the ferries heading to France.

Maybe that would be a good route to take.

He asked OH what she thought.

She replied that she once had ferries at the bottom of the garden, many years ago.

Allan sighed, and pointed out that there was a difference between fairies and ferries.

OH just shrugged and said that when she lived in New Brighton the Liverpool ferry operated in the stretch of water that her garden ran down to.

Allan, mentally interpreting the linguistic gymnastics of that last sentence, could only respond with 'Oh'

Looking around from atop the tower Allan could see the arrival of latest visitor to the Naval Dockyards, none over than the damned submarine that literally popped up at exactly the precise moments that it was required.

Allan jumped for joy.

Unfortunately, Joy moved and Allan managed to crack the glass floor of the tower.

As he stood there the crack got bigger and bigger....

Allan was horrified, especially as OH had her feet either side of the crack!

Allan gallantly dragged her into his arms. 'Oh tisk' said OH, or something like that!

Gingerly they crept around the outside of the platform, and back down in the lift.

Safely back on firm ground, Allan was more determined than ever to get back home.

Allan looked around, and spotted a sign that read HMS Endeavour.

'I wonder if they still use Morse code on that vessel' Allan mused.

HMS Endeavour sounded right, and Allan seemed to remember something about a cook, but the full explanation somehow escaped him.

Without a backward glance, Allan and OH set off in search of the ship......

.. is Allan waiting for Thursday to sort out Endeavour?

'Right' said Fred 'lets get this show on the road. We don't want to look Strange, do we? We want to look like a couple of Bright sparks. We don't want to be all of a Frazil (sorry) or we will have to Jake it all in.'

Allan decided, that indeed this ship knew its way home, so onwards and upwards, they would get this old bucket seaworthy. But where to start.....

At the bottom is always a good place to start thought Allan but how to get there......OH peered into her copious bag and found.....

and pulled out the note that the submarine captain had given to her containing his telephone number.

If they WERE to do anything with the 'Endeavour' a submarine would be an essential first step.

However, thought Allan, there is already a perfectly serviceable replica of the ship in Sydney at the National Maritime Museum. He had had ample time to examine it from the outside while his OH was on one of here exploratory tours of the local public toilets .

It was either the sub to Rhode Island or the sub to Sydney

Whichever way they went it looked like it had to be a Subway .

The only thing at the back of Allan's mind (apart from a lot of empty space) was why?

Just like some people like jumping from perfectly good plans and the using a parachute to land, why would you go into a boat that is actually designed to sink.