30 Days Wild - Day 7: A flying visit

After our long and arduous journey on Friday, followed by our dormouse packed Saturday, we were in need of a relaxing stop on our way back up north today.

We settled on Shuttleworth, near Bedford. Home not only to a recently restored Victorian "Swiss Garden" but even more importantly (according to Gareth anyway) the best collection of vintage aircraft in the UK, if not the world! Even better than that, today was an airshow day so we could even see them flying.

You might think that an airshow isn't particularly "wild" in the natural sense - but you'd be wrong. Lots of the planes on show today had wild names; "Tiger Moth", "Martlet", Comper "Swift", Cirrus "Moth", Hawker "Cygnet"and "Hind", Sopwith "Pup" and "Camel", "Chipmunk", Piper Super"cub", the Mew "Gull" and Gareth's favourite of the day the Fieseler "Storch" (German for Stork!?)

The Fieseler Storch - Capable of incredibly short take-off and landings, seemingly able to hang in the air. A very apt name indeed!

Just to make sure we'd covered true wildness today we did spend some time in the Swiss Garden with the local wildlife, particularly the resident peacocks and watching dozens of bees busy pollinating these Nepeta.

So not all plane spotting then....