WELL! I take a break for three weeks and everything kicks off!

Where to start? The general election? That’ll have to wait.

How about Old Sarum, where the operators have carried out their threat to boot out all the planes?

A little old aerodrome without aircraft is a dismal sight, as you will discover if you pop up there or watch the poignant farewell videos that fliers have posted on YouTube.

Incidentally, one of these shows the appalling decay of the listed hangar which I was prevented by the operators from photographing during their recent planning appeal.

These individuals declared that if they didn’t get permission for housing, they’d increase flying to raise revenue. Perfect. It’s what airfields are for. They must have thought it was possible, and viable.

Yet they’ve done precisely the opposite, and even threatened to turn it over to farming.

It’s very sad. But at least we all know where we stand.

I’m hoping that Laverstock & Ford parish council and their Salisbury city counterparts will set up a joint working group with the tireless Wiltshire councillor for Old Sarum, Ian McLennan, and the Facebook campaigners from SOS – Save Old Sarum.

Sustained pressure needs to be piled on Trowbridge to find a way of saving this historic asset for the nation.

Going down the compulsory purchase route wouldn’t be easy or cheap, but it might become inevitable.

So where’ve I been meanwhile?

Most recently, touring Malta with Salisbury Community Choir.

And jolly gratifying it was to receive standing ovations in all three glorious churches where we performed.

Back in the day I would sometimes volunteer dutifully to accompany our boys’ classes on school trips. Exhausting.

I’d have thought getting 70-odd adults to the right place at the right time would be a doddle in comparison.

I’d have been wrong. Our long-suffering committee had their work cut out shepherding us from hotel to coach, to sightseeing destination to concert venue, coping with incidents en route such as Yours Truly slipping on a wet pavement and cracking her head so hard I can’t believe there’s no lasting damage.

(If I make even less sense than usual, perhaps that’s why!)

There was much laughter, though, along the way.

How many of you remember The Fast Show’s parody of those awful TV stations we scroll past on European holidays, with overexcited presenters gabbling a nonsensical mish-mash of Mediterranean languages?

Well, our lovely, welcoming Maltese announcers’ English sounded a bit like that at times. I’m sure our audiences thought our name was ‘Salisbury Comedy Choir’ and our conductor, Jeremy Backhouse, became “Bughouse” or even “Boghouse”!

My funniest memory is of Valletta, where members were changing into their black uniforms at the Dominican Basilica.

A white-robed friar wandered through, seemingly oblivious to our semi-clad status.

Just then, a bewildered female voice piped up: “These aren’t my trousers!”

A pause. “They’re my husband’s!”

Followed by a longer, baffled pause. “So what’s he wearing, then?”

I never found out.

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