I just flew out of Heathrow airport in London as the sun sank low on the horizon. As we gained altitude Windsor Castle came into view, a British landmark so associated with the royal family that they took their family name from it when the German family name seemed inappropriate during World War II. The massive castle with it’s round central keep stood out from the town around it. Only the nearby cathedral offered any rivalry to it’s view.
Not far from the castle I spotted the distinct outline of a Romanesque church with it’s round arches and solid walls that predate the flying buttresses of the Gothic style.
We passed near lakes including one with what appeared to be a jump ramp and with water-skiers or jet-skiers disturbing the surface of the water like so many water bugs.
The land was filled with irregularly shaped fields and hedgerows of various sizes so different from the regular square fields that one sees in the mid-west of the United States. These fields were almost certainly recorded in the Dooms Day Book after the conquest of William the conqueror in 1066. This maze of fields is cut through here and there by rivers and by canals that carried so much of The countryside’s goods to market before the age of steam and railroads.
A bright red hot air balloon and a small plane taking off from a grass airfield seemed to hug the ground from our vantage point high above them.
The unmistakable cooling towers of a Nuclear power plant punctuated the landscape as if to say that all the history laid out before me was not from a country frozen in time.
Finally my view of the country below was shrouded by beautiful puffy white clouds catching the rays of the setting sun.
I understand that some people hate to fly. The security lines, the long layovers (mine was over four hours in Heathrow), the hassles with luggage (both types, carry-on and lost) have robbed them of the wonder that I had when I sat as a child with my nose pressed to the airplane window. Not me. Give me the window seat any day and don’t be surprised to find my nose prints on it.
