My 12 days of Christmas

A proper lie in was followed today by a visit to Millets Farm to grab lunch and go ice skating. Fortunately for me the skating rink was fully booked up!

Then this afternoon I managed to convince my other half’s family to help me satisfy one of my life-long ambitions, well for as long as I have been coming up to this part of the Chiltern Hills’ countryside anyway.

A few miles from here is Russell’s Water, where in one of my favourite all time films Dick Van Dyke playing inventor Caractacus Potts driving of course Chitty Chitty Bang Bang runs Truly Scrumptious, played by Sally Ann Howes, off the road into a duck pond. The pond is still there and a lot of the scenes from the 1968 movie were filmed around this area, including the windmill at Cobstone. Both writer of the book, Ian Fleming and the screenplay, Roald Dahl lived in the area.

Anyway, I stood at the side of that duck pond today and imagined that little yellow car stuck in the water and my childhood memories ran away with me.