St Albans; Saturday, 11 July, 2020

Breakfast was a paper grab-bag containing some muesli, a croissant, cheese and a yogurt – accompanied by a small americano coffee which I took back to my room to consume.

After breakfast I trekked up the hill from the hotel to the centre of town, and on the way spotted that there was a barber on the opposite side of the road offering on-line bookings. Once I got to the bus stops at the top of the hill I had about 15 minutes before my bus onto the first attraction of the morning so I went onto the booking site and was able to secure the last slot of the day at 4pm.

The bus ride was, much like the previous days train ride, my first in over 4 months – and it was a slightly weird experience travelling on a bus that had most of the seats blocked out to ensure social distancing. However, the number of people using it was pretty low so it didn’t create a problem.

The journey out to London Colney took about 30 minutes, including crossing back over the M25 so that I was sort of back inside London – though the quiet country lanes (if you ignored the roar of traffic on the M25), would have suggested being much further away. I got off the bus at the stop for Salisbury Hall and walked down the access lane. Salisbury Hall was, for a number of years, the offices of the de Havilland Airplane Company and it was from these offices that they designed the Mosquito Fighter Bomber that went on to play a significant role in the RAF’s success during WWII.

The Hall is now in private hands, but just behind it is the de Havilland Aircraft Museum which houses a number of examples of the companies aircraft from it’s earliest days, through the war, it becoming the manufacturer of the worlds first passenger jet – the Comet – through to its later aircraft (in fact the story continues as the modern Dash 8 turboprops are once again being manufactured by a company called De Havilland Canada).

I’d booked my slot online in advance as today was the first day that the museum was open following it’s Covid closure, so I was one of the first to try out their new walking route and social distancing measures – which were impressive and ensured you saw most of the collection (though not the option to go inside any of the aircraft)

I spent a good couple of hours looking round the museum before making sure I got my timing right to make it back to the bus stop in time for the half hourly bus back into St Albans. I had a quick stop in a bakery to pick up some lunch and headed back down to my hotel room to consume lunch there, before heading back over to the Cathedral to look around there.

The Cathedral had a good walking route set out so that everyone could keep their distance and also see most of the building – including the puppets from the St Albans parade and a good view down the length of the longest nave in England. By the time I’d finished looking round the cathedral there was just enough time to pop back over to the hotel, drop off my camera, pick up a fresh face mask, and head on over to the barber for my first haircut in more than 8 months (I’d been needing to get my hair cut just before I went away to Lanzarote, but had put it off – as it turned out a bad idea – until after I was due back, but by then lockdown had started).

Finally seeing my ears for the first time in months I headed back to the hotel and freshened up there before heading out for dinner a little later in a very nice Moroccan restaurant in the marketplace area. After dinner I headed back over to the cathedral and had a wander around the grounds in dusk to take some more photos before heading back to the hotel.