Good morning
I haven’t spoken to M as there seems to be a problem with our landline – lots of buzzing and whirring and intermittent stops (probably overhanging branches). He has left a very brief message on my mobile phone.
It sounds as though the situation is becoming more serious – if I am reading it correctly.
It seems that it has been suggested that M was actually going to land on the lawn of the ranch (did not realise that ranches had lawns) but was prevented from doing so by bad weather. I think this very unlikely.
M is a very proficient aviator who has flown around much of the world in this type of light aircraft, specifically designed for tricky manoeuvres onto battle fields during WWII. If M had intended to land on the lawn he would have done so – bad weather or not (and he has experienced some truly awful weather in the past).
I understand that he is to appear before a judge in Texas (I don’t know where exactly) on Wednesday. I am unable to contact him as I don’t know in which department of Austin State Hospital he is being held and can get no further than the switchboard.
I don’t know whether he has been questioned by the Secret Service yet, though I think that this is likely.
M is somewhat eccentric and is quite capable of rather innocently making such a gesture as leaving a message at the ranch gate for the President. He was and is very grateful the US coastguard retrieved so quickly and efficiently from the Caribbean and has already visited the individuals involved to thank them personally.
It has not been out of character for M to visit famous people on his travels. He visited Sir Edmund Hillary during his flight around New Zealand and was presented with a new pair of JR Williams boots at the end of the London to Sydney Air Race by John Howard, then Prime Minister of Australia.
I hope that the US authorities are sympathetic to a rather one-off English eccentric who is bumbling round the world in an 80 mph (maximum ground speed) very old Piper Cub aircraft.
KK (M’s wife)