I don’t think such a thing has happened to me before, not that I’ve noticed, and it would be quite hard not to notice… when a low-flying plane is circling above you.

It was a beautiful sunny morning for a change and we couldn’t resist cycling over to Cockwood Harbour; it’s a fairly easy five-mile or so round trip, nice and flat by the sea, a few hills down – for pleasure – and the same hills up on our return – for fitness; and besides, the harbour looks different every time we go there, according to the tides, time of day, time of year, weather etc…

Chris and I were cycling back up the bridle path when we saw a small plane, flying low and coming towards us. A walker had stopped in his tracks to watch the spectacle. I stopped too.

“Hold on,” I said to Chris (not for the first time this morning) and got out my mobile phone camera.

The plane flew over our heads and off into the distance in the direction of Torquay. We thought the show was over. But no, the plane turned around and circled twice over our section of bridle path, each time going directly over our heads. It seemed to me that the pilot may have suspected that my mobile camera is a little slow to process after every click nowadays; certainly, I needed the two circles in order to get the few shots you will see here. I would have liked another turn because the sun was in my eyes and I couldn’t see what I was taking, but the pilot had already done his bit for my blog.

We are lucky to live in Dawlish where we have a fantastic air show every summer – we have a great view because our house looks over the sea; and yet, this was different – more personal. We felt highly honoured that the pilot had put on a display for us. Funnily enough, the plane had US, printed in large capitals, on its underside; no wonder we thought it was especially for us.