Category: Journal

BBQ.  Family birthday.  Doesn’t get much better than that, really.  Sorted out Will’s laptop too, which was a relief - especially since I’d left him waiting for my promise of help for weeks!

This evening we went to see a JLP Drama Society production of Rebecca, a stage play based on the novel of the same name by Daphne Du Maurier, which in turn was made famous by Hitchcock’s movie.  The performance was amazing, marred only slightly by the rustling of most of the audience putting on their Waitrose-supplied ponchos when a few drops of water fell from the sky.  Some of us, having been wet once or twice before and knowing it’s not life-threatening, braved the few spots of rain and soldiered on, as did the cast

Today we had lunch with Charlie’s dad, and this evening we tried to go to Mick’s charity Michael Buble event – and failed.

Failed because of traffic – Bagshot Road was stationary from Sainsbury’s all the way to the M3 (we think – we didn’t wait to find out).  After a couple of hours and having moved only a few metres, we rebelliously crossed the centre reservation (hurrah for selectable 4WD mode) and sought a new route, via Egham and the M25.  However, by the time we got to Egham we had already missed the start of the concert, and realised that in order to make it in time for the interval there would need to be absolutely no traffic.  Should there have been traffic, and should we have turned around, we would have ended up in the same traffic that caused the A322/M3 problem in the first place!

Oh well, we tried!

Yesterday we set off to Oakham in Leicester, to go and see the cow I sponsored for Charlie for her birthday.  It was an… interesting… experience.  There’s nothing quite like the stone cold cautiousness you feel when you approach, on foot, a herd of cows in a field.  Especially when you’re about 100m away from the gate.  You start trying to calculate how much ground you could cover before the nearest cow gets up enough speed to catch you up.

We managed to get within a few metres of Charlie’s cow before what we interpreted as the cow asking us not to come any closer.

Then we went back to the hotel and went out for a curry.  Neither of us had beef, of course.

We left Oakham this morning and decided to head straight to Bocketts Farm just outside Leatherhead, where we fed another cow, hugged some hug-loving goats, and generally had a fun time.

Yesterday the dog went into kenels and we went to a wedding in Wales, staying overnight in a B&B.

To say the place was definitely in Wales is an understatement.  I had no idea how far west you can drive from the Welsh border without falling into the Irish Sea.  Although the M4 gets you just past Swansea, it feels like it unceremoniously dumps you over the Severn Bridge and leaves you to make your own way cross-country to your destination.  We stayed at Poppit Sands in Cardigan, which is around two and a half hours drive from the bridge!

Anyway, we’re back, we had a great time, and the car performed pretty well – it was the first long journey it’s done, and the mpg gauge consistently showed over 40mpg (including the winding country roads between Cardigan and the M4).