{"id":7169,"date":"2026-08-24T10:39:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T10:39:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/?p=7169"},"modified":"2026-08-29T14:33:41","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T14:33:41","slug":"long-drive-to-otterspool-reunion-in-surrey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/?p=7169","title":{"rendered":"Long trek to Otterspool reunion in Surrey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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At Ashtead: Jan, Bob, Sue, Jacqui, Christine, Liz; Brian, Pete, Dot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Wednesday, August 19 – Quite warm but rain in evening. At 6.50pm BBC showed a lengthy piece on the Cromer Carnival, with the reporter and interviewees being drenched and pools of water everywhere, followed immediately by their weather forecast, which said it was still mainly dry, but one or two places had had a few drops of rain. Brilliant joined-up thinking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Earlier we had a chat with Des and Chris, who bought us a Polish soap dish and soap for watering their plants. Then we bussed up to city for a quick look round Sea\u00a0 Salt and a long lunch at C\u00f4te with Angela and Rodney. Very pleasant, though the food was only average. Nice ros\u00e9. Afterwards Dot and I walked home and collapsed – both very tired. I slept for well over an hour in my chair. Later watched another episode of Staircase<\/em>, which was irritating because no-one in it was appealing, and sadly it hasn\u2019t finished yet. To cheer ourselves up we watched Death in Paradise<\/em> – oh, and we also watched highlights of the first Test against Pakistan. Five wickets each for Robinson and Tongue.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Thursday – Cloudy. Quite a bit of rain, but I didn\u2019t go out because I spent all day writing four pieces for Parish Pump – one on St Francis, one on the M25, one on the Jarrow March and one on Winnie the Pooh. Dot made some pavlova for tomorrow. I cooked duck legs for supper, which were very good. Watched cricket, and the start of the new series of Ludwig<\/em>. Bridget came round late morning for a cup of tea but not to clean because her wrist isn\u2019t quite good enough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friday – Mild in Surrey, cooler here. Second very busy day in a row: ended up feeling extremely tired with a headache – not something I get often. That was because I drove well over 300 miles in over seven hours, quite a bit of it in awful traffic on the M25. That sandwiched about 4.5 hours at Sue and Bob\u2019s house in Ashtead, Surrey, with others of Dot\u2019s college friends for the annual reunion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The middle bit was very enjoyable; the driving not so much, especially when it started pouring with rain south of Newmarket. Satnav took us via Baldock and the A1, going clockwise round the M25, then back via the Dartford Crossing. Not much difference in time – or in distance. Dot couldn\u2019t help with driving because I suspected it might aggravate her leg problem. When we got back we watched the cricket – an easy win for England against Pakistan in three days.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saturday – Woke late after bit of a restless night. Spent most of day catching up on things like editing photographs and other admin. Dot did similar things in a different room. Weather dry and little movement from neighbours. Had a bath. Cooked cottage pie for supper, and we accidentally watched the Tour of Spain highlights, in which the usual suspect beat a Briton by a couple of hundredths of a second, which is beyond a joke. Norwich and Spurs both lost 3-0 to London clubs (Millwall and Brentford respectively), following which we had a FaceTime with David and commiserated with each other. Then watched a bit of Bergerac that we\u2019d watched before but had forgotten, causing us to wonder why we watch such programmes in the first place. Then watched EFL soccer and Alan Partridge, which we\u2019d also seen before. Ah well.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sunday – Warm after coolish start. Drove to church and found parking very conveniently and unusually on Sussex Street. Passed David Cannon on the way in and after getting tea had chat with him, Liz and Eleanor outside. Graham led service and preached – extremely well, as usual: this time about how we saw Jesus and how he sees us (in a positive and loving way). Afterwards dropped off Graham\u2019s iPad, which he left at church and was retrieved by Anna. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After lunch Dot prepared material for her holiday and paid M&M credit card. Discovered Kim was arriving just after 6pm from Huddersfield; so after posting birthday cards to my cousin Barbara and Prof Julia I went to meet her (twice, because train was delayed). Some kind of police activity at station: guy being searched in waiting room and some loud bangs outside. Took Kim back home for cup of tea and biscuits and gave her baked beans to take home (we did offer her a meal). Eventually we drove her home with her stuff. She was very grateful. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier I had long chat with Jon Sissons about medical issues – largely the way he\u2019s been treated by the NHS over heart problems and spent a huge amount on private treatment. Cooked a fairly late supper of salmon, and we watched Match of the Day<\/em>. Also listened to computer talk on history of Palestine and Israel – going back a long way. The Crusaders did not come across well.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wednesday, August 19 – Quite warm but rain in evening. At 6.50pm BBC showed a lengthy piece on the Cromer Carnival, with the reporter and interviewees being drenched and pools of water everywhere, followed immediately by their weather forecast, which said it was still mainly dry, but one or two places had had a few … Continue reading Long trek to Otterspool reunion in Surrey<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7169"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7180,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7169\/revisions\/7180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}