Saturday 8th July 2023

Woke at 0745. Got up and made tea. Porridged. Got ourselves readied for the drive to Wrecclesham to visit Pete Glanville and his gals. Set off at 1000...sat nav suggested a 90 minute drive, traffic permitting, but we hadn't planned for the closure of the westbound M3 at J4. We came off the M25 well before hitting the traffic jam for the M3 turn off, and headed for Camberley via the A30. Stopped to use the facilities at Bagshot Garden Centre, just as a brief thunderstorm swept in. Sat in traffic for about half-an-hour on the M3, all alternative routes looking pretty snarled up. Got to Wrecclesham at 1300, parked up, and popped into the Co-op store opposite Pete and Marigold's house. Pete was hanging over his garden gate looking out for us. We'd bought the girls some Magnum choc ices for the freezer. We hadn't seen them for about three years...Tansey is now 4, Eliza 8, and Iris 11 and due to start secondary school in September. They got stuck into their Magnums! Marigold had made lunch...a tasty asparagus tart, with mayonnaise potatoes and a mixed salad. The house is c1970, and Pete reckons it was owned by the church to house staff...there's a little row of four of them. They are quite pokey inside, but bigger than the two-bed flat they were living in in Bounds Green, and there's a decent sized garden. Pete seems to be enjoying his new post as CEO of Farnham Maltings...they seem to have their fingers in many pies, and produce quite a lot of small scale touring theatre across the south-east region. Marigold is hoping to re-start her drama therapy career once Tansey starts pre-school in the autumn...they have a lot of mouths to feed. We left around 1645 and drove home. Got in around 1845. Cooked up a mushroom and anchovy sauce which we had with wholemeal tagliatelle. Watched a bit of tennis...Katie Boulter failed to put up much of a fight against the Wimbledon Champion...