Sunny interludes (1)

I haven’t posted for a while, mainly due to being too busy. However, last weekend we went to visit my mother.  We have been going to visit her once a month throughout the restrictions and will probably continue now that things are starting to open up.  She is 89, and although double-vaccinated, very cautious about going out and meeting people.  As indeed are we.

So last week we had booked to go to an open air concert in Painshill Park, a local stately garden.  The weather was threatening thunderstorms, but being British we packed our waterproofs and carried on.  The day before was muggy and overcast, but we decided to go out in case the concert was rained off, and drove down to the river to look at the boats.  The river is the Thames, and we parked near my childhood home and walked up towards Kingston Bridge.  It turned out that there was a junior sculling regatta, all boats from single sculls up to octuples (I didn’t know that word and had to look it up), so we sat in the (unexpected) sunshine and watched the races.  My mother always enjoys watching rowing as she used to row for Durham when she was at uni.  Being British it had not occurred to us that it might be sunny, so we failed to take any sun cream, and had glowing faces the next day.