Monday 3rd June

What a difference a day makes (just twenty-four little hours), as someone once sung.  The sun was shining and it has been a lovely day.  Poached eggs on toast, off to Bluewater, buying even more clothes that neither of us really needs, but at least it will help the economy I suppose.  Not that there were that many people actually buying stuff, a lot of browsers and the coffee shops were full but not much business at the tills. Lunch of Indian street food at ‘Indigo’.

Friends round in the afternoon, glasses of wine on the lawn, and all around the lake people were relaxing, barbeque-ing in this rare early summer sunshine.  An early dinner at our favourite Thai restaurant, where by the river we watched as a huge cruise liner was towed by two barges to the middle of the river, slowly nudging it away from the shore as the high tide approached, a Port of London authority boat keeping any other river traffic away, passengers lining the decks and waving to us on the shore as we waved back.  Slowly, slowly she was brought out, the anchor ropes stowed away and then with a long blast on her horn she was off, guided by the tugs but gently turning her own massive propellers she glided like some giant white swan of the river downstream from Greenwich to Silvertown and beyond.

A real treat to see her go off, it made the day.  And what a lovely day it was too.  Hope your was half as good