Service

We're on the M11, heading back from Saffron Walden, where the car's just been serviced. Thank God for local knowledge. My Dad's builder saw me getting out of our car in Thaxted, and said he knew a local mechanic, should we need one, who was very reasonable and particularly good with Volkswagens. He was correct. The guy's done a brilliant job, replaced various parts, including a smashed wing mirror, and fixed all sorts of problems, for about half what we paid in London for the service only. 

The garage was in the middle of absolutely nowhere, between two cornfields at the end of a poplar-lined lane, which looked like the South of France in the sunshine. With the idyllic setting came thousands of thunder bugs, which I haven't seen in plague-like proportions since my childhood in drought-ridden Bedfordshire! 

The car now goes like a dream. We're both thrilled 

The less thrilling news of the day is that Nathan's mother has had a minor heart attack. She's currently in a hospital in Stoke, apparently feeling rather poorly after an operation to have a variety of stents and things fitted into her arteries. We're obviously incredibly concerned, and wish her the very speediest of recoveries. 

We've been in Cambridge all day, and had a particularly lovely little picnic with the parents by the side of the Granta. Apparently some weird poisonous blue algae has found its way into the river, so the powers-that-be are discouraging swimming this year, which makes me feel a little sad. What is a summer without a dip in the Cam? What happens if I fall in when I next go punting? Will I melt?