Clutch-foot cramp

I was back in Worthing today; and the journey down seemed to last an eternity. The entire M25 was at a standstill. There were rumours of Olympic activities all over the West of London; Box Hill, Richmond, Windsor... It seemed every road or motorway leading off the M25 was either closed or promising serious delays.  I got in quite a panic, worrying that I would suddenly find myself at a complete standstill, with nothing more to do than wave a silly flag as a load of cyclists rushed past. I crawled along the motorway, getting a cramp in my clutch leg, phoning Nathan periodically to scream with frustration whilst worrying that I was going to have to go into hibernation for the next two weeks to avoid anything this hideous happening to me again.

I stopped in a transport cafe just outside Brighton for lunch. I arrived just as they were closing, but the lovely cafe owner told me I could have anything on the menu and that she’d make it ‘specially for me. I had a veggie burger – without salad, ‘cus she’d run out of lettuce. We had a lovely chat, however, about roads and trucks and chips...

The Worthing session went very well; PK and I have found a good rhythm now, and the two numbers we were working on, the wildly contrasting Dies Irae and Offertory, kept our minds fresh. I get the feeling PK’s going to really enjoy working on those two movements. Maddy, of course, slotted into the mix, sounded utterly marvellous.

The journey home took half the time of the journey there, and I was rewarded, and sometimes hindered, by the most beautiful straw-coloured light, which was being generated by a blinding orange sun, just above the horizon. I went up the A24, past the magnificent Box Hill. The one benefit of all this rain, is that the countryside is still lime green and alive, and Box Hill was glowing like a pair of luminous socks in a 1980s club! I drove up through the detritus of the Olympic long-distance cycle race, which, surprise surprise, the British favourite managed to screw up. The rule of thumb with Olympics is that the big British hope will always fail – and the ones who no one expects to do well, will triumph.

I’m home now, and we’re going camping in Cornwall tomorrow, so there’s much to do.

Wasn’t the opening ceremony special? I quite like that it bemused the rest of the world!

Pepys waved his wife and her maid off on the coach to Buckden 350 years ago, and confessed to feeling very sad, but relieved that she no longer had to put up with the building site which their house had become. He ate his tea alone, and went and worked in the office alone, feeling rather sorry for himself: “to my chamber a little troubled and melancholy, to my lute late, and so to bed, Will lying there at my feet, and the wench in my house in Will’s bed.” Bless...