Degree Show

The task for the day was to drive down to London, see daughter Emily's degree show at midday, at the same time meet Lance's parents for the first time, have a spot of lunch and drive home in the afternoon - well before they closed the M1 (8:30pm) to demolish a bridge.

Basically, all went to plan; we arrived in Peckham on time and with Emily and other collected members of the family in tow, started walking to Camberwell. Not 5 minutes into the journey, the heavens opened and the wettest, most powerful rain I've ever seen started cascading out of the sky.
We were well prepared for this, and quickly up went the brolleys, and a huddle was formed. There was however, one person who was not prepared, and that was a little traffic warden standing forlornly on his own getting soaked.

What do you do? offer shelter to the poor chap, or take revenge on behalf of the whole of the civilised world and leave him there?
As it happened, there was no decision to be made because he scuttled under my umbrella without a by or leave, and for the two minute duration of the storm he stood there saying nothing. The rain stopped as quickly as it started and the little traffic warden went on his way, looking for more victims.

Emily's installation was a shrine to tea (for some reason).
It involved, God, the Queen, David Bowie and Winston Churchill amongst others, and left me impressed if somewhat confused.

Lance's parents were delightful and lunch went on till almost six o'clock.
Had to speed through London, and scraped through the roadworks on the M1 with a full 10 minutes to spare before they closed the motorway.

So that marked the end of Emily's 3 years of hard work at University. I asked her whether she would celebrate tonight. "Oh yes" she said, "off to bed early and switch on Big Brother".