Good friends, rain and camping

The girls finished school on Tuesday. Their brief time at Crawley Down came to an end. Both move to new schools in September and are excited about it. The holidays tend to be hard to fill, so we have researched lots of inexpensive activities and they are going to a Guide camp. Three days in tents in sleeping bags. The rain bucketed down today, there was thunder and lightning and it made me wonder how they will cope if they have weather like that.

We have now to label each item of clothing and equipment we have bought for them to take with them. I doubt they will be able to carry their own packs, there is so much stuff. But it should be a great experience.

Apart from spending the last few days filling the camp list, we have had a visitor. Daniela, a good friend from Japan was in London catching up with friends and she spent a night with us. It was great to see her. We talked until late, mostly in Japanese, as she speaks Italian...so it was a good thing for John that he was away....and then this morning took her in the torrential rain to see the sights of the town. The English are stoic about their weather, so we were determined to be so too. It was a bit damp and cold, but she took lots of photos!
At the station to catch the train back to London we were told of delays due to flooding, landslips and lightning strikes. After about 60 minutes a train pulled up, much to the surprise of all at the station who told us nothing would be there for hours. The conductor offered to take all those waiting to Oxted, about four stops from here. He claimed that there may, or may not be, connecting buses to near London!! Daniela put her destiny in the hands of Southern Rail and hopped on. We are hoping that she does not have too much of an ordeal and we also hope she comes back again.