Wednesday July 12th 2023

The fourth full day of mine and Lois's stay with our daughter Alison, who lives with husband Ed and their three teenage children Josie (16), Rosalind (15) and Isaac (12) in Headley, Hampshire. 

As I always say, they're a Thoroughly Modern [fa-]Millie, and all doing different things and going hither and thither. Lois and I have developed a habit of reading the wipeable monthly planner entry for today on Alison's freezer, when we struggle out of bed each morning, and this tells us who's doing what where, which is always handy to know.

a typical freezer wipeable planner (not Alison's)

It turns out that today Ali is doing her classroom assistant job at a primary school in Tilford, Ed is a work at his company's offices in central London, Rosalind is doing work experience at a big law firm in London, and Isaac is doing a full dress rehearsal for his school's production of Peter Pan the Musical, which opens tomorrow night at Bedales School Theatre.

Yikes! Talk about a high-achieving family! My goodness!!!!

After about 7:30 am, all today's high achievers have gone off, leaving only Josie is in the house with us - Josie is also a high-achiever, needless to say, it's just that she's taking a break from high-achieving today, which is nice!

Lois and I decide to take her on a nostalgic jaunt this morning to Haslemere, the town where the family used to live until a couple of years ago, and we have a hot-chocolate and cake at Hemingways, one of the family's, and our, favourite haunts.

Hemingways is a favourite haunt of ours in Haslemere: see this flashback to May 2019.

flashback to May 2019: (left to right) Isaac, Rosalind, Alison and Lois

in Hemingways Coffee Shop in Haslemere, Surrey - happy days!!!!

And how little the kids look - awwwwwww!!!!

Later Lois and Josie explore the nearby bookshop while I get some keys copied, after which I browse the latest "Haha! Aren't you old!" greetings cards on the street display outside. My favourite is still the classic "Sometimes you forget that you're old - so here's a little reminder!". Possibly followed by "I'm starting to think I'll never be old enough to know better". Or maybe, "You're clearly smarter than you look".

But what a great selection the shop has on display today - go on admit it haha!!!!

14:00 Lois and I go to bed for a couple of times, and when we struggle out of it again, it's almost time to eat: it's got to be early dining today - 6:10 pm - because Ali, Josie and ourselves have got front-row seats at Isaac's school's performance of Peter Pan the Musical, in which Isaac is playing the part of one of the Darling children, John.

Ali drives us the 12 miles over to the somewhat grandly-named Bedales Olivier Theatre at Bedales School, a very posh private boarding school, in the aptly-named village of Steep, near Petersfield, Hampshire.

We push our way with difficulty into the crowded foyer, and browse the merchandise counter. Both Ali and ourselves decide to each send Isaac a good luck message and a gift, which will be delivered to him in the so-called "green room", where the cast relax before each performance. 

This is a nice thought, and we decided to avoid the cliché-d "Break a Leg" message, which would probably just puzzle Isaac and maybe upset him too - which is that last thing we'd want to do, really, isn't it haha! Especially if there's a chance that the Darling family children will be actually flying across the stage. 

So not suitable really, is it, all in all haha!

we push our way into the overcrowded foyer..

...and browse the merchandise counter, which offers,  for example,

pirate hat & sword (£3.50), or an attractive pirate eye patch (£1.50) 

...and in the end we decide to send Isaac a good luck message

and gift to be delivered to him in the "green room" before the performance,

which is a nice thought, we think.

Then we take our places in the front row of the theatre. Once again I've been tricked to dressing too "posh" for the occasion - Lois strongly urged me to wear my old "government suit", paid for by UK taxpayers when I was a civil servant doing trips to so-called "tropical climes" overseas. But I see that everybody else is dressing pretty casual - damn, got it wrong again !!!!!

we take our seats in the front row and browse the programme -

there's a nice picture of our grandson Isaac, who will be playing John Darling

Photography is banned during the performance, which is a pity, but understandable really. However we really enjoy the show, and to us it seems that pretty much everything goes off perfectly. It's only when we get Isaac in the car for the journey back to Headley that we realise how much actually went wrong, or was poorly planned or executed. Oh dear! 

Still we're able to reassure Isaac that the mistakes etc didn't impact on our enjoyment, which is nice.

Problems with the microphones were top of Isaac's list, and the fact that the band was too loud. And the cast felt it was a mistake to economise by not having a cast-member dressed up as a pantomime-dog to play Nana, the Darling family's Newfoundland dog, even though the cast was repeatedly talking about the dog, which was mysteriously nowhere to be seen. 

Where was "Nana", the family's "prim Newfoundland dog?"

Ditto for the crocodile that was supposed to have swallowed Captain Hook's alarm clock. We could just about hear the alarm-clock at random moments, but there was obviously no crocodile on stage, which was a bit of a puzzle, and Lois and I kept looking for it, without success, which was a bit of a distraction.

I would imagine that dressing a couple of children up in a pantomime-crocodile suit would be even more difficult. And do they even make pantomime-crocodile suits? I think we should be told, and quickly!

Still, this is a school performance, isn't it - it isn't exactly the West End, is it haha!!!!

Poor Isaac. He doesn't get to bed till 10:30pm after a 3 hour show, and tomorrow he's got to do a full day's schooling, including double periods of gym, sports and Mandarin Chinese, followed in the evening by another 3-hour performance of Peter Pan finishing again at 10pm.

What madness!

22:30 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!