All that wonderful weather we have been enjoying has made the days slip away as though it is a holiday. The first thing I do when I start my page is to write the date on which it will be published. 10 April already? Where did it go?

Many people know where it went, and have been working towards next month. The Horsell Scouts and Guides May Fayre 2025 will go ahead on the Wheatsheaf Recreation Ground, Chobham Road (GU21 4BL) on 5 May from 11.45am until 4.30pm.

Walk, cycle, run, it does not matter how you get there, but make sure the 45th Horsell Scouts and Guides May Fayre is in your diary. It’s the only place to be on the May Bank Holiday.

As the main annual fundraising event for the Horsell Scouts and Guides they are delighted, and most thankful, that Seymours Estate Agents, Trident Honda and Halstead St Andrew’s School will all be key sponsors, without whom the event would not happen.

The door-to-door programme sales by the Guides and Scouts, with a mega hourly raffle on the day, will also contribute to the funds raised to support the youth of Horsell.

At this point I may get a little tearful – for I don't know how many years I have tramped the streets of Horsell and the surrounds in order to obtain prizes suitable for the raffle. And the prizes are very good and worth buying a ticket or three!

However this year, due to my unwellness, local traders have been spared my attempts to extract goodies from them.

I can no longer drag myself along the High Street as I used to once. So, please, if you have anything which might make a useful prize – and if at the Fayre you will spare a thought for the invisible me trying to sell you a ticket, please fork out. The youngsters need you.

And I? I shall spray moth killer on my late father-in-law's Scout hat – which I always wore whilst selling raffle tickets, I believe he was scout commissioner in Hampshire at one time –and perhaps polish some of the badges on my Raffle Sash which the guides stitched on for me.

Perhaps, too, I shall be able to purchase ticket – or three. It would be very nice to be able to say “see you there!”

For more information, please contact Dick Mackie at [email protected].

Thames Water are still apologising to residents of the Wheatsheaf Common area for the pollution of the Rive Ditch, currently stating that: “Now that the pipework has been rectified we have been able to remove our mitigation measures and just need to return to clean the Rive Ditch.”

So, apart from some hose pipes, and detours to some of the usual pathways across the common, we shall be back to normal?

You will have read in this paper last week of the problems of contacting the right people at the right time and getting the right answers, and of Cllr Kuipers' difficulties in communicating with Thames Water. I was pleased to read that the grass roots have been heard.

Perhaps that should be the tree roots, for that was what, according to the water company, started the whole problem when underground pipes were cracked by them.

Now the Wheatsheaf Drainage Group will be invited to the flood forum meeting on 23 May. It is this sort of group – which is at the unpleasant receiving end of the pollution – which will brook no mealy-mouthed replies from the company, or anyone else who tries to hush them.

Indeed, Alan Taylor of that group and chairman of the local Residents' Association, wrote to Thames Waters's chief operating officer, Esther Sharples, to complain about the lack of on-site management, which led to them assigning their Local Engagement Manager for SW London & Surrey to address the issue.

Our MP has been very much involved and even he has faced challenges due to Thames Water not responding with available dates for meetings.

What are needed are regular meetings involving the local group, SCC Flood & Resilience, Horsell Common Preservation Society, Woking Borough Council environmental departments, councillors and the MP of the day – in other words, some “joined up writing”.

The word “obfuscate” comes to mind, which is probably already much in use in dealings with Sir Robert McAlpine and the Hilton panels.

The good news is that I have been informed the frog spawn in the ponds – both the Rive Ponds and those in gardens - is alive and wriggling and the common frog will be saved.

Or will it, for I have also been told of the heron by the pond, presumably siting itself for the wealth of froglets once those tadpoles have grown to bite size.

And a gaggle of geese have been flying sorties over the area. Who knows what is yet to come? I hope no one suggests rewilding with water buffalo – that would really muddy the waters!

Yes, I still get asked where I get my ideas from for this page. And I still reply that I don't know: sometimes they just float in. Often at the last moment.

That is not the case this week. Having a bad day I was unable to make it to the St Andrew's Room at the church for suitable grist for my mill – the mill which is standing still with not a breath of wind nor gush of water to allow for something to magically appear on the screen in front of me.

Years ago I joined a creative writing course. It was there that I first met Elaine McGinty – she of the Fiery Bird, and I will most certainly be writing about her in the future.

Our tutor would give us a word, or phrase, and expect some 500 words on that subject by the following week. Now, of course, I am expected to write considerably more than that and find my own subject. You may think that makes it easier, but it does not.

To that end my youngest daughter supplied me with an eight-inch cube of a book labelled The Writer's Block. Open it at random and it will suggest a subject. Let's try: Extinction; Virus; oh, here's a good one: invent a character whose life is governed by Murphy's Law – that is that anything which can go wrong will. Currently I feel like that character.

But this book does show that blocks can unblock. Like Victoria Way perhaps?

I see that we can now put some of the blame onto the shoulders of Germany as some promised specialist equipment from there was slow to arrive.

Is there anyone left to blame? It does encourage lateral thinking. Lateral makes me think horizontal, and I wonder whether my mind will unblock with a little horizontal thinking – with my feet up.

On Mothering Sunday the family wondered what to do with mother – me .

We were certain all the restaurants and pubs would be booked up: Mothering Sunday, weekend, good weather forecast. And I am currently favouring a bit of quietness, not lots of shouting children of all ages.

So a visit to Fairoaks was planned. I could watch the aircraft, I could have something simple like a sandwich, and the family would be with me.

Off we went only to find the cafe was closed! What a shame! What a missed opportunity! However, in case my two grand-daughters got bored I had taken with me Fairoaks Airport – an illustrated history of the first seventy-five years.

Among the lavish illustrations are some showing my mother who worked there during the war and one showed her leaning out of an office window.

So I tasked the girls to find that window. Many things have changed since mother was employed by the Royal Observer Corps back then. But they think they may have found “her” window.

At least it kept them occupied whilst we found somewhere else to celebrate Mothering Sunday.