You know how sometimes you just know that it’s going to be one of these days. It didn’t start off too badly because we had a free day. That meant we could go anywhere and do as we pleased … yeah! Since it was raining heavily we decided to take a train trip to Virginia Water in South West London. Why there? There are lots of possible reasons.

• The richest town in the UK with an average home cost of over £1m?
• Home of Wentworth Golf Club?
• Elton John, Cliff Richard, Bruce Forsyth, Diana Dors and Nick Faldo have all had homes there?

The only reason for this place figuring in our consciences at all is that my dad used to play in the Virginia Water darts team when he was a trainee forester in the early 1930s. We thought it would be nice to have a look around … and maybe find the pub .. or even a scone.

We’ve already said it was one of these days. London has a fabulous train system where you simply tap your bank card in at the first station and tap out when you have reached your destination. Your bank account is automatically debited. It works really well. When we got off at Virginia Water, however, there was nowhere to tap out? When we asked at the ticket office the chap informed us, with a wry smile, that we had gone beyond the Transport For London (tfl) area. We would get an automatic fine for our trouble and in addition, we would have to buy a return ticket to get back. Great!

When is a scone not a scone?

It was still raining heavily when we left the station. All the roads were flooded and even making pedestrian progress was extremely difficult. To top things off, Virginia Water also seemed to be sconeless. Could things get any worse? After about an hour we decided to cut our losses and head back to the station. In a last desperate bid to salvage something from our day we ended up in Costa – Virginia Water in the vain hope that they might save the day. When is a scone not a scone … when it’s an almond croissant, that’s when! Needless to say there were no scones here either. Actually the croissant was delicious, but you don’t want the hear about that. We didn’t find my dad’s pub. We suspect it was the Wheatsheaf Hotel but it was too far to walk in these conditions.

Fitting in

There’s only about five and a half thousand inhabitants in Virginia Water and they all seem to do alright for themselves. ‘Private’ notices abound and most of the houses have large wrought irons gates and gardens about the size of a small golf course. In 1998 General Pinochet was placed under house arrest in one of the houses pending his extradition back to Chile. Pity really because if he had hung around he would have fitted right into the current UK government’s cabinet.

When the Prime Minister, Dominic Cummings, sat down with the Chancellor, Dominic Cummings, and the rest of the cabinet of mini Dominic Cummingses, Pinochet might have felt very at home. Indeed, Attila the Hun would not have felt out of place! The irony is simply breathtaking. After almost four years of striving to leave the EU and its unelected bureaucrats the UK ends up being run by an unelected bureaucrat. Downing Street’s latest appointment, Andrew Sabisky, with his horrendous racist views, thankfully only lasted about twenty four hours.

Apologies for the sconelessness of Virginia Water but our day was not entirely lost. We found out that no matter how plush the mansions, we could not live in a town without scones.

GU25 4AA.     Costa

///novel.hired.miles

This what happens when you decide to get your cast iron work done outwith Scotland. This old post box in London was made by Handyside Foundry in London … and London is obviously too close to Pisa.