Morning, Surbiton. Yesterday I asked a question I'd been asking for a week, and it was answered in four hours by someone who'd actually been there — so the quiz mystery is over, and it's on tonight. Bigger news for planning purposes: tomorrow is 34°C, the hottest day of the year so far, and then it breaks properly. Also: the K2 comes home tomorrow night, the croquet starts Tuesday, and a free thing for the kids that's been under our noses. Here's Sunday.
The Prince of Wales quiz is real. I've been hedging about it for a week. Yesterday morning I put the question in the paper; by lunchtime Prim had written in to say she sat the quiz herself on 12 July. It runs every Sunday at 7pm, and she remembers it as about £2.50 a head to enter, though she couldn't tell me the prize.
So that's the map completed, and it means tonight you have four quizzes to choose from: the Elm Tree at 7pm, the Grove at 7pm, the Prince of Wales on Ewell Road at 7pm, and the Antelope at 7.30pm. In one small town. Whoever said Surbiton was quiet.
Reader-supplied and honestly hedged — she's telling you what she paid three weeks ago, not what's on the door tonight.
Tomorrow is the hot one — then it's over
Monday now looks like 34°C. That is a full three degrees hotter than the forecast was carrying on Friday, and it would be the hottest day Surbiton has had this year. It arrives on the back of a dry, drought-bound fortnight, with an overnight low of only 18°C ahead of it — so houses will not have cooled down before it starts.
The practical version, because most heat advice is useless: do anything strenuous before 11am or after 7pm. Get the shopping and the dog walk done early. If you're on the K2 replacement walk to Surbiton Hill Park, that's a hot, shadeless stretch in the middle of the day — go early or go late. Check on anyone elderly on your road, particularly on the top floor of a flat. And remember the hosepipe ban is still on across all Thames Water areas, so it's the watering can, at dusk, for anything you care about.
Then it genuinely breaks. Tuesday drops to 26°C with a real chance of a shower, Wednesday to 25°C, and by Thursday and Friday we're down to 22°C and 21°C — twelve degrees off Monday's peak, and the first properly ordinary British week since the middle of July. Monday is the day to get through, not the start of something.
forecast for Surbiton pulled this morning · ban status from Thames Water's own homepage
Free hockey for local kids, on our doorstep
A few of you have asked for things for children, and one of you asked yesterday for ways to meet people. Here's an answer I should have found weeks ago, and it's five minutes down the road.
Surbiton Hockey Club, on Sugden Road in Thames Ditton, KT7 0AE, runs free after-school hockey sessions for children in Years 3 to 6 at local state schools. No catch, no membership. They're on Thursdays 3.30–4.30pm this term, and from September they move to Tuesdays, 4.30–6pm. That's a serious club giving away coaching to primary-age kids and I'd never mentioned it.
They also run holiday hockey camps every school holidays, open to non-members as well as their own, from Year 1 all the way to Year 13, with camps still being added to the summer timetable. Their own coaches include past and present international players. If you go: stick, mouthguard, shinpads, packed lunch for full days, and — given the paragraph above — a great deal of water and sunscreen.
from surbitonhc.com, read this morning. Camp dates and prices sit behind their booking system, so check directly rather than taking my word for it.
The croquet starts Tuesday
A reminder from yesterday, because it's genuinely worth arranging your week around: from Tuesday to Sunday, the seven lawns at Surbiton Croquet Club on Alexandra Drive host the closing stretch of the MacRobertson Shield, the world team championship of Association Croquet. It's been running since 24 July across four grounds; Sunday 9 August is the final day of the whole championship, and it's here. Nothing to book, nothing to pay — it's a selected international event, so the move is simply to walk down and watch. Tuesday and Wednesday look like the pleasant days to do it.
via Croquet England's fixture list and the club's own diary
- Berrylands: today is the last day without your bus. The Surbiton Hill Park closure ends tomorrow, and TfL has the K2 back to normal at 8pm Monday. Until then it's diverted both ways — no stops between Pembroke Avenue and Howard Road towards Kingston, none between Berrylands Road and Pembroke Avenue towards Hook Parade. One more day. In 34 degrees, annoyingly.
- The K3 stays diverted until 8pm Wednesday for the emergency works on Hare Lane, Claygate — missing everything between Oaken Lane and Claygate Station in both directions.
- The 465 is still diverted at the Leatherhead end until 4pm next Sunday, missing the Park Rise and All Saints Church stops. Fine unless you ride out past Chessington.
- Three night closures in Kingston this week, all worth knowing if you drive in late: Villiers Road between Chapel Mill Road and Grove Lane, from tomorrow night through Saturday, 8pm–5am, for resurfacing · Eden Street between St James's Road and Lady Booth Road, Tuesday and Wednesday, 7pm–7am · Galsworthy Road off Kingston Hill, Wednesday and Thursday, 8pm–5am.
- Locally: the Ewell Road gully works near Tolworth Close run to Friday — two-way signals round the clock, and they're there to stop the flooding, so worth the wait. Then Friday brings signals on St Mark's Hill outside Wentworth Court, and Saturday two-way signals on Upper Brighton Road near Glenbuck Road.
From TfL live bus status and the council's roadworks list, both read this morning.
- 5–9pm — Surbiton Board Game Night at Corners, 75 Maple Road. £2 a head for the run of over a hundred board and card games, with hosts to teach you the rules. Air-conditioned reasons to be indoors are about to become relevant.
- 7.30pm — Legend: The Music of Bob Marley at the Rose, direct from the West End. On their own listing for tonight.
- Four quizzes: Elm Tree 7pm · the Grove 7pm · the Prince of Wales 7pm · the Antelope 7.30pm.
- Earlier: junior parkrun 9am · free men's football at Fairfield Rec 1pm · Canbury bandstand 3–5pm. All three are outdoors and today tops out near 28°C, so hat, water, the usual.
Rose listing checked this morning; the rest reader-supplied or previously listed.
Tariq wrote back yesterday to sharpen the fridge detail we ran, and it matters if you were planning on it: the community fridge is open for thirty minutes only, 10.30–11pm, each Friday. Not the evening in general — half an hour. Turn up on time.
And a diary change: this Wednesday, 5 August, they open at 2pm rather than noon, because of internal works. Otherwise it's the usual — 12noon to 7pm on weekdays, 2 to 6pm on Saturdays, at The Circulatory, 18 Southsea Road, KT1 2EH.
The Welcome Table community café is Tuesday, 1–5pm as always. Given Tuesday is the day the weather turns civilised again, that's a decent one to try.
- Monday — 34°C · Ministry of Science Live! opens at the Rose and runs to Sunday, which is a very good way to spend the hottest afternoon of the year indoors with explosions · the K2 comes home at 8pm · the Waggon & Horses quiz, 8pm.
- Tuesday — the croquet begins · Men's Walk & Talk, 6.30pm from Surbiton Station's Glenbuck Road entrance, free, an hour, no agenda · Welcome Table café 1–5pm · the Black Lion quiz, 8pm.
- All week, Mon–Thu, 10am–12 — the free athletics camp at the Weir Archer Centre for 11–16s. Sprints, javelin, proper coaching.
- Wednesday — the Victoria quiz, 7.30pm · K3 back to normal at 8pm.
Warm, breezy and dry — up to about 28°C, with a fresher wind than yesterday and a mild 15°C night. A good day to be outside, and the last comfortable one for a bit.
The week: Monday 34°C and sticky · Tuesday 26°C with a decent chance of a shower · Wednesday 25°C · Thursday 22°C · Friday 21°C. The heat is one day long. Everything after it is a normal English August.
Yesterday's issue was mostly written by you, and the response has been the best of any so far — sixteen new subscribers in a day, which takes us to 448. Thank you, genuinely.
Welcome to Jan, who wants the travel news — the roads box is yours, and tomorrow it finally has good news in it. Welcome to Bill, who is technically just over the border in Kingston, and is welcome anyway. And welcome to Sarah, who asked for “opportunities to meet people and get creative” — the best question anyone's sent me, and I'm only part way to answering it. For now: the Save The World Club box above is the meeting-people answer, three afternoons a week. The croquet club runs free taster sessions if you fancy something odder. And the Rose starts Saturday art workshops in September. I'll do this properly in a few days — if anyone runs a choir, a life-drawing group, a writing circle or a craft night, now is your moment.
Still owed: the best brunch in town, which two of you have now asked for · the Blake mosaics at the station for Catherine · what's happening with the Victoria Road shops for Jane · and small-children things for Jennifer and Cheyanne — the hockey above is a start on that one.
One ask today. Yesterday proved the thing works: I asked about a pub quiz and had the answer, from someone who'd been in the room, before lunch. So — what does your club, choir, group or team do? Kingston's council only lists civic events, so anything run by actual people reaches this newsletter only if one of you tells me. Hit reply with a line. It goes in.
That's Sunday. Enjoy today properly, because tomorrow you'll be hiding from it. Curtains shut, water in the fridge, and a quiz to win tonight. Back in the morning.
Mike, Surbiton Daily
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