Buying a train ticket at the station proved cheaper and came with useful advice - Sarah Todd

For 30 years going to the annual harvest festival service at the journalists’ church St Bride’s on Fleet Street has been on the ‘to do’ list and 2023 is the year it’s finally happening.

It is such a smashing feeling to actually have the tickets in advance; safe in an envelope on the windowsill and the seats all booked.

We have had some lovely sunny days and it’s got this country bumpkin wondering whether her big tweed wool (British of course) overcoat will be too mafting for the metropolis. There might have to be a wardrobe rethink.

Environmental campaigners will doubtless be wringing their hands with worry about the sunny spell, but hasn’t the weather always warmed up like this when the children have gone back to school? It might be the memory playing tricks, but it was always fairly common for the last week of the summer holidays to be spent dodging rain and then the new term teasing us kids who would rather be outdoors with its sunshine-streaked classroom windows.

On the way out to the train station to get the London trip sorted in person, The Husband hopefully handed over a collection ticket for the cobbler’s. It raised a smile with its strapline in capital letters declaring SHOES WORTH WEARING ARE WORTH REPAIRING. He thinks his brown brogues must be well into their third decade and it’s interesting to reflect on today’s youngsters who are so pious about their green credentials. Will they get their shoes repaired or throw them into the landfill? Maybe vegan leather isn’t worth repairing?

Back home, an advert flashed up on this writer's phone for a new range of boys’ clothing. Our son is 20, so the firm’s marketing had obviously gone into meltdown and they were targeting the wrong person. They were smashing clothes though, perfect for lads aged between about eight and 12 at a guess.

Others who had been sent the promotion had posted ‘angry face’ emojis and a look through the comments revealed something desperately depressing. So many nasty sarcastic snipes about clothes ‘not having a gender’ and complaining how wrong it is to categorise clothing into those suitable for boys and those for girls. For heaven’s sake; what a load of rubbish. People must have too much time on their hands.

It was disappointing to then, later on in the day, be unable to re-find the advert. It seems to have been replaced with something wishy-washy, or gender fluid or whatever the phrase is. Our society seems unable to leave children alone to be just that - children. Everything has to be over-analysed and used for some sort of perverse point scoring.

Those commenting so vociferously on this new clothing line are probably the woke brigade . We seem to have lost our moral compass as a society and instead of complaining about things that do matter; we waste time over-analysing stupid stuff like whether clothes should be marketed specifically at boys or girls.

We managed a weekend away just outside Whitby and on Sunday, out of the whole hotel, we were the only room to order a morning newspaper.

Of course, this is preaching to the converted, but maybe if people could have a mirror held up to sitting slack-jawed in front of a mobile phone with no conversation ebbing and flowing they would spend a few quid on a paper. We chatted away about different things we’d read about and tore things out to pass on.

Our post lady had just come back from a holiday abroad and there was only one other couple they got chatting to as everybody else didn’t look up from their phones.

They were glued to them at mealtimes, around the pool and on the beach. Nobody can convince this reporter that this is people living their best life.

While we didn’t need a foreign language over on the Yorkshire Riviera, it was such a joy to see the new King and Queen speaking to their French hosts in their language. That’s leading by example.