Fiona and I had a very good evening at the Butterknowle Acoustic Club. The musicians were very good and I particularly enjoyed Valse Maria. I found their repertoire a bit mixed up and I would rather they stuck to the more serious stuff which I think they did absolutely brilliantly. But the acoustic club is a pitch for the middle place and that is exactly what they did. Mel and myself did our three songs bit and considering I have not played in public for years I thought I was up to my usual exuberant self. It was very hard to not break out into bebop! Within the context of a country music night I'm pretty sure that bebop would not go down too well.I promised Fiona I would not play bebop on any song and I kept to that! Mel was as solid as a rock, a nice performer.

I particularly enjoyed the family atmosphere in the village hall and I have a fondness for village halls because of the great memories of playing in them from my early teens.Many thanks to Bryan, Klara, Heather and Kev for putting together a wonderful evening which totally enhances the quality of life in the Lower Teesdale/Weardale area. I sincerely wish there were more venues like this across northeast England and they adopt the format of having an open mike night for the first half of the evening and then give a local group or solo performer an opportunity to do 10 or so songs to let people know what they have got.

With the family I had a good 6 mile walk around the woods around Durham and then through the city centre back along the river. There was light rain but it was nice and the trees and bushes were very green. We saw two herons by the weir on the River which is quite unusual there is usually only one. A nice walk.

Because Miles had his Further Pure Mathematics exam this afternoon I did not get much work done myself. However, he did a good mock exam in the morning and was very happy to go into the exam room in the afternoon. It was quite funny because he was the only person doing this particular exam. It is very strange how the UK is educating its kids at the moment. More young people in the sixth form are doing maths A-level but a major problem is it is a harder examination than all of the others except physics. Further mathematics in my view is the hardest. So, in order for the bright young things to have a good chance of getting an A in mathematics Queen Elizabeth sixth form College in Darlington makes sure that they do the easier modules. Miles however has gone down what the examination board calls the "traditional route" but we call it "the hairy chested route " which is to do the modules core 1 to four and then do mechanics one and 2 and then for the Further Mathematics do Further Pure modules one to three and then do the two remaining mechanics modules mechanics three and four. I checked around several independent schools in the UK and not one of them does mechanics three or four. In my view this is because they are too hard therefore they would lower the probability of the bright young things getting into the the top universities. Nice to know that the engineers putting the planes together and bridges and the fund managers working in the city are just not as numerate as they should be. I know this sounds a bit wayward and harsh but we seem to have turned education into a points game instead of something where young people are challenged and really do learn the full length and breadth of the subject that they are doing. I believe that this is particularly important in mathematics. Society at the moment completely disagrees with me. Who is right? Who is wrong?

I am very proud of my son for doing the hardest route to getting his two A-levels.

A reasonable day. Miles had a good session at RKade skatepark in Redcar this morning. In the afternoon Fo, me and Clifford did a couple of miles walking in Richmond and then we went to visit my Mum. She was in good fettle but I was a bit worried about the effect of the heat on her. I told her very sternly to use her fan at night to stay cool even if it kept her awake . She will get used to it eventually. Miles did another mock A Level for his Further Pure maths exam tomorrow afternoon. He got 94% so he is fairly confident but as always very respectful of the mathematics involved.It can go wrong very easily. Considering that a couple of weeks ago he was having trouble with his exam performance he's doing alright. It's not the talent that impresses me , he was born with that, it is the character he shows when he has to take a few steps back , analyse the problems and then put the work in to raise his abilities to what he expects of himself. I show him the way up the hill but he puts in the graft and has to do the sometimes major navigation when he is on his own on it . Good lad.

A nice day. Walking on Redcar beach was good although there were few birds around and watching the lads soaring around the skatepark was amazing as usual. Messages from two people Sybil and Ian who I knew in the '80's have made feel very contented but stronger and determined to keep doing things right in life . God bless them.

It's interesting. Ever since my friend Ian Fletcher got in touch with me yesterday, I had not heard from him for a while, I have been thinking a bit about when I had a pretty wild time in York from 1981 t0 '86. I think I just grew up over that period and had an amazing fun time with many people but I also spent lot of time with some mentally handicapped friends who lived at Juniper Communities Residential home. It was sort of my day job for about three and a half years and whilst I didn't get paid , they offered me money but I turned it down I was paid in kind.That was worth a lot more by the way! That was the day sorted and I partied quite hard and had lots of interesting conversations with people , like Ian, about 3-4 evening a week.

With the guys from Juniper for example I took them out camping , hired a boat for a week with three of them , me all alone and three men I was responsible for on a boat for a week going upstream to the Swale and then eventually locking into the Ripon canal. It was a challenging week I can tell you but fun! Peter Dodds and Joe James came up from York , or should I say just appeared, I wasn't expecting them and we had a pretty wild party that night . The Juniper guys thoroughly enjoyed themselves. The next morning one of them Peter Beale fell into the lock. Not that I noticed. He had a strong sense of self preservation thank goodness . The lock keeper fished him out when he noticed him hanging onto the side of the lock. I told the Juniper Management Committee about this when I got back and they didn't mind at all . Different era , not so Health and Safety conscious!

I was glad when the York years were over , becoming Bahai and marrying Fiona but I did meet and really get to know many really nice people over those years.

A good day . Miles is nearly recovered from his cold and got 2 practice exams done. Above an A for both so that's looking good. I got a moderate amount of maths done and have just finished preparing a Persian rice for the family tonight. Every Friday we have this dish, watch two episodes of Star Trek and then it's free time for everybody until tomorrow.

Now I have cracked how to amplify my harmonica I'm not so interested in experimenting with it . When I get into my maths I have a hard job mustering up interest in the harp at all. Still, best to do a little bit or I will fall flat on my face when I play at Butterknowle Acoustic Club in 10 days time.

Clifford had a good day and he went through trigonometric differentiation again to really secure it . Good lad. I never asked him to do this but when he feels a weakness in anything he tries to turn it into a strength. Good lad. A family trait. Fo is pretty determined when I think about and sometimes when I don't want her to be !

A good day today although I'm a bit wasted now. A friend of mine who lives in Taiwan has just got in touch , through Face book, and that is really nice . I love the friendships I still have with people from 1980's York, like Toni Bunnel and Emily Peattie and I especially cherish my friendship with Ian. He has always been so good for me , always given me good advice and was one of the handful of people in the '80's who gave me the confidence to apply for York University. I only applied for one and I knew I would get in. I had some great conversations with Ian and many fun times and he contacted me several years ago and we have stayed in touch since then. Like me he is settled down with wife and children and we both really enjoy family life . One day , we are going to visit him in Taiwan and have a holiday there . It is a fine country.

Good day today but the lads are still off education due to the bad colds they have . Still, we got out for a 3 mile walk locally just to get some spring in their steps and they picked up a bit after that. I got a lot of maths done and also hooked up my harmonica with an amp and a Zoom 708II bass effects pedal which makes my harp sound the way I want it to. I listened to some blues duos last night on YouTube and realised there was nothing being played on the harmonica that I couldn't handle but I also realised that one of the reasons I have developed quite an individual style to playing chromatic blues is that I cannot to any of the hand effects that are used by every blues player. I am just waiting for someone to call me Blue Cripple Paul or something like that then after having a good laugh about that I will kill them! It does look weird with my gammy arm playing the harp sort of like holding the harmonica or should I say propping it up with a leg of pork , but what comes out of it does justify the odd appearance. Oh well I really do have the Blues tonight so I'd better go and blow some more.

I have had a good day today. The maths went very well and I did a bit of music practice, harmonica as well as countertenor singing. Unfortunately, both of the lads are off education for today because they have bad colds. Miles has his first examination this Monday but because he is well ahead now the few days out is no problem. To be quite honest, the result of a few days off will be that he is fresh and relaxed for a busy month when he is doing four examinations. Compared to what his peers will be doing he is getting off very lightly. After his first exam next week there are three weeks and then his next exam.

I had a good play with my guitarist friend Mel last night. We have different musical backgrounds. I learnt music through brass bands, school choirs, school orchestras and a small band I played in in the 70s called Engine and Mel has learnt music mostly through playing with bands although he did some classical training I believe. It is a nice blend and could be promising. The only reason I am getting interested in music again is because I do not think my physical disabilities will allow me to get into mathematics teaching, but we will see. Strangely enough, my ideal world would be to do semiprofessional and amateur musicmaking as well as working in local schools as a maths teacher. I would truly love to do that.

I tried out my countertenor voice on a blues song last night but I was not too impressed with the results. The volume is getting there but the tone is far too bland and flat. I will keep working on it but if the tone quality does not improve it could be the alto line in a choir for me! Standing amongst those fine middle-aged ladies is not an unpleasant thought!

Cautley spout in the Howgills was awesome today. The boys belted up 1000 foot climb in about 10 minutes! Fo and I did some serious bird spotting and confused a skylark with a golden plover! We had a good look walking in the Cautley spout Gorge as well. Afterwards we visited Fiona's mum who was truly pleased to see us. A totally gorgeous lady!

I have been worrying lately about Clifford's tiredness due to him growing so fast. But when I see a young man ripping up a hill so fast I realise there is little to worry about. The last time I popped him to the doctor he could see how fit he was and he is not concerned either. Apparently teenagers can get very tired when they grow very fast. Just to really push the point, he raced back the last mile with Miles to the car! A nice sight, two fit lads tearing around the countryside.

I was amazed how few people were in the Howgills today. It just seems to get quieter as the years go by. I know it is not on most hikers radar but more people should visit because it is a beautiful place.

I have just do it next would just got back from Redcar where the boys have been skateboarding at RKade and Fiona and I had a nice three-mile walk on the beach. Not an awful lot of interest today but we did see a lot of worm casts which was unusual because there aren't usually that many and a very nice flock of arctic terns. Actually, I am not sure they were arctic terns so I'll have to look up in my bird guide what they may be. The lads were awesome on their skateboards today particularly Miles. He seems to have got his coordination together so that the runs he does look very good. His brother has always had that side of skateboarding together he has always looked good but Miles is doing it with much bigger and faster tracks. A nice afternoon out.

A half decent day today. I got some maths done in the morning and I did a fair bit of countertenor singing. I am actually cracking this way of singing. The main problem is it is the opposite problem to what is usually confronted with in singing, that is, it is harder to get power in the lower notes than it is to get the higher notes. So I spend a lot of time singing in the lower register to beef it out. It is slowly coming although I still sound like a choirboy rather than the rougher blues that I am after. Still, it is a lot better than singing in baritone which I do not like the sound of and I find it hard to get consistency in my voice. Miles has done well with his mathematics today and best of all my younger son Clifford is getting on really well with his maths. 2 smart lads who work very hard.

Since I have switched over to voice recognition I have had no RSI whatsoever. It is nice to feel normal and healthy for once. I dread to think how the RSI might affect me if I was not as fit as I am.

Home education never ceases to amaze me. My eldest lad got stuck into his mock exams for the last four modules for his Further Mathematics A-level. After working quite successfully through the OCR textbooks this year having not a lot of trouble with the exam questions he suddenly seemed to have a lot of trouble with the mock exams. We devised a strategy whereby he did each exam with no time limit and a peek at the book if he got stuck. The first week this started there was still a bit of groaning but now he has got into his stride working around four to five mock exams per module he is getting all questions done within the time limit and more or less clearing the 80% bar. It is interesting that with no actual knowledge of what he is doing I haven't got a clue about the actual mathematics although I could with a bit of time work it out we have consulted together and arrived at a strategy that works. This has happened several times before ever since he got stuck into the A-level work when he was 12. I wonder sometimes that the education system would do well to have teachers as facilitators rather than programmed hand holders who tell the children what to do all the time. I know there is a world of difference between personal tutored home education and mass education but I know for a stone cold fact that there are many children who would work better with less interference from teachers rather than more. Go Miles, hard work and a parental compass does pay off!

Oh well, I have completely gone over to voice recognition as the main way of inputting into the computer. I will carry on with the mathematics but I will have to clarify with Sunderland University whether I can actually do the course or not with regard to using the computers. The other route is to continue on with my Open University mathematics degree and get work as an unqualified teacher. A while back I contacted a supply agency who said there would be no problem whatsoever with working in schools in the North East as a mathematics teacher with unqualified teacher status. The reason for this, they said, was the massive shortage of mathematics teachers.

On an intellectual note it will do me no harm whatsoever to go for the A Level this year because it ensures that all of the basics are completely learnt and if I have to carry on with my Open University degree it will be more fun to do it in that way. Why do I always feel that I am walking uphill with this. Well, at least I am walking!

Yet again I am having problems with this RSI. Yesterday was one of the worst days I have had with it for a long time. The unbelievable thing is I did so little to create the problem in the first place: a very small amount of typing led to a massive pain in my neck spreading to my left hand and not only that I had aching feet! The strange thing is being quite into hiking I have to walk quite a long way to get any aching in my feet whatsoever. Why bother, just type a couple of e-mails to friends and my feet are totally knackered. What really got me was the general tiredness that I felt. Again, I have to walk an awful long way before I get tired. The doctor reckons that the tiredness just comes about because it is my body's way of dealing with the pain, in other words I do not feel so much pain but I do feel tired.

I am really thinking out about how to get through my teacher training course. All of the planning will have to be done with voice recognition which is not a problem so long as I can work on my own because obviously speaking out loud will affect any other students I am with. Of course, the thing that really bothers me is that once I teach in a school full-time I will be doing all of the planning at home where I can work on my own. I just wonder how much I can get away with using the computer at the school? The trouble is all I can do at home is a few minutes typing and that triggers a full-blown RSI attack which does not right itself for a least 12 hours.

I want to just get on with my mathematics unhindered by this problem. Part of me says just forget about the future and get on with the mathematics in its own right. It is very interesting after all and as my wife says I will be able to work as a home tutor and do some supply teaching. But it is getting through the teacher training course in the first place which is the problem. Working as an unqualified teacher is an option and I know that once I am in the school they will want me to stay. But who on earth can work under such uncertainties? Since I have been six years of age I have been handicapped in my right arm but with this RSI it makes me feel doubly handicapped.

Oh well , I got the old voice recognition going again. I have used most of the versions. A lot of money for very little result. It absolutely infuriates me using it because it reminds me of my handicap , I can only type with one hand and I can't even do that ! I am suffering from massive humour failure about this . Well writing this has cheered me up . Nothing like moaning at yourself to realise its not as bad as you think it is . Its bloody worse! Voice recognition is good but you need your own separate space to do it . The speaking can bother the rest of the family . So I have to move around the house to do it which means sometimes moving out of my very comfortable perch in our purpose built study room, or the college room as we call it .

The lads are busy in there at the moment, Clifford with his A Level maths and Miles doing his further maths mocks. He is really rocking with it at last after an initial shock last week. Total respect to the lad , he is doing it all on his own. Few believe this they think I teach him but I don't , never have when I think about it . I facilitate but I don't teach and don't ask me what that means because I only know what I don't do I have a very imperfect understanding of what I do do.

I have very mixed feelings about playing my harmonica. I think it is just a survival thing. When I was 14 I realised I could get nowhere in life because of all the education that I had missed because of all the hospital treatment I had had due to my crippled arm, so I thought that music was a good way to go. For while it was but I completely underestimated my interest in the natural world as well as historical stuff. I only regained my interest from about age 20 on when I was living back in my home town Richmond North Yorkshire and I made friends with a young local history teacher called Tom Owen who worked in Richmond comprehensive School. I am forever grateful to him for boosting my self-esteem and helping me get to York University which I did when I was 30 years old. It was a long journey Tom but I got there.

The point of this, is that now I am nearly 54 years old, still physically handicapped but I have an additional problem which is this annoying RSI and it is a major barrier at the moment to pursuing my goal of becoming a maths teacher. Frustrating because I have home educated my eldest child to a level standard in mathematics and he is doing very well(A mathematics and he is well on to getting an A in further mathematics) but the mathematics Road appears to be closing for me. So I get interested in music again because I feel it is the only thing I can do. It's pathetic. Any job using a computer or any form of inputting with the hand is closed to me. I am practising my harmonica again and hope that I can get into a blues band, set up a duo, trio or band so I can work into my old age which is what I want to do. I am also learning countertenor singing. What I want to do best of all is be a maths teacher in a local Middlesbrough school that would be good for me, my family and the community. There are also quite a few people in the Tees Valley who I have got to know very well and would like to continue to know them for a long time.

This morning I had a really nice play with my fine musical friend Melyn Lewis. He was on good form and I love the growley voice . We are going to go out and play together at Butterknowle Acoustic club every month but hopefully we will do gigs of our own. A nice morning .

This afternoon I had a gorgeous 4 mile walk around Durham with my family. Biscuit break in the middle was nice as was seeing the Yellow Wagtails and a huge Heron down by the weir in the center of Durham . I never get bored with that place . Nice seeing familiar faces as well , the other walkers. Fiona and I think we may want to retire to that City.