As an end of A-levels treat I took Miles to the Works skate park in Leeds last night. They had built a new half pipe section and he was totally enthralled with it. So enthralled that he took a couple of bad slams in his excitement. Bad dog! Still, nothing he has not experienced before so we had a really good time. Skateboarders seem to enjoy grief! I did my usual 6 mile walk around Leeds which was really great. On the way back about a kilometre from the skate park on a busy road I noticed a goldfinch to my left which then promptly shot up to a high overhead streetlamp and one of its young popped up there as well and they both just hung out for about five minutes. It was absolutely brilliant and I never expected to see goldfinches smack in the centre of Leeds. Whilst it was a really good evening in our mutual excitement we forgot to retrieve our skateboarding toolkit so I have to go back down to Leeds this evening to get it. Oh well, lots of singing practice in the car tonight! I must tell you this. Oh the perils of voice recognition, if I had not edited this it interpreted "skate park" above as "as Gay Park"!

Mentioning the young dead deer on the path yesterday reminded me of encountering a deer last year when walking on the outskirts of Hudswell Woods on the valley top where the hay meadows are. I spotted what I thought was a large dog about 250 m away but quickly realised it was a deer browsing in the long grass. This was in mid-June. Because the wind was blowing towards us and away from the deer as we approached, they have a superb sense of smell, I knew that we could get very close to it because roe deer have very poor eyesight and the rustling of the grass as the deer walked would mask our approach because they have very good hearing. So, every time it walked we walked and then we stopped when it stopped. We did this for about 10 minutes until we were only around 10 m away and he could still not see us. I am pretty sure it knew something was there but because of its low profile in the very long grass and the simple fact that it could not smell or hear any danger it was completely unaware of us. Clifford was a very good boy that day: he stayed back on the path without being asked to , to stop some other walkers tramping down to see us and to see what we were looking at which would of course scared the deer off immediately as soon as it heard footsteps. It is very easy to understand how primitive man could outwit animals, kill and eat them.

Me and the family have just got back from a lovely 6 mile walk around Lower Swaledale outside Richmond underneath the Willances Leap monument stuck up on the valley top. We saw three buzzards soaring away and it looked like a parent buzzard and two young ones. When we went through the woods there were amazing amounts of fungi straddled along long logs right from little small fungi to the same type but much bigger. About a kilometre along the wood we saw what I thought at first was a well scavenged hare but my wife pointed out that it was a very young deer possibly only a few days old. It had been picked almost entirely clean and it is the first time I had ever seen a dead young deer in Swaledale in my life. A nice walk and I am also looking forward to Star Trek and some maths this evening.

Last night I took the lads to RKade skate park in Redcar. They had a very vigorous session in part because GCSE and A-level exams were over for both of them. I'm sure they were really going for it because they like to compete with each other. Clifford had not been skateboarding for a while so he was really into it. The park had Lynard Skynyrd blasting out over the PA and I I saw Miles boogying a bit after a particularly good run. Not an unknown phenomenon in a skate park to be quite honest. Over the years I have seen some young men actually get into a bit of dancing when things are going well. After all, it is hard to dance when you have just slammed into a large piece of concrete! A good night and I got a lot of good reading done: the Big Bang, the development of the American West and some maths theory. Juicy!

Well, at last my days of home tutoring Miles, which is really just generally supervising him are now over. He completed his last exam today and is quite happy with it. He is having the next few days off and then starts into his Open University work this Monday. No rest for the wicked! For me, it has been a 13 year period which has had an amazing amount of ups and very few downs. He has my total respect for all the hard work he has done. It was quite amusing this morning when I took him to the Queen Elizabeth College examination hall. Because there was a languages and English exam occurring at the same time most of the candidates were women. He was the only candidate doing Mechanics 4 and he was sat right at the front in a row all on his own. It was quite funny when I talked to one of the invigilators because she showed me the seating arrangement document and it was mostly blue and yellow with one red square at the front which was for Miles.

I took the lads skateboarding this morning and they had a good 2 hour blast. Must have been good for Clifford because he was fast asleep by 9pm. I then had the afternoon to myself so I went to York and had a good 6 mile walk. I physically felt like going further but I was bored with the place so I got home just in time to have tea with the family and watch Star Trek. Still felt quite active so I went out for a 4 mile bash on my kickbike and that was great. Last time I used the wrist splint I have to wear it just really hurt my gammy hand but this time I adapted one of the lads skateboarding wrist supports which is a lot more flexible but still supports my wrist and it felt fine . Well its OK for now. A good day and I can't wait to get stuck into maths this week.

With the family I had a nice 6 mile walk around Durham. Just an exercise walk. We saw one heron and there were no cormorants on the weir. The giant hog weed had shot up since we were last there and the whole walk is a lot more greener. The army were out in Durham centre with a 10 metre 4 sided climbing wall and it was good to see them letting everyone know about and getting the kids involved with an important aspect of our national life. I know that Bahai's cannot elect to serve in the forces because they are primarily for national defence but I also know that Bahai's will be able to serve in any international force that eventually arises because that will be protecting and in some cases implementing the will of a democratically elected world government.

When we got back Miles and I had a great discussion and mutual demonstration with pencils and paper for the algebraic justification for a step being missed out of the formula for geometric sequences in the A Level specification.He's a bright lad and sometimes I think I'm in there as well! Star Trek and maths this evening and some great rock music. Good day.

I've had a good day. Miles has done his second from last exam and as usual he has come out of it very relaxed. He explained out one of the questions to me between the College and the car. After all the work this week he is knackered but keen to put in a few miles this weekend and a good skateboard session. My youngest lad is really getting into his maths which he studies offsite as part of his flexischooling. He got in 3 hours today which was great . The lad has been really tired due to the growth spurt he is undergoing. By this September it will have been 2 years but the Doctor is not worried about a thing. He hears about all the exercise he gets and just shrugs. A good doctor. Well footie and Star Trek this evening and no doubt a bit of maths . I'm on the run to employment I think.

Events in our front and back garden can be quite interesting. Although we often go for long walks to have a look at interesting features of nature they also occur under one's nose. A couple of days ago we noticed that a piece of Yoredale series sandstone in our front garden had been split in two by frost shatter. This particular rock arrived in our garden about five years ago and it must have been split by our last severe winter. Pretty amazing. The other interesting event was that quite often over most of my life I have seen dandelion seeds like a big fluffy head on a stalk partially damaged which I always put down to the wind. I went into the study room yesterday and noticed a large fine male bullfinch perching on a lower branch of one of our conifers and it was eating the seeds on the head of the flower. It was also the first time I had seen a bullfinch in our garden.

I had a good rehearsal this morning with Mel my guitarist pal. We are learning new songs for the next Butterknowle music club session. Then with the family I had a nice 4 mile walk around Durham and saw 2 herons . There seem to be a lot around at the moment. I didn't want to take the lads on too long a walk because they both have a lot of academic work and exams next week. Got to save their little legs so the brain functions well. Come the summer though and we are back to 10 miler's and they are looking forward to that . A good day.

My total wimpola children are tired out after the last two days exertions. They really went for it in RKade skatepark last night so we are not going to Leeds, The Works skate park tonight and Fo and I are not getting our 8 mile bash around Leeds. I must admit Miles looked totally exhausted last night , good lad. He did an hours exam practice this morning and seemed to have trouble keeping his pencil upright so he is taking the rest of the day off. Are young people getting less physically resilient or is it just Fo and I are running our lads out to much?

Myself and the family had a good 8 mile walk around York yesterday over the afternoon and early evening. We saw the grebes and their chicks on the University lake and Fiona was really enthralled by them . After the walk we had a kebab and a good conversation with the Kurdish owners of the business. They were originally from Turkey so we talked a lot about the incident in the Mediterranean. We then went to Rowntrees Park skate park where the lads skated for about an hour and were totally awesome. They both seemed a bit tired afterwards! As parents we have been tiring them out pretty much from when they could walk. It is a good parenting strategy. A good day.