Today we went over to the other side of the country, the Lake District, to visit Fiona's mother something we do every month. It is a two hour trip over the back of the Pennines past the Howgills and then into the South Lakes area which is at the Southern end of the Lake District. The scenery is amazing and I get to see some little bits of geology by the roadside which I never tire of looking at such as huge arches of rock set in the cliffside called anticlines. Well it keeps me interested and stops me from falling asleep at the wheel! When we got to Ulverston we walked up a 500 foot high small hill with Hoads Monument on top which has amazing views of the whole of the lake District, part of the Pennines and of course the Howgills. There is also the big expanse of Morecambe Bay to look at as well. What amazes me, is that on the information board which gave the names of all of the peaks that you could see you can see right through the middle of the Lake District up to the northern end of it to Keswick and a peak called Blencathra. It must be at least 30 miles if not more. Whilst the Lake District feels big when you can see so much of it in one eyeful so to speak it is in fact quite a small area.

Veronica, Fiona's Mum was well and cheerful as usual and very pleased to see her grandchildren and Fiona and me. She looked at a lots of photos on the netbook and found that very enjoyable. It is really good that modern technology can bring so much pleasure to an older person's life. We will see her again next month and I'm really looking forward to it. Whilst visiting relatives is a mixture of duty and pleasure once I get into it I realize it is a pleasure and a pleasure. Family unity, understanding and truthfulness to each other is something which gives me an extraordinary amount of joy and always makes me feel that I have done something right. I know, because I've asked them, that our children feel the same way about this but to a much lesser degree after all they are very young people with a different perspective on life.

The only disappointing thing about today was not seeing any buzzards and we have not seen many of them for the last few months. They really do migrate over big areas. Once going past a local village we saw six or more buzzards in a group which was obviously a family or maybe even two families but that was three years ago and we have never seen such a big concentration of buzzards again. Whilst I really enjoy the predictability of nature especially geology I also love the randomness and chance which just stuns you with its interest and beauty. A good day.

Today has been a very good one. I got some mathematics done in the morning and solved some of our clothes drying problems in our house at last. With the family I then went for a 4 mile walk around Durham and the boys were in much better health. Nice and fit as usual. The river was still very brown which indicates a high peat content in it which is unusual because we have not had a lot of rain. A sign of things eroding way up in the hills? Maybe next time I go up to upper Weardale it will all be gone! Anyway, we did our usual walk except that the trees were catching the autumn. A heron was again on the weir and I can remember a time when we would have seen one every few weeks and now there is one there every week. Could be the time of the year who knows. The center of Durham was fairly quiet but there were a lot more students about which was nice because their faces looked keen and optimistic which is just what we need in these times. Well, back home and two episodes of Star Trek followed by a great music session with Fiona listening to a compilation CD called Supercharged which has some pretty good music from McFly and bands like that. I have just finished watching I Robot with the boys and that was good particularly some of their charged comments about what was plausible and what was not. A good day. Family life goes from bliss to, well, more bliss!

Well, today I did not feel like doing any maths work so I decided to go to York to get a wax cotton jacket because believe it or not there are not that many of them in this area. So I popped out the car at Rawcliffe and walked into the center via Burton Stone Lane and then Gillygate but when I got to Marks & Spencer's they did not have the particular type off wax cotton jacket that I liked. I had a look in a couple of other shops but they didn't either. So, I hoofed it up to the University and had a good walk around seeing a heron at Derwent College Lake perched on the wire fence in the middle of the lake that surrounds the water lilies desperately attempting to get a frog and then further down I saw a Ruddy shelduck and further down from that the great crested grebes were still there which I think is marvelous because I have seen them from when they were chicks.

What surprised me today was that I am usually quite fit but since we have got the elliptical which is specifically useful for putting more power into your legs I am even fitter and I shot around at a speed and a manner which I don't remember doing since I was about 40. All this from just 10 days worth of training on the elliptical so after a couple of months I should be able to do the hills even easier than I do now.. All of the family have found this effect. I was watching a documentary a while back about Royal Marines training and I noticed that they used ellipticals which quite surprised me because it is a bit of a namby-pamby piece of gym equipment but they were using them so I thought there must be something in it so now we have got one. Good stuff.

York was busy because there was a Yorkshire food fête in the center and I sampled one of the porkpie's which was probably the best porkpie I've ever tasted in my life. Was tempted by another but I resisted and instead deferred gratification and got Fiona some York chocolate fudge which pretty much puts me in her good books for about the next 10 days. York chocolate fudge or any chocolate fudge for that matter is usually worth about 10 days of her good graces. We have a very simple relationship: I please her and she puts up with me! I will not be going down to York for a while because I've spotted that they have cleaned up the White Horse on the North Yorkshire moors and all of the Oolitic limestone is shining white and brilliant and I have just got to see it so we will be going there this weekend and having a nice walk.

With the family this afternoon I have had a gorgeous 4 mile walk around Durham. On the first part of the walk just outside Durham because there was no wind the river was completely flat and brown due to the peat which had been washed down from Weardale. We stopped for biscuit break a bit early because Clifford was still feeling grotty from the bug he had last week but he continued on, good lad, and we went down to the weir and were quite surprised how hard it was to see the birds when we were walking into the West and the sunlight was reflecting off the water into our eyes. It is quite strange that when you do a walk in the opposite direction it looks and feels like a completely different walk! We have decided to do this a bit more often because it makes the familiar strange . Works in a marriage as well to be quite honest! I'm not sure what I'm on about that by the way! Back home and tea with the usual two episodes of Star Trek followed by an evening with Bob Dylan.

"Can you cook and sew make flowers grow, do you understand my pain, are you willing to risk it all or is your love in vain," I love my wife for two reasons the main one is she is a great woman and good at walking hills, a real hiking lady, but the other reason is she got me into Bob Dylan God bless her.

With the family I had a gorgeous 7 mile walk today around Ripon in North Yorkshire. We went through the town to have a look at the Cathedral and there was an orchestra rehearsing the Beethoven Violin Concerto for the nights performance and the sounds ringing around the place were amazing. At the high altar end the floor had limestone flags which were unweathered , naturally being inside , and full of fossils . So we spent a bit of time on our hands and knees looking at them which invited the comment from me "We'd better not do this for to long or else they will think we are Muslims!" We are Bahai's so we thought that was quite funny . When no one is around I often sing a Bahai prayer in various churches I come across particularly in York. The acoustics are great and so is the spiritual ambience. Nice . Christianity is brilliant you can even trace the start of the Industrial Revolution to the Christian Medieval period and that has had a massive if not defining effect on democracy and the way we live today.

Anyway, then it was off downstream following the River Skell by some amazing medieval houses and we were looking for the Ripon Canal because whilst I have been to Ripon hundreds of times , Fiona spent most of her childhood there , and we did some of our courting there, we got married there, I wanted to see the new canal development . Well, it was amazing . The canal has been restored right up to close to the cathedral, two Marinas have been built and there were around 150 barges and boats , yes 150 between each of them. Best of all a wetland has been created between the canal and the horse racing course and we saw a pair of Great Crested Grebes and there was a few weeks old chick as well which we saw climb up onto the parents back and nestle in amongst the feathers. It is very late forany bird to still have a chick. Urban walks around Ripon are on the our agenda particularly during the autumn with all the leaves changing colour. I locked into the Ripon Canal in 1983 with 4 mentally handicapped men from Juniper Communities in York and we had a great week on the water and quite a party at the canal because two of my mates , Joe James and Peter Dodds cam up from York and we had an all night party on the boat . Good times!

Double Star Trek when we got back home folowed by a sombre but very informative documentary about the September 11th attack which had the boys very engrossed. The accounts of personal heroism were inspiring and the lack of american preparedness and the uncoordinated response were and are worrying. For a country that is politically united and technologically advanced , it has an amazing amount of disunity. The civil and military air traffic people have two different systems for coordinates i.e. telling someone where a plane is !

The lads had a ripping session at RKade skate park in Redcar last night. Clifford seems to have got over his tiredness problems which had the Doctor not concerned at all! As I said to Fo several times "You cannot run up hills like he does and have anything wrong with you ". I find the hill test to indicate the state of a child's health very reassuring.

Anyway, last night whilst talking with a well educated and professionally qualified parent I heard the best bit of sexist humour I had come across in years. Me and this guy were talking about technology and I joked that "I will be glad when robots do everything because we can all sit around and do maths every day" " Aye " he replied " but the problems will come when they get self awareness, after all, look what happened when women got it !" Wonderful, even though I don't agree with him. This is nearly as good as the best bit of sexist humour I ever heard which came from a Bahai lady Audrey Mellard in a discussion about equality between the sexes. She said " I don't want to be equal to a man because I don't want to lower myself!" Absolutely right because as we are slowly getting this equality we have to make sure it gravitates upwards to all good and fine things rather than the lowest common denominator. And on that note I'd better get on with some maths!

Today, which hasn't been a brilliant one for me I dug out some of the CDs I still had from recordings I did with Melvyn Lewis guitar, Mick Ryan drums and Tony on bass. At the time, around 4 years ago I thought I might dip my toe back into the world of trying to work as a musician because I was still getting over meningitis and I sincerely thought I could not do anything else due to my brain being damaged , so the psychologist said, and I was having problems with RSI specifically giving me a ton of aches and pains which is odd in a man as fit as I am. Happily I have got over most of those physical problems and after hearing Digital Earth and Half Hand Hoodoo at the York Peace Festival my interest in music has been fired up . Probably a temporary state! A point of all this is whilst I can obviously play the harmonica and even possibly sing I have found it very hard to get playing with people in the North East of England. I just don't seem to fit in with any of the groups and bands and there is the added problem of doing all of my house husbanding duties getting the lads out and about. To be quite honest I have been moaning on for a while to the family that Sunday is a very quiet night and I would love to get out and play , preferably at the same spot every week and develop some interest in the jazz and blues that I can play and even lay some of the songs I have written on people to see what they think. Maybe I will just have to wait until the lads don't need me around so much. Miles is starting driving lessons this week and that will lead to more independence for us both. Well saying all of this has cheered me up!

Today with the family I went to the Peace Festival in York. It was a most beautiful experience. I had let a friend of mine from the 80's, Sybil Wood, know that I was coming to see her and her husbands band Digital Earth sometime over the summer but we couldn't do this so when I realised last week the York Peace Festival was a good place to meet I was very pleased. When we got to Rowntrees Park I saw Sybil and her husband almost immediately but there were a lot of people with them and they were getting stuck into scones and cream , I found out later , so rather than impulsively barging in I decided to wait for a bit of space. So, we went to the main part of the park where a lot of organisations and causes tents were and we ran into Margie Vernon a very lovely lady I had seen around York since about 1982 but didn't meet until 1990 when I was married and living at Stamford Bridge which is 5 miles from Pocklington where Margie lived . Around 1990 we got to know Margie and John her husband , a chemistry lecturer at York Uni. really well and saw them several times over a 4 year period where we visited each others homes and had many great discussions. Margie is a passionate supporter and exponent of many good causes and her husband is a fascinatingly warm , sharp and intelligent man to talk to. I really admired him. It was great to see her and she was as trim, fit and mentally sharp as ever, she is in her 70's and still riding her bike and after some very warm discussion she was talking about what she was currently interested in as if we had seen her for the last 14 years and not the other way 'round. The people I love the best are those that you just see again after a long period of time and it doesn't matter it is as if you had seen them yesterday and the relationship is as fresh and warm . Well after talking with Margie we headed into York centre for a walk , came back to the main stage area and ran straight into Sybil and it was the same experience as it was with Margie. That was an amazing experience for me because I had not spoke to her since around 84' 85' I think, although I did see her pushing a pram around the town sometime in the 90's. Sybil was one of a few people in York at the time who I paid attention to in terms of pulling my life together because of her wise words, but best of all her kind, well intentioned manner which basically said to me that not only I could do better but I would do better. I was having a pretty wild life at the time but I knew I wanted to change and would indeed have to change . I did. 2 years later I was in York Uni. got into the Bahai Faith and had got married to a fine Bahai lady the lovely Fiona. I had straightened every tiny bit of my life out. Good for me good for the world. With me kindness and intelligent straightforwardness pay off and I was privileged to get this from several people in York in the 1980's Sybil being one of them.

It was lovely seeing Sybil talk to my wife and children , she is just so good at immediately relating to people, something I can now at last do this myself and I had had a great and thoughtful chat with her friend the wife of one of Digital Earths keyboard players. A very nice lady who gave our lads some free CDs which I insisted on paying for but she said no, but I am going to buy them off Itunes anyway because I believe that a band that is good as Digital earth should be supported financially because they are really that good . Buy there stuff folks it is really good and I think they are going to get even better in the near future. Another of Sybils friends , a very kind lady , offered us some cream and scones and we really enjoyed those.

We had a nice walk into the town as usual prior to seeing Sybil and Miles and Clifford climbed their favourite tree in the Minster Gardens and we had a nice cup of coffee at Costas or Costa-a-lot of money as I call it !

Back at Rowntrees Park Digital Earth were a very good band who sounded excellent live. My lads loved it and will be doing their maths to the two CDs tomorrow no doubt. I used to play the trumpet and went to music college in 1974 and taught the trumpet as well as working semi-professionally and Jon Wood , Digital Earths flugal horn player and Sybils husband was most excellent. He plays really well and I loved the way he integrated his fine horn sound into the rappy, souly , rocky music. I was a little bit jealous I must admit it ! He is very good. As we were heading off for home we spoke with John for a few minutes and he is a really nice man who I hope I will see sooner than later. I love big bluff blokes who know what they mean and say it. And he is a fine horn man as well.

After a great afternoon we headed back home and watched Star Trek. One of the best days of the year for me and God bless, Sybil, Jon and their family, Digital Earth and the York Peace Festival. We will be going again next year and we will be doing a Bahai stall as well!

Nice day yesterday. No walking for once . The lads had a good thrash around RKade skate park , they were energetic and pretty awesome ,I was really into a good reading session so got into Sense and Sensibility and some maths and Fo headed off for a shopping trip in the centre of Redcar.I only do shopping with her when she needs my help and that is usually when she attempts to chose clothes! In spite of doing no walking we still had our biscuit break : habits die hard in our family . Home and a couple of episodes of Star Trek . An uneventful but pleasant day. This is one of the things I like about family life : even when we don't do that much it is still good fun and interesting and there is always room to do something different which in this case meant not doing much . Because we went to a later session than we normally do , we usually do the 10-12 one, the skate park was full of kids and our lads really enjoyed that . Instead of doing there own thing they got in with some of the others like the most excellent skate boarder Sam. He is really good. There were a lot of scooters there and it is good to see that youngsters are keeping that going . Good for them and for the skate park. Most of them have picked up on the park discipline and are not bumping into themselves ,BMXers and skateboarders like they used to . Contrary to what most oldies think skate boarding , blades, scootering and BMXing are very cooperative and disciplined activities. Together and individually youngies and not so youngies like the middle aged shredder bunch (MAS), older guys who used to skate in the 70's who took it up again today, take decisions and then do it when there are very real risks involved. I am always inspired and amazed at the amount of diligence and determination they all put into it .

Last night the family watched "As good as it gets" starring Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt. Super dialogue, moving and very funny. I thought that would be the end of films for the night but Fo I just left the telly on and Miles wandered through saying "What are you to doing , just staring at the tube!". Yep, but then Sense and Sensibility came on and Fo really wanted to watch it so we did . Most excellent although she made several dark comments about scenes that were not in the book. Today after the shock and surprise of watching this movie she got the book out for me so I suppose I have got to read it. This morning I did some maths, listening to the band "Temper Trap". A total blast and I first heard the band in the Works skatepark cafe in Leeds last winter. Very atmospheric. Totally recommended.