This afternoon with the family we had a nice 5 mile walk around Durham. On the river banks there was an awful lot of Himalayan balsam which is crowding out indigenous riverside plants. The river was even lower than last week and pretty soon the cormorants on the weirs in the centre will just be able to walk over to the fish and gobble them up! Fiona's first broad beans were picked today and she had some for tea whilst I finished off the courgettes from the school garden. I tried her broad beans and they were absolutely delicious. Totally blew away those you get from the supermarket! We watched The Matrix, part one, whilst munching. A nice day and I am going to end it with a serious chunk of reading tonight; maths, Baha'i history, and Hamlet for the second time through!

After the walk yesterday we got cleaned up and Miles felt better so we all went out for our 22nd wedding anniversary meal at Tandoori Nights in Richmond. My mum came along as well which was very nice. The restaurant is a great place although they had just undergone a refurbishment which was only half finished when we turned up! No problem at all and the food and company were great. After 22 years of marriage my wife is still as lovely as ever and we both feel as keen and strong about our family as we did all those years ago. After a good meal we got back home and watched two episodes of Star Trek Deep Space Nine and that was really good. Fo and I listened to Bob Dylan "Bringing it all back home" which was totally amazing. That man is the new Shakespeare no doubt about it. Not only that both him and his band just simply rock! A nice end to a good day and another year ahead of love, work and making progress.