On Sunday,in the morning I took the lads skateboarding and Miles was doing in-line skating as well as his skateboarding. He is getting on very well with this much better than last time when he resembled a newly born calf on roller skates! After this, the lads were a bit wasted, so in the afternoon Fiona and I had a nice 2 mile walk around Easby Abbey and there were many leaves floating down on top of us shaken off by the wind. We visited my mother and she was all right. After this I took Fiona home I went out on my own for a 7 mile walk around York in the sun set, evening light and then in the dark. The sunset was lovely over the city walls and I was surprised how quickly it went to dark because of the low cloud. York is quite a mysterious place in the dark and it is a more dark city than for example Leeds which is very well illuminated. I quite like this. Around York University Lake all of the ducks were tucked up in bed and fast asleep. That gave me the feeling I should get home ! A nice little ramble and on the late Sunday afternoon and early evenings I always feel quite restless and want to get out for a walk. The rest of my week goes better when I do this.

Last Saturday, we did a 4 mile walk around a very autumnal Durham. More dead leaves were floating on the river forming columns flowing downstream. The Himalaya balsam seeds are slowly getting to the point where they start to eject their seeds and make a popping sound when you walk by them. The first time I heard this I wondered what it was. In the city center we had a very funny incident with a large group of young lads. Our two lads had got a bit ahead of us and we wanted to have a look at some stone tiles that had been used for resurfacing the market square in Durham so both Fiona and I boomed out simultaneously "Boys!" which to them means they should come back to us. The trouble is this group of lads was alongside us at the time and they all stopped walking and looked at us for about 10 seconds wondering what we were going to say next. I find it heartwarming that the training of our children seems to work with anonymous groups of them as well! They were good boys.