Today with Fiona and Clifford I had a nice 3 1/2 hour walk around York. It was quite interesting because we ended up talking with Clifford a lot about some apprehensions he had about the work he was doing in the sixth form college in Darlington. A parent has to go from fun and be interested in this mode please to a more serious one at the drop of a hat as soon as the kid raises an issue. We switched modes very quickly! We consulted and sorted it out as we often do in this family in a very short space of time, consult thoroughly, full frank and unfettered and then decide on the course of action and act in unity. We have done this right from when Miles was born and it works. I could not care less if anybody says to me "Oh, that's what Baha'is do" because in actual fact I have seen people from all sorts of beliefs and no beliefs do this and it does work. The lad is back on the virtuous circle or academic treadmill depending on how you look at it! Circle, circle, circle..........! From what I noticed of York Minster walking round it talking quite earnestly with the lad and Fiona it is still there, it is a wonderful spiritual building full of lovely geological specimens and packed full of tourists today which however much people lament the tourist, after all we were tourists today, they are a jolly bunch and definitely brighten the place up. We had our usual Original Cornish Pasty washed down with some nice coffee and just as we were heading back to the car along Birdcage Walk it started to really throw it down with rain so it was umbrellas out and the only interesting part of that walk was spending some time looking at the River Ouse and some really strange very large patches of what looked like slushy ice floating down the river but what we worked out was some sort of interaction between the large raindrops hitting the fast flowing current, the raindrops creating ripples that cut across each other and then the wind sweeping straight across the lot and giving the illusion of patches floating down the river. It was a very beautiful and almost transcendental effect that has us gazing wondrously and thinking furiously at the same time. As I said to my youngest doggie Clifford "If you can understand the interesting explanation we are coming up with kid talking about this there is no way that you are not intelligent!"! Good lad and a nice end to a lovely little walk with our family furthering and progressing as it usually does after a minor hurdle has been passed. God bless good old reason. And tough mindedness!

Today with Fiona and Clifford I had a nice 3 1/2 hour walk around York. It was quite interesting because we ended up talking with Clifford a lot about some apprehensions he had about the work he was doing in the sixth form college in Darlington. A parent has to go from fun and be interested in this mode please to a more serious one at the drop of a hat as soon as the kid raises an issue. We switched modes very quickly! We consulted and sorted it out as we often do in this family in a very short space of time, consult thoroughly, full frank and unfettered and then decide on the course of action and act in unity. We have done this right from when Miles was born and it works. I could not care less if anybody says to me "Oh, that's what Baha'is do" because in actual fact I have seen people from all sorts of beliefs and no beliefs do this and it does work. The lad is back on the virtuous circle or academic treadmill depending on how you look at it! Circle, circle, circle..........! From what I noticed of York Minster walking round it talking quite earnestly with the lad and Fiona it is still there, it is a wonderful spiritual building full of lovely geological specimens and packed full of tourists today which however much people lament the tourist, after all we were tourists today, they are a jolly bunch and definitely brighten the place up. We had our usual Original Cornish Pasty washed down with some nice coffee and just as we were heading back to the car along Birdcage Walk it started to really throw it down with rain so it was umbrellas out and the only interesting part of that walk was spending some time looking at the River Ouse and some really strange very large patches of what looked like slushy ice floating down the river but what we worked out was some sort of interaction between the large raindrops hitting the fast flowing current, the raindrops creating ripples that cut across each other and then the wind sweeping straight across the lot and giving the illusion of patches floating down the river. It was a very beautiful and almost transcendental effect that has us gazing wondrously and thinking furiously at the same time. As I said to my youngest doggie Clifford "If you can understand the interesting explanation we are coming up with kid talking about this there is no way that you are not intelligent!"! Good lad and a nice end to a lovely little walk with our family furthering and progressing as it usually does after a minor hurdle has been passed. God bless good old reason. And tough mindedness!

Last Monday, with the family we had a really good trip over to see Veronica at Barrow in Furness in the southern lakes. Before we visited her we had a really nice walk around Ulverston looking at several of the houses and walking around some of the backstreets. Fiona had to stop a couple of times because she felt dizzy! Poor girl! But town walks are so interesting. When we got to the old people's home we got Veronica a wheelchair to take her down into the reception area where there was a lot more room and she really enjoyed herself talking to the boys and looking at the photographs that Fiona brought. We saw it as bringing part of her old life into the new one because she does not get out of the special care unit that she is in at all. A sure sign that she is happy in that unit was that she felt a bit out of place at first away from her lady friends and the people who look after her. It was really funny at times because Veronica had no problem concentrating on what Miles was saying at all and had a really good dialogue with him but when she was talking with Clifford she just could not keep her concentration going and she kept on turning away from him and talking to me and Fiona which left Clifford looking a bit miffed. A very humorous and delightful moment! The lads enjoy visiting her and it is nice to know that she is being looked after well although she does keep falling over at the moment and reflects on that herself and just accepts it as part of her frailties . It is a straight 100 miles over to Barrow but it is a very interesting and nice journey and I hope to be making it for many more years to come. God bless my dear mother in law.

Yesterday with the family we had a nice little walk around Richmond in Swaledale, North Yorkshire. We were supposed to go to see Fiona's mum, Veronica, over at Barrow in Furness in the southern Lake District but Fiona woke up feeling like a dead dog in part because the antibiotics the doctor had given her have now stopped but she has no other medicine other than painkillers to deal with the sinusitis. Illness is a hassle sometimes! Anyway, instead we went over to Richmond to have a romantic walk around the town and I sent off our two doggies to walk and talk over any walk they like around Richmond so long as they met up with us on Richmond Castle Walk 90 minutes later. We just lolled around looking at the great 18th-century houses in and around the centre of Richmond and had a good look at the Yoredale series of rocks down by the river and this geological feature is always interesting because it can be very inconsistent even within the same few metres horizontally of rock. They are known as cyclothems because you get a series of sandstone, shale, and limestone reflecting the different conditions at the time of deltas, shallow ocean and deeper ocean. There were some good plans made yesterday as well. We spent some time just gawping at a very nice house/cottage which we decided we would buy if it was still on the market five years from now, the garden was big enough for Fiona to enjoy but not too big that I had to suffer it and the house was small enough that when our lads came back with the grandchildren they would not stop to long, so there was much hilarity, half serious thought and a nice view over at Billy Banks Wood to contemplate. Nobody was in the house so we just had a good stare into the Windows! My line has always been, "If you leave the curtains open I will look!" I do this when I walk around York all the time and get an interesting insight into just how much better people live compared to Fiona and me in terms of the fabric and furnishing of a house.We are still slumming it as if we were students basically. I do not stare all the time of course I just notice occasionally! Anyway, after having a good look at some of the stones in the River Swale Fiona started to get dizzy and I had thoughts of romantically catching her in my arms when she fell over in a dead faint but that did not happen thank goodness so we sauntered up to the Castle Walk and after wiping all the rain off the seat sat there and had a glorious cuddle looking at Billy Banks Wood from a higher point this time, but also with some lovely drizzle blowing in the wind in vertical sheets from the North and that was a very nice sight wet enough to enjoy and wet enough to be moving on after half an hour which we did when the boys turned up but only after I insisted they sit for 10 minutes to just morbidly enjoy the wet view. Nothing like getting damp together to foster family unity! They thought that was quite funny but we all got a bit soggy after 10 minutes so it was back to the car, home and ham and chips, Star Trek and as Pink Floyd say "One day closer to death"! Miles and I always have a good laugh about Pink Floyd lyrics and he thinks the band, the music and the lyrics are totally brilliant. I agree with him.

Last Saturday I had a lovely 4 mile walk around the Durham Woods with my younger son Clifford. Fiona was not feeling well so she stayed at home and Miles was busy with his Star Trek writing so he kept her company. It was a quiet overcast day and the river was up due to the rain all sediment and soil from Weardale. About a mile in my trusted excitement point, a pair of Goosanders , appeared and that was great. The female was quite twitchy and flew off immediately but the male has now got used to people and just floated off down the stream ignoring us. We saw another pair which I think were under a year old looking at the feathers , just beneath the weir downstream from Prebends Bridge. Because it was Christmas Eve I couldn't have a Starbucks coffee with my younger doggie but we were quite content to have biscuit break perched on the steps in Durham Market as usual. Because I wanted to get back to listen to the Carols at Kings College Cambridge programme on radio four we shot back over the town and when we got home we were all happy and glowey from a good walk. Clifford is very good company!

This afternoon with the family we had a trip down to Whitby to look at rocks and birds and just enjoy the ambience of what I knew would be a very quiet place. When we got there it was and we had a good little discussion about the reason why the East Cliff of Whitby is about 50 m higher than the West Cliff of Whitby and it is due to a fault running right up the middle of the River Esk. The lower part of the Cliff being the down throw of the fault we think although we're not quite sure about that yet because just because it is down doesn't mean it has fallen down anywhere it may have just stayed in place while the other side rose up. Geology it doesn't always make sense! The next interesting thing which was completely ordinary but absolutely totally amazing. A little while back when I was reading up about Buzzards I found out that sometimes small flocks of buzzards will walk across a field scrunching their claws into the earth to get worms to rise to the surface and then they can eat them. This odd little fact has been rummaging around in my brain and when I went to get some writing paper paper for the boys a few days ago as I was driving out from Staples on Teeside I saw a seagull stood on one spot but running up and down and I thought to myself that it was doing the same behaviour that the buzzards were in order to bring worms to the surface and then it would be dinnertime. We saw the same thing today walking down to Whitby Harbour but this time we watched the seagull for about five minutes and eventually it dabbed its beak into the ground and pulled out a very long worm. My hypothesis was confirmed and it was a totally magical moment because I am just as interested in the behaviour of birds as I am in just looking at them. Anyway as we trundled down on to the beginning of the West Pier of Whitby Harbour I saw what I knew I would probably see even I don't know why which was a very large Duck looking animal which I knew immediately was an Eider Duck. We whipped the bird book out to confirm it. Total magic. I never believed that I would see one of these without travelling up to the north-east of Scotland where there are lots of them because that is the first landfall for them when they come down from Iceland as well as from Tundra Arctic regions as well. When we went down to the end of the West Pier we thought we saw Scoters but they were too far out at sea to completely confirm this but apparently these birds and Eider Ducks are often found together. We also had a good look at the sandstone blocks at the lighthouse at the end of the pier which showed some excellent examples of cross bedding which is when the sand is deposited by the river at an angle to the river flow and obviously the steeper the angle the faster the river and this indicates river delta conditions which is what happened over the North Yorkshire Moors at that time around 180 million years ago during the Jurassic. May need to check that date up. I do all this stuff from memory by the way. We then stormed over to the east Pier and joy of joys I met my good friend and ex-girlfriend from the 1980s Tony Bunnel the folk musician, hurdy-gurdy player, and ferretologist, because she has a PhD in polecat ferrets and that was really good not least because I had not seen her for about 15 years. We will be going down to York to see her within the next week or so. I also met her husband who is called Paul and he is a very nice man. So that was great. Going out onto the East Pier we saw absolutely nothing but a gorgeous sunset spraying clouds and meaning across the West Side of Whitby. Beautiful! We got some take-away fish and chips and munched them in the car which was really nice. It was then home, Star Trek, ice cream and to this point in my simple little life when I am about to go to bed. Why go to bed early after 23 years of marriage? Because I'm tired of course! But not that tired!

Yesterday I had a lovely three hour outing in York with my lovely wife and youngest child Clifford. What I most wanted to see was York Minster and I had taken my loupe a geological magnifying glass to look at the stone in the Minster where there are some very nice stones which are also specimens of the rocks I see when I walk out in the hills. I was not disappointed. Well I was a little bit because to see some of the dark corners I needed my headlamp which I did not have. Bad dog. Most of the black stone inlay on the floor of York Minster is Frosterley Marble which comes from Weardale, is also found in Durham Cathedral, and has a lot of fossil coral. Again in the Frosterley limestone because that's what it is it is not a marble I saw some sort of worm burrows, what I think are called trace fossils, and they were nicely laid out flat on the floor underneath the East Window like little elongated 2 centimetre long egg shaped lace all grouped neatly within around 20 cm square. Magic! I also had a rather stupid red herring. I was staring wondrously and as it turned out totally deluded looking at some slightly spattered conical shapes on the rock which I swore was some sort of fossil. Fortunately I like to get my hands on the rocks and I always stroke across any rock that I come across just to feel its texture and even though I had seen these things about half an hour earlier and it had been rummaging around in my very small brain it was only when I went back with Fiona and Clifford to show them these wondrous little items and I got down on my hands and knees and scratched across it with my fingernail only to find out it was spattered wax. Oh boy. My stock had descended in the eyes of my loved ones even further, indicated quite clearly by the bellows of laughter! Fiona was a bit better yesterday and only needed a rest after every mile roughly every 20 minutes so that was good. She and Clifford went off on a whole York Minster history tour whilst I did my geology bit and she also had a look at the Chapter House which she had never seen before and that open wondrous look on her face staring round was a sight I will never forget. Beautiful! A nice walk out in a cold, overcast, but always very nice and interesting , York. God bless the place.

Last Thursday, Fiona and I had a neat little outing to Saltholme RSPB Nature Reserve in Teeside. It was very quiet the weather was cold and overcast and there were not a lot of birds close to the hides but what there were, were totally amazing, huge flocks of Pochards, Widgeons, Lapwings and Canada geese. I usually associate Pochards with York University Lake but I have not seen one there for years which is possibly because they have all emigrated further north to the Teeside area! Because Fiona is still not well with her sinusitis we did not do the whole of the Reserve and the soup and roll at the RSPB Centre were excellent as usual. A nice way to restore a not well woman! After a quiet walk around we decided to go but had a look in the Teeside Birdwatching Groups new hide right next to the car park overlooking a small pond. Well, what a surprise because there were two Godwits about 15 m from the hide and I never believed I would ever see Godwits in my life they are sort of like tall elegant curlews but with long straight dark pink looking beaks which they ram in and out of the ground really fast to get their food. Even though we were both pretty cold because we could not walk around too fast and work a sweat up like we normally do we sat there for about half an hour gazing wondrously at these two fine animals of which when I first saw them I thought they were Snipe but one of the resident RSPB experts put me right on that and then told us an awful lot about Godwits and other birds on the pond. A magical end to an entrancing 90 minutes in a heavily industrialised part of Teeside with a nuclear power station 2 miles down the road but also thousands of acres of brilliant nesting, feeding and resting ground and water for some of the world's birds. Even though the industry dominates the landscape over the last around 7 miles off the Tees Estuary in fact it only accounts for about 20% of the total acreage so there is plenty of room for birds and other animals. We also see Deer down there as well!

Fiona and I had a nice stroll around Saltholme RSPB Nature Reserve right in the middle of Machine City aka Teeside! It was fairly cold but that didn't affect the birds at all. I mostly wanted to see a Marsh Harrier and there was one around but we did not see it. We did see a Short Ear Owl perched on a gate and that was brilliant! Over at the Saltholme Hide we saw several Pintails and White Fronted Geese. Fiona got a bit tired and dizzy after a couple of miles but felt a lot better than she did a couple of weeks ago.Home-made soup and a big pot of yoghurt went down well at the cafe there and Saltholme RSPB Nature Reserve is well worth a visit so get yourself down or up there. I must say I find that bird watchers as a subspecies of the human race are a very nice and talkative people in fact they are a bit over informative but I really like that!

Well, after a very quiet start to the day and the rest of the family got up very late, the lazy devils, we went up to Durham for a walk along the River Wear. Most of the leaves have been blown off by the gales and there were piles of them by the track. Nice! Best of all about a mile out of the city centre we spied 2 Little Grebes looking ever so small and vulnerable diving and feeding in the river. Of course they are anything but because last winter when there were huge wide rafts of sludgy snow floating down the river these small birds would swim through them against the current. They may look small but they are very strong. Fiona is still not very well and she could only manage 3 miles but we had a look inside Durham Cathedral and it was all dark, mysterious and very beautiful. Biscuit break was good as well. When we got back home I knocked up the usual meatballs, tomato sauce and pasta with some garlic bread and watched the film Galaxy Quest a sort of sendup of the Star Trek series which is very ironic because we watch Star Trek all the time. A lovely afternoon out but I will be happier when my wife is better and up to her normal strength. Only two months ago she was trekking around the Lake District for goodness sake. But that's the way it goes: when the going gets tough: and we all know the rest!

Today, I feel as if I have spent most of the time in the car. 250 miles of it! This morning I took Miles to RKade skate park and he had a really good session with his friends. As soon as I got back Fiona and I went to see her mum at the new Residential Home she is at in Barrow in Furness because her vascular dementia has deteriorated. I was slightly apprehensive about going because she was so happy in her old home but once I got there, after I found the flaming place, it was a really good establishment. Veronica was in a medium-size room with several other residents and they had been listening to a music video. She really glowed when she saw us and as I helped her over to the corner of the room where we arranged the chairs to show her photographs and have a good chat, Fiona and I introduced ourselves to all the ladies in the room. They were very nice people. As usual Veronica really enjoyed the photographs and it was a good discussion and focal point and she asked several questions. I found the whole experience in this new establishment a bit emotional but also paradoxically quite beautiful as well because she is in good hands it is a well-run place with kind workers the sort of place I would be happy to end up in! Particularly with all those ladies! Anyway, we never took the boys today because we did not know how much room there would be and it was a bit pinched but they will be coming next time or a least one of them. I am sincerely glad that she is in good hands. The journey there and back was tricky because there was an awful lot of fog which disappeared completely as we climbed up to the Stainmore pass, like a summer's day up there, and then reappeared again in the Eden Valley but a bit thinner. It was the same going back and the fog seemed to have thickened in the Vale of York. I was very careful to make sure I kept everything together when driving as well as being aware of other people because it is easy to run into somebody in fog and to be run into but all the drivers were behaving very sensibly. A very beautiful afternoon out which could correspond to duty but was in actual fact a real pleasure. God bless Veronica.

Yesterday I got out into the centre of Darlington again to do a Baha'i stall. It is interesting because as people see you there more often they become quite friendly and I got a lots of smiles as well as a bit more interest in the stall. With the guys down the bottom end of the traffic free zone playing panpipes it felt a bit like York! A nice time. In the afternoon I had a short walk around Durham with Fiona and the lads and that was lovely in the slightly hazy autumn sunshine. Fiona wasn't feeling so good so we cut short our walk but coming back over Elvet Bridge there was a really good blues singer and guitarist doing his stuff. Then eyes were caught by what looked like a waterfall plunging over a bridge. Someone had put in an art installation and it was really brilliant. We were cooing away about this and there was a guy stood next to us who I asked what was going on and he told me and he should have known because he was the artist responsible for the installation. I only found that out this morning when I saw him on the breakfast news! I just love chatting to people and asking questions because you never know who you will be talking to and he was very interesting and funny. A lovely afternoon out followed by the usual meatballs tomato sauce and pasta.

Yesterday with Fiona, I went to Saltholme RSPB bird sanctuary at Teeside near Middlesbrough. The weather was overcast and the light not so good but there were literally thousands of birds around particularly Plovers and Golden Plovers. When they all flew into the sky it was like great clouds of them swishing around. There were also hundreds of Canada geese. Best of all was a Hen Harrier had parked itself on the site for a few days and when we went to the highest point and looked over the hundreds of acres of reeds I actually saw it rise very briefly over the reeds and then dive back down into them. Total magic. Fiona did not feel so good with her sinusitis and was positively dizzy at one point but it did not stop her enjoying her RSPB lunch and the many exciting birds.

Last Saturday I had a gorgeous afternoon out walking in the Durham woods with my family. It was also a religious celebration as well because it was the Birthday of the Founder of the Baha'i Faith. The woods were browning nicely and quite big gaps had appeared higher up in the vanished canopy. At Framwellgate Bridge we saw two herons flying low over the River in formation and then they both alighted on separate sides of the river. There was a third one parked beneath the weir. Fiona was in good fettle but she still has sinusitis and who will be off work for a couple of weeks. It hasn't affected her legs though!

‎"I keep wondering about a different world where science got there first" ( to Toby Philpott) It did get there first with trial and error , the little monkeys remembered the result and improved or rejected that which didn't work. Naturally with that comes a desire to understand the unknown and that is one of the ways God or rationalising the unknown comes in. We evolved that sense as an aspect of experience and had the capacity to do that. God is just a word by the way that reflects a real experience as in the unknown produces things we have to deal with . You could never name the real "God" completely in the same way you can't name the unknown ie because we can't know it completely. It is also worth thinking that it isn't so much that the monkeys became us as individuals but they responded to changes in environment ie loss of tree cover. In a sense you can say that that is what is decisive and neither them or us has any control over that whatsoever. Another good question is why some monkeys could respond to environmental changes but others couldn't . There doesn't seem to be any geneticically causal evidence to say why and it is doubtful that there ever will be! Only man has the capacity to believe in or invent God : the unknown.

Lovely weekend. Walking around Durham Woods yesterday was great thats after Fiona had been cleared though xray at casualty that her leg wasn't injured from assaulting a poor stream bed in the Howgill 13 days ago! Wish she'd leave those stream beds alone ! Poor things. Anyway alls well and poor old leg just needs some miles putting into it and it enjoyed the woods and ways of Durham . The leaves were golden, glorious and the family in high humorous spirits. Way Aye Man!

Today after the lads cruised RKade Skatepark in Redcar and a poor teeny broke his wrist right in front of my lads my Mum cancelled our weekly visit so I went out on my own to the autumnul,browney, leafey Richmond . It was magic and I said a prayer in Easby Church after I looked at the medieval wall art. Magic. Christian Church + Bahai praying = nice experience. Stopped at the Old Station for refuel and the coffee and company were great. At the yearly craft fete they have there I bought the lovely Fiona a lavender bag which when I presented to her at home got lots of hugs and kisses. Women are strange. Brill weekend.

Last Wednesday with the family I had a good walk out into the Howgills. The boys as is usual went on ahead on a particular route they had chosen which would take them around the highest part of the Howgills. They walked up the watershed between Bowderdale and Langdale Valley and getting eventually to Hazel Gill Brow and then going on to the Calf. They then descended down to the Bowderdale Pass and then up to Yarlside. Down to a place called Kensgrife and then up to Randy Gill Top and then back down Bowderdale and to the car. Fiona and I slowly walked up Bowderdale having a good look at the drift geology erosion features which were really good. There were many alluvial fans big piles of small rocks which had been eroded out of the gullies which extended from the bottom of the valley right up to the top. At right angles to the valley I might add. Fiona seemed better at spotting them than I did and she also saw a wandering heron before I did. Damm, that lady is getting quicker thinking than I am as we get older. The erosion features were interesting because I thought it would be a case of straight erosion of gullies right since the end of the last ice age say 13,000 years ago but that may not be the case because after the ice age the whole of the Howgills within a hundred years so had become populated with trees and shrubs. With the retreat of the ice came the advance of man who promptly cut down all the trees and I think that that is when the erosion really started. I'll have to look up about when man got to the Howgills.You can never avoid history! God bless Tom Owen a friend of mine from the 1980s for telling me this. We eventually arrived at the foot of Yarlside and had our lunch there and I must admit I was getting a bit fed up with the similarity of the territory and because there was no chance of me finding some black shale which is where I may find a graptolite, 440 million-year-old plankton. So instead of going up Randy Gill Top we decided to charge up the gully behind us and that was really good fun because I got very close to all of the rocks and scree on the way up and there was some lovely patterns of soil creep as well.Soil creep is when water moves through the soil and causes the soil and grass to look like waves descending down the hill. You find it absolutely everywhere and I am fascinated by it As we approached the top of the side of the Bowderdale Valley I could hear the wind swishing through the grass something I have never known anywhere else except in the Howgills. Arriving at the top there was an amazing and magnificent view of the highest point of the Howgills, the Calf, and also great views down into the Langdale Valley a place we walked down one sub zero very cold Christmas Day five years ago. It looked beautiful not least because the first time I walked in the valley the visibility was down to about 200 m. Looking back on the watershed between the Bowderdale and Langdale Valley we saw some really large furry caterpillars creeping about in the grass which was nice. I did two really good slipovers because it was very wet and I have concluded the reason I am falling over a bit more than usual is because my walking shoes have finally given up their grip. They are now in the bin and a pair of new walking boots will be bought pretty soon. We got back to the car 15 minutes before the time set for the lads but they were half an hour late after having a really good ramble around the heights of the Howgills. Miles looked as fresh as ever because he is extremely fit and Clifford looked only a little bit tired so I was very pleased with them both. They were a tiny bit grumpy because they had a mild falling out over which path to be on coming down about the Bowderdale Valley and I told them off because they should have resolved the issue before they saw us and we would only be looking at 2 radiantly happy lads as we normally do rather than 2 grumpy ones. I resolved the issue very quickly as I usually do that is quite forcefully making sure which one should have done what, Miles had overall responsibility after all, and emphasising the point that we are Baha'is and whilst nobody can avoid a problem we can resolve them gracefully. They are good lads and nobody is perfect. A very beautiful day out but next year we all agreed we would like to go and look at the autumn woods around Lake Derwent in the Lake District. Both Fiona and I are as fit as whippets at the moment and I was amazed how fresh and quickly we belted up the gully which was a vertical climb of at least 500 feet. Good fun!

Well, with the family yesterday I went over to visit Veronica, Fiona's mum and on the way we had a walk up through Carlingill up to Black Force through the slippy and treacherous but very beautiful gorge. On the subject of which as we came to a first stream crossing Fiona got cold feet about doing the great leap on to a rock in the middle of the stream and then on to the bank so she just ploughed into it but she did not pick her spot to well and it was quite deep where she stuck her foot in and she fell over and got very wet. It was the best stream fall in I have seen her do in years and we were in hoots of laughter. She is so game to have a go and I really love her for that. Onwards and upwards we were clambering about the sides of Carlingill which was quite treacherous because it had been raining and the Silurian rocks are very slippery when wet. Anyway, instead of doing my usual jump down from a metre height off a rock I thought it was a bit too slippy where I was about to land so I just did the old bum slide over it but the trouble was where my feet did land it was very slippery and I went careering over about 6 feet down to the edge of the stream, rolled, to save my back and then promptly nutted a very large rock inadvertently. I am sure the rock never felt a thing but I did! The boys were in hoots of laughter about this because Daddy is usually very surefooted. I must admit that when I picked myself up I felt very invigorated. And all of this before we even got to the very tricky and treacherous gorge. Well, when we got there it was very slippy and the path was about 20 cm wide sort of stomped into a 50° slope. Because so few people walk through Black Force it is very unstable and I was amazed to think that I took my family through there when the lads were quite young a few years ago. But on that day it was very dry and I specifically chose a dry day because clambering around gorges when it is wet can be just downright dangerous, in this particular gorge a few weeks ago someone died falling into it. So, everyone was holding on to the thick heather and grass as we traversed up and that was fine and quite safe but when we got to the arete to the right with a good view of the Black Force waterfall the way forward through the gorge was just too treacherous to take my family through. And so it was the great turn back. Downer, but it got interesting for me walking back because I have no grip in my gammy hand and could not hold on to the heather and grass and in several places where I put my feet I had some trepidation about whether they would stay in place or not and it was a long slide down to the gorge at the bottom. Oh boy! Still we managed and it was fun with a bit of heart thumping! As Fiona got changed out of her wet clothes in the car she had a huge swelling just below the knee where she bashed it in the river stumbling in. Go for it Fiona!

When we got to the South Lakes Veronica was in good fettle and talking with her was moving, magnificent and very merry and she enjoyed Fiona and I doing a demonstration of ceilidh dancing which we did for the boys to show them what is involved.They now want to go to a ceilidh! It is a real privilege to visit her and Fiona had taken a photo album of pictures of her when she was a baby and child and Veronica really enjoyed that. Looking at photos seems to captivate her and she literally looks 20 years younger. Brilliant! I look forward to seeing her next month. Well, after a crashing and banging walk around the slippy part of the Howgills and a gorgeous visit with my mother-in-law under our belts we headed off on our 100 mile trip back to the other side of the country and the Teeside Delta. A good day.

Life is interesting. I was really wondering what to do now my househusbanding bit has come to an end and thought because of my physical disability I would have a job getting into teacher training to be a mathematics teacher but this is not the case. Also, for at least the last year because the Subject Knowledge Enhancement Courses have changed the entry requirements I have actually got enough mathematics modules from open University to apply, get my mathematics enhanced, sounds interesting, and then go on to a Teacher Training course. I haven't actually been ready to do this until now because of my househusband duties but now I can am putting in my application form for three Teacher Training providers as well as applying to do observation of mathematics lessons in three Darlington secondary schools because the Teacher Training providers want this to happen before they will consider anybody for interview. One of them specifically told me that I have to find out for myself whether I will be able to do the job in terms of the computer usage and if I can there is no barrier whatsoever to applying but it still remains the case that secondary schools may not employ a mathematics teacher no matter how badly they need one if they feel he or she cannot use the computerised planning system because of physical handicap. I really do not think there will be a problem with this because a lot of planning is done on Microsoft Word and not only that the voice recognition program Naturally Speaking is much better at working in Internet programs and programs that are on a network whereas in the past it was very unreliable. It is looking good folks, I always like to address my aspirations in that way and my tail is up and there is a chance I may be able to start this January but it depends on whether I can get CRB clearance in the next few weeks as well as doing my lesson observations. There is a chance that I could apply and say that I will be doing this in the near future and I may go down this route but I will see. It feels strange that I am looking outwards into the community and society in terms of working in them both rather than being preoccupied with a home life and family. Good stuff!

Last Saturday with the family I had a golden gorgeous walk in hazy sunlight through the Durham Woods. The leaves are finally turning and many were floating in the River Wear which had an undecided look about it because there has not been much rain but just enough to keep up a good flow. Again I took the family on a mystery walk which was so mysterious even I did not know where we were going. I handed over the reins of direction to Miles but took them back again quickly when he led us into blind alleys whilst navigating through one of the Durham University campuses. Mystery yes, blind alleys no! The centre of Durham was full of bright and beaming people and there was an atmosphere of good cheer which is always nice. The reorganisation of the marketplace in my view has been very successful enabling lots of people to hang out there if they wish, as well as buskers getting their bit in as well. Fiona had quite a strong cold unfortunately which always affects her sinuses but her legs and lungs were as strong as ever. Again, as with Miles, I often wonder how much of a greater effect on them their colds would be if they did not get out doing strenuous walking and staying fit and healthy. Walking is a good way to go folks!

Well, Miles has finished doing his exams for this year. It started last Tuesday when he had a three-hour paper to do in the Thistle Hotel in Middlesbrough. He was very excited not least because he has thoroughly prepared as usual but come 5:30 p.m. when he finished he was so excited that he kept on gibbering away about all of the questions reciting bits of the paper to me and his answers as well has his possible answers as I drove him to the skate park in Redcar. That got my head buzzing and I was way too excited when we got there! It took a bacon butty and a Pot Noodle to calm me down. He did his second three hour paper yesterday and was much more level about the whole process. He expressed a lot of enjoyment just about the hotel and the design of the building which reflects his interest in urban environments motivated by his continuing development of his Lego skills. Whilst I think it is good to retain the child within he did something yesterday I was pleased with when he simply abandoned me to my book before the exam started and went and introduced himself to the other budding mathematicians most of which reacted in horror when he started bubbling away about the questions which he thought were going to come up and and how easy or hard they may be. One of the guys took a real shine to him and they had a good discussion. Must tell him that it is good to not hide his light under a bushel but also don't burn too brightly because people may feel scorched.Mmm. It was great to see all of these people most of which were over 50 improving their lives with education. I got talking to a lady who was doing an exam in Environmental Science as part of her job. At the end of the exam I spoke to her husband who told me that she had done another exam two weeks earlier. The firm she worked for in Teeside takes the education and training of their employees very seriously which is most excellent. Well, his academic year is over and it is interesting that he only has seven more exams to do and then he will have graduated completely. There was not much pressure on him really because he has averaged over 90% in both of his courses this year and in order to get a 2.1 he just has to get 70% or over in the exams and those scores will enable him to progress to where he thinks he wants to go which is Masters and then PhD or maybe even straight into PhD. I call that the "poor route" because he will be a student until he is around 25. If he went straight into secondary teaching he would make it a lot more money. I suspect in the near future it will be any female in his life that puts him on the track towards fulfilling his potential completely as a human being which isn't just about career fame and fortune.

Well today has been a no walking day. This morning I took the lads out to RKade Skate park in Redcar and they had a really good thrash. One of my friends a refrigeration engineer was telling me a really good story about the sorts of jobs that he got that could be very tricky and difficult because of government regulations and how they clash with his personal initiative. It is a common theme with people in business and somehow it always seems to be that the rules do not follow the good practice a lot of business people do. Anyway, often in arcade I get a can of Coca-Cola and as I always do with canned drinks give it a careful wipe and when I'm sat down in RKade usually rub the top on my left thigh as well. Well I was so engrossed with Andy's story that I forgot that I had gone through my wiping down routine and just picked up the open can of Coke and started rubbing it against my left thigh completely oblivious to what I was doing but slightly questioning about why Andy was looking at me as if I'd gone stark raving bonkers. Of course about 10 seconds later I jumped out of my skin and we both laughed our heads off and I had a very wet leg. It is yet another instalment in what could be the almost legendary lunacy that Paul Saunders-Priem either indulges in or something happens to him. Of course when the lads and several of the other skateboarders heard about this they were laughing until their sides split. If anybody ever wonders why nobody ever takes me seriously now you really know! A quiet reflective day with something to laugh about and a lot to think about.

On this fine damp afternoon with light rain falling, myself and the family had a leaf strewn walk around the Durham Woods. As we passed the Houghall agricultural College houses we saw six piglets nuzzling away on a sow stretched out on the muddy ground whilst the little piggies were sucking away. When she noticed us she stood up and some of the piglets were still trying to feed. Next week we are going to gather up some of the acorns and feed the pigs. As we walked through the woods climbing up to the top of the valley I was waffling on to the boys about coppicing and how important it was for managing woodland, providing timber for fencing as well as charcoal for fuel. It just so happens that when we got to the top of the valley we walked down a semi-coppiced lane so I stood in front of this nicely coppiced tree with its seven or eight branches coming out of the ground and continued on with how useful this forestry technique was. Clifford was interested and respectfully listening but then he suddenly decided that enough was enough and he shook the tree which brought down a load of heavy rain drops which which were hanging on the leaves and made me very wet. We then proceeded to ambush each other as someone walked under a tree the other would shake it. The Saunders-Priem family has simple needs wandering the woods and getting up to antics. We proceeded up to Durham Cathedral and had our biscuit break in the Quad and then went to have a walkaround the Cathedral which was nice because there was an orchestra playing a 20th-century piece of music, very dramatic, somber modern and moving. I suggested to Fiona it would be nice to come back up in the evening and listen to the orchestra playing this music but she did not feel like it. Boo-hoo! On the way back to the car along the river it was good to see loads of the Durham students doing football, rugby, touch rugby, no touch rugby for the sensitive types, ball without the foot for the disabled lads and lasses and lacrosse. Yet again, there were lots of Chinese students and some of them were busily snapping photos of what to me looked like very ordinary bits of Durham. I have a sneaking feeling, that these bits of Durham could be the next great big purchases and investments of Chinese capital in our country. Or maybe they are just spies although I cannot think what industrial secrets are lurking in the sandstone of Durham Cathedral! Back home it was the usual meatballs, spaghetti and a yummy tomato sauce followed by no Star Trek for a change instead we're watching the miniseries "John Adams" which is absolutely brilliant and I recommend it. I've read the book once already and I'm on it a second time and the miniseries and the book complement each other although the book is way way better. Another lovely afternoon out with my gorgeous family and I'm feeling quite zany this evening!

The day started with a couple of hours on a Baha'i stall in the center of Darlington which was nice not least because there was some interest today . I had a great discussion with a Christian about religious exclusivity and why for him it was so important . I simply said that the idea and practice of exclusivity in any beliefs, religious, political and atheist had had its day and living together with the difference and the diversity was the way forward not believing that everyone else was wrong. Nice man and the fact that he was so nice indicated he might believe he was totally right but he could indeed live with the difference quite happily ! In the afternoon I went out walking with the family in the Durham Woods and it was balmy, bright and brilliant. The River Wear was peppered with leaves as Autumn finally drifted in and the water had a looking through a brown mist aspect to it . Trotting through the woods, every time there was a light breeze the steady clatter of oak nuts and beech mast sounded as they got shook off the trees and struck the ground .Eerie because it sounded like rain on a very warm and muzzie day . The town was full of students looking bright and beavering as new experiences were being felt by some and anticipation shone in the faces of many . Good for them! Back home and a nice doze with the lovely Fiona listening to the second part of Handels Messiah and after that the meatballs spaghetti and tomato sauce are sizzling away as she sleeps on and the lads get stuck into annihilating the world with their computer games . A lovely afternoon and double Star Trek coming up. Oh, and my getting smarter and doesn't he know it eldest son Miles as he walked in through the door opened up his last marked assignment for the year and found he'd got 99%! Of course we said because he'd lost one mark he's gonna fail. Its good because whilst its obvious the lads got natural endowments with mathematics he works extremely hard and very intensively frequently revisiting to master the stuff and whatever he has got needs a lot of effort to liberate it ! Well done Miles. Don't blow the exam in two weeks time! Open University students have finals every year and hes got two of them soon. Family life : beautiful.

Yesterday with the family I went to visit Fiona's Mum Veronica at Dalton in the South Lakes . We stopped off at Ulverston to walk up to Hoads Monument and stroll around the town. The views from the top are amazing and you can see the Howgills , Ingleborough Hill and way up to the Skiddaw range but binoculars are needed for that , or a very clear day! Veronica was in good fettle and was very happy to see us and the lads were great with her as usual. We spoke about Victor her husband who died in 1989 and it was lovely to listen to her reminisce as much as she could due to the memory problems she has because of vascular dementia. Beautiful moments . Its strange how she looks very frail and incredibly resilient at the same time and the very human ability to keep going with life no matter what has always impressed me right from when I spent a lot of time on hospital getting my gammy hand fixed from when I was six . I was surprised at how many questions she asked the boys about what they were doing and how well they think they are progressing . Good stuff and very moving . She has been one of my inspirations to keep my act together as a Dad and a husband and keep improving as well. A beautiful afternoon.

Last Saturday I had a corker of a walk with the family around the Durham City Woods. Starting out going over the Shincliffe Bridge because of the large amount of rain the River Wear was light muddy brown whereas during the summer months from the downpours then when the river rose it was a very dark muddy brown . Why . Ho ho reading geology books comes in useful although I've never seen this explanation in any of them : in the summer Upper Weardale is very dry so the peat dries out and becomes more compact and like a dry veggie cube when you put water on it a lot of the peat gets washed away . But as the peat gets soggy when there has been lots of downpours as there has been recently the peat is very waterlogged and does not wash out as much so the amount of the peat in the water is less and the River Wear is consequently a lighter brown color . Could do an experiment with this but don't want to use up my veggie cubes . Any way with the ground being super wet and it was a warm day the smells from the river bank were tremendous . A lot of aniseed and earthy smells . As we walked into the woods this changed to a strong mushroom smell and there were a lot of fungi out . The trees in Houghhall Wood are over 200 years old and the whole wood was clear cut in 1799 and some of them are beginning to die but these 150 foot monsters are just wonderful to walk through , still very green but some orange yellow is coming through . Should be a good Autumn. Love walking with the family! There are still not many birds to be seen but we heard a lot of them high up in the canopy of the trees where all the insects are . A smashing walk out and we are going to do this walk a lot through into the winter!

A totally gorgeous 2 hour walk was had with the family wandering around the slightly brown and golden tinged Durham Woods. A Gymkhana was in progress when we went past Houghhall Farm and we discussed about how much a working class sport this activity is in fact because all of the jobs that are created with the shodding of horse hooves , veterinary services , hay feed from the farmers fields rented out by farmers for horses to go on , the various saddles and riding gear and not only that I noticed they had a burger bar selling all sorts . More people are involved with supporting a Gymkhana than actually participate in it we think. The rural economy very interesting , important and adds to the glory of nature as well. Oh yes and I must mention horse box manufacture and repair, I've noticed two of those businesses on my travels in North Yorkshire . But back to the walk : We now use umbrellas when it is really warm and it was 21C today and when the rain shower comes an umbrella keeps me cool and dry! Not so sure how it will work in the hills when it is windy but its great for towns . We stopped and stared hopefully at the weir beneath Framwellgate Bridge looking out for salmon but I think they've all gone upstream now to the streams and gills where they breed . Amazing, the River is such an expression of natural process and the Cormorants and Gulls looked saggy in the warmth today as if to say " Take it easy " We did ! Biscuit break on the new Durham Town Marketplace was spiced up by us plonking ourselves down next to a cartoonist and I was surprised to see how much trade he got . Little did he know that he was stood next to the Saunders-Priem family which is a living cartoon. After a great drive back looking at the huge showers dropping there rain over Upper Weardale Teesdale and beyond over the Northern Pennines it was a crash and a cuddle with Fiona listening to Handels Messiah . The Alto recitative was very moving, and I didn't realise I was so cultured, oh well can always wear my flat cap to get back to my proletarian roots but I'll pass on the clogs, ! Smashing afternoon and the meatballs and spaghetti are cooking to be accompanied by Star Trek . Family life is bliss ! Thank you God, thank you.

Yesterday with the family I went to the York Peace Festival at Rowntrees Park York. After wandering around the stalls I went to the Arena area and met Sybil Wood a nice friend from the 80's , Jon Wood her hubby and David and Nicky Young . Later after doing a 2 hour steward session I met Jons Mum June who is a very fine lady . What can I say: in the early afternoon it rained very lightly but lifted to sunshine towards the end of Festival at 7pm and Stewarding on the Terry Avenue gate with a woman called Laura was very interesting and not without its problems . Surprising how many people have a reason not to pay in a public car park only to find that indeed you have to pay in a public car park . Witnessed 2 serious near misses with extremely careless I should say criminal drivers just reversing out into Terry Avenue without looking to much behind them when there were two lads on scooters in one case and a cyclist on the other . Believe it or not there is more to that stewarding business than I thought. It was great asking people if they wanted a Festival brochure and would they "please make a donation up to £1.50." Best of all was that towards the end of my shift a great friend from the '80s who I last saw in 1996 and he came to my wedding in 1988 the one and only Neil Grant strolled by and we had a nice ten minutes chatting and Fiona turned up as well and it was a very nice little time . He's given me his phone number so I can catch up some more sometime later . Neil gave me some good advice in the '80s and I took it . I was a bit wild then which he and others found entertaining but some of them were a bit concerned at times hence the good advice forwarded to mee hee several times. A quarter of a century later still married happy and looking forward to the future some of those Yorkie friends pointed me in the right direction and I still keep walking it. I sincerely hope all of them have been as fortunate as me. When I got back to the the Arena area Jons Mum June had turned up and offered me the nicest cup of coffee I've tasted in a while not least because I hadn't drunk anything since the morning . I then crashed out with the family listening to the last two bands for about 90 minutes and had the delight of watching my wife and Sybil dancing the only slight blot on my view being Fiona was not in that nice short dress she wore last time her and Sybil were boogieing together . My youngest Clifford had a good 8 mile walk on his own throughout the afternoon but surprise surprise Miles just crashed out and sat and laid around enjoying the music which was great because I didn't think he'd do that and he'd be off for a walk with his brother . A smashing day , brilliant to see old friends particularly Neil who I've always really liked and I think he was surprised at how much I had and hadn't changed! A beautiful day .

Today I was supposed be to hiking around the geological wonders of the Howgills but both Fiona and Miles had colds so I went for a walk around York instead. Because of a lot of serious hiking on my own 1976 to 1979 when I was periodically very unhappy with life I'm not to keen on walking the hills on my own. I didn't fancy the usual route today so I walked around the streets and alleys of the City Center including going inside York Minister. I eventually ended up at the Millennium foot bridge where I noticed several people just crashed out on the thing so I stretched out there my self which was very comfortable what with various boats sailing underneath periodically . Very peaceful. Going back through Parliament Street I noticed one of the York Bahai's, Daryoush Mazloum, who I don't think is a Yorkshireman, he is Iranian, doing a small Baha'i stall and I did that with him for the next 90 minutes which was fun , talking with complete strangers one who'd been to Haifa in Israel and had seen the Bahai World Center which slightly miffs me because I am a Baha'i and I'm supposed to go on Pilgrimage to the World Center eventually but I keep on running into non Bahai's who've been there, one of them several times. In 1990 Fiona did a stall there and it was a very similar experience of people looking at the stall then talking to us a bit about the world and how does the Baha'i Faith fit into it something us Bahai's call teaching : basically two way communication as opposed to proselytizing which is one way communication and that is forbidden to us lot. I pretty much like talking about anything I'm interested in like geology , politics, religion and birds so I really enjoy meeting the public . I mentioned to Daryoush that I'm being a steward at the Peace Festival in York this Sunday and he said he will try and get a pitch for the Baha'i Stall there so I will be stewarding , doing the Baha'i stall, socializing with friends like Sybil and Jon Wood and David Young and hopefully getting a walk in so it should be a good day out ! Anyway seeing Daryoush was great and the autumnal light and air in York was lovely . Another nice day out without the family !

Sometimes you have a day out that knocks you emotionally just because of the sheer beauty of it . Myself and the family went over to Dalton in the South Lakes to celebrate Fiona's Mums (Veronica) 88th Birthday . Beckie, Fiona's sister and her daughter were there to and we all gathered together in a day room in the fine old peoples home Veronica currently lives in . Singing Happy Birthday to her all smiling away was a joy to behold. Seeing her opening the chocolates with the freshness of a young girl and the coyness of someone who you'd think had never tasted chocolate before was lovely to watch . She just wanted to have a chocolate and share them with everyone as well. Nice . We went to the fine eating establishment the Stagger Inn , stagger in , yes , and she lapped up the attention and the food . An amazing time . Driving back via the Howgills which had thick and wispy clouds hovering halfway up the slopes and sliding down into the valley just complimented the nice setting sun melancholy that we all felt . The only cloud in my valley was that my faint heart family didn't want to pop up a Howgill " Just a little one " I said to really experience the clouds . They wanted to get home and I love them all for it ! A very nice day and God bless all the families all over the world.

Last Wednesday I went with the family to Borrowdale in the Lake District . We parked up at Seathwaite and the lads went up to Sty Head Tarn , Sprinkling Tarn, up the rocky Great End , Broad Crag and then onto Scafell in gorgeous sunshine made interesting by clouds skimming the tops for a few minutes looking rain bearing and ominous but it was dry all day . Fiona and I headed off down the Borrowdale Valley looking for interesting plants , birds and Red Squirrels but mostly just enjoying the narrow closed in valley that folds you up within its sides and interests the eye and heart. There were many boulders lying around from the Ice Age and as we crossed the river into the woods the path went very close to the river , so close that chains had been put on the boulders to hold onto as we shuffled around the path . Or , were the chains there to shackle the Mommy Monster that is known to stalk the valley and this is obviously true because there she was not there . I looked over my shoulder several times and swore I saw her . At Castle Crags I had a good poke around the slate tips looking for graptolites and think I saw them and this time I had my hand lens but I'm still not sure . Got to look at lots of field pictures of them . Onward to Grange through the Hazel and Oak forest and we went to a Cafe we'd visited years ago and the nice man vaguely remembered us because we were winter visitors . Munching over, we trundled back down the path and as I glanced along to an open gate I saw something light tan brown whisk up the gate post and thought it was a stoat , but stoats rarely climb after crossing a track they just disappear into the grass and then following the wall something jumped into the tree , I still couldn't see it , but it now had to be a Squirrel and in this valley there is only on kind , the Red Squirrel, which I'd never seen before so I tracked through the trees until it got to its destination a nut laden Hazel tree and proceeded to steadily munch its way through lots of nuts for as long as Fiona and I were there looking at it . It was amazing , about 10 metres away and very good viewing through the binoculars and I could see the teats on this fine female. After this we stopped at Rosthwaite for a cuppa and cake and this village has great memories for us because we started off our marriage there on honeymoon over 23 years ago . We sat down to tea and looking over the fields towards the magnificent Castle Crag. Laughs are never far away with Fiona and me and a large group of people came into the garden so we were just about to go and got up to let them have our table when a man said "Ah you know the Germans are coming so you are leaving " " Err, no problem mate" I said " My wife here is Latvian German and her father was in the Luftwaffe in WW2!" . The man groaned deeply and muttered a thankyou and several of the group waved at us when we walked past them settling for their teas. They all used there left hands I noticed ! What a hoot! Just before we got back to Seathwaite to meet up with the lads I saw what looked like some sort of post glacial barrier that quite likely held a lake behind it and whilst I've already had a look to see if this it the case I've found little about it . Time to get into the underground geology sources ! There are parts of the 'net few people go to except intrepid geology travelers! We met our lads one of which looked pretty wasted, Clifford, the other , Miles , who looked like he'd do it all over again and 10 miles of 3000 foot walking had ticked the parental box of keeping the doggies fit and resolute. A great day out and we are going back in the Autumn.

Willances leap just outside Richmond North Yorkshire was the place for the family walk today . The lads went on the low to high path and Fo and I did the low to middle path . Not a bird in sight and the cloud was low and foreboding but no rain fell. What was interesting was seeing Himalayan balsam in huge swathes all over the place , around the base of oak trees and a lot on the edge of the forest underneath Willances Leap . It wasn't there last year and has just arrived and is definitely crowding out the native plants . Its gonna be a problem folks! Anyone know how to cook it ! Miles and Clifford doing the high path were wading through a nice native species problem of the path being overgrown with thistles and nettles . Fo and I walked up there about three years ago and found the path getting pretty overgrown but now its virtually impassable . The path is on land between the mile long cliff edge and the pastoral fields so I don't know who is going to clear it . We bumped into the lads coming off the high path which was nice although we had been spying on them through the binoculars . Sneaky parents . Well back home to a crash out with Fiona to listen to Miles Davis " A kind of Blue" and then meatballs and tomato sauce with spag followed by "the Lord of the Rings " directors cut which is absolutely brilliant . Books are good too . A nice day with my lovely family . Did a maths session this morning and listened to the sound track from the film "Koyaanisqatsi" and that was amazing . Our lads have watched the film loads of times since Miles was 5 and I recommend it to any parents with young children because its easy to understand , musics great and it visually , there are no words, indicates that life needs to change Koyaanisqatsi a Hopi Indian word meaning "crazy life, life in turmoil, life out of balance, life disintegrating, a state of life that calls for another way of living". Amen !

Well with the family I had a gorgeous walk around the riverside path in Durham last night . The River Wear was high and a deep chocolate brown color showing a lot of deep brown peat washed down from Upper Weardale because the rain up there over the past few days was of the deluge type and that just eats into the peat bogs and erodes them . It is a process similar to what the lead miners used to do when they, in order to clear the topsoil because they thought there was a lead vein underneath, built up a huge dam at the top of the side of a valley and then let the water out to scour the soil off and then dig out the lead ore. Swaledale and Wear Dale were major centers for lead mining and both bear the scars to this day in fact one reason the moors in lead mining areas do not absorb as much rain as they did before lead mining is that the lead miners smelted the ore in the hills and used millions of tons of peat from peat bogs to fuel the smelt mills. Peat bogs aren't just great carbon sinks they are great soakers up of rain as well. Just as we got to Prebend bridge in Durham the river shallows because it is silting up and we could see the peat in the water tumbling over and over in quickly moving silt clouds . Brilliant! It got better : as we waited for the Inshanghai Restaurant to open we looked over the weirs at Framwellgate Bridge and there was a loud pop and then a splash because Atlantic Salmon were leaping the weirs to get to their spawning rivers , well they are small gills actually , high up in the Pennines , quite often above the 1500 feet contour line . Totally brilliant and some Salmon were nearly a meter in length although the highest leap , around 5 feet went to a pint sized one that seemed to have something to prove . Super , super, good particularly in a river that was dead 30 years ago. The re wilding of Durham and the UK continues apace and it remains true that if you clean it up they will come ! Food at the restaurant was super and we had a window seat and I was happily munching away , to much , whilst looking out at the Cathedral and the River Wear which I've come to know and love . York or Durham when Fiona retires : it could be a tough call!

Yesterday with the family I had a nice 2 hour walk around the Howgills focusing on Pickering Beck to find some graptolites, roughly half billion year old plankton fossils. Very tricky because I wasn't sure what I was looking at . Pickering Gill was beautiful and the Howgills look very different when you get off the main paths . Good to see Fiona getting her boots stuck into slippy gradients and there were lots of plants for her to see! I think I saw some graptolites in some shale but I'm not sure . The lads went over Cautley Spout up to the Calf the highest point of the Howgills and we met them at Sedbergh. Fo and I also looked for graptolites along the Adam Sedgewick Geological Trail but the river was to high to get to the shale banks where the guide book says they are . Nice walk out though . I did a spectacular fall over sticking by foot into a hole and I've noticed over the years that the amount of holes on the hills is increasing possibly due to the drying out of the soil cover which over most of the Pennines is very thin. The soil covers post glacial boulder fields so there could be more falls to come . It doesn't help with my tendency to get back to my old habits of wandering off paths . Its all to interesting . We went to see Veronica , Fiona's Mum who was in good fettle and Becky, Fionas sister turned up which was nice . Being involved with family is a total privilege.

Took the family to see the latest Harry Potter film at Teeside Showcase Cinemas but didn't fancy it myself so it was a two and a half hour treat of birdwatching for me at Saltholme RSPB Reserve. Lunch came first and whilst munching away on the open veranda a Sandwich Tern just drifted by so I don't have to travel all the way up to the Farne Islands , get on a boat , then jump onto an island just to see this bird . Life is so easy sometimes . There were a lot of Arctic and Common Terns about and I'm always struck how aggressive they are . At Paddies Hide a plodding Herring Gull many times bigger than a Tern came just to close to their breeding island and up shot a Tern and as soon as the Gull saw it it desperately tried to move away but to late the Tern just went right into the side of it and made sure it never came back . Mega drama . At the same place it was good to see a pair of Little Grebes with what must be a second brood all paddling across the water but diving simultaneous well the fledglings were just behind the parents . I also saw a Little Egret fly over for the first time , I've seen them walking and hunting but never flying and at first I thought it was a White Heron , but the RSPB Warden guy put me right . The grasses , rushes reeds and flowers were at their peak and overwhelming with their sweet smell and the sound of the reeds swooshing in the wind was enchanting . A lot of kids were there with their parents and some of them had RSPB supplied long nets to capture insects and investigate . Just in a small part of the Reserve but it was good to see . A nice afternoon out so nice that I'm taking Fiona there as soon as possible !

With the family I had a gorgeous walk in the Lake District going up to Sprinkling Tarn via Seathwaite and then down to Styhead Tarn and a great clamber down Taylor Gill Force which was really wet and slippy . The cloud cover was at 1000 feet so most of the walk was done in visibility of less than 50 meters although the clouds opened up occasionally . The lads went off on their hell bent on doing Sca Fell the highest hill in England so they went up to Styhead Tarn past Sprinkling Tarn and with less than 20 metres visibility Miles navigated them over Great End , called that no doubt because if you fall off it in low visibility conditions it will be a Great End, onto Broad Crag and then Sca Fell . He got lost at one point attempting to find the Corridor Route but only went half a kilometer confirming he was on the wrong path . He always knew the way back to Sca Fell and I was really proud of him navigating his way around some lethal cliffs and confusing slopes! . We met up with an old Asian couple who asked us the way , they had no map , it was poor visibility but they wanted to " Get to the top " so I gave them my map and pointed them in the right direction for the Corridor Route which is the easiest to follow but has some tricky scrambles . I just love Northern Hill fanatics! They've got to do it ! The lads never saw them coming down and I think they gave up because the scrambles are tricky . A Little Grebe was the only bird worthy of note yesterday feeding all on its own on Sty Head tarn . It didn't rain but the low cloud was so wet we got soaked anyway ! Absolutely brilliant and my lovely wife has muscles of iron in those legs of hers although were mutterings of " I'm never doing this again " when she was bum sliding down bits of a waterfall. Cracking day , proud of Miles navigating around new territory in low visibility and a good meal was had at The Loose Box in Keswick which has now after several years has got used to our large hiking order of food ! Oh and Fo and I saw an amazing boulder of lapilli tuff a volcanic gravel with pieces of pumice in it all rough and dynamic because when this loose flying gravel was hurling around at hundreds of miles an hour 420 million years ago out in the open air and got laid down as part of a whole mound of volcanic ash around 300 meters thick it was very hot . A really nice find , well not a find really because I'd walked by the thing several times over the past 30 years but only just realized what it was!

This afternoon with the family , hooray the lads were with us, I had a lovely 2 hour walk around the Durham Woods and into the City Center . The weather was slow , low and sultry and in the River Wear fronds of lilies and rushes were growing sometimes in the middle of the river which shows the time the river is very low is increasing so much that aquatic plant seeds have time to settle and germinate and are rooted enough for the following flood which is a long time off to not sweep them away . The climatic times are a changing ! Interesting to observe as the years roll by . At the weir next to Framwellgate Bridge was the amazing sight of two Common Terns a long way inland stood on the weir and fending off mallards and seagulls trying to mob them neither of which were a match for these two toughies and those long sharp beaks that are useful for stabbing fish when they do there huge 30 meter plunges into the sea to get fish in any and all weathers. We noticed that one of the Terns was a fledgling . Biscuit break was on the newly refurbished Durham market Square and the Council has done a good job . Saw some Morris dancers today which was nice and even the lads were interested . Back home listening to Buffy St Marie in the car , then crash out with the wonder wife I have and listen to John Wuilliams and Juliam Bream . I a lucky man !

Yesterday with Fiona but not the lads because they were both ill with bad colds I went to visit Fiona's mother at Dalton but before then had a trip to the Dales. Going over the old tank road To Wensleydale I saw a huge flock of 20 to 30 curlews feeding away in a field and I knew we were going to have a good day from that point on. Wensleydale is a gorgeous Dale and as we approached Barningham a rabbit shot out in front of the car running in a absolutely straight line which was because there was a stoat pursuing it which shot out immediately after. As soon as I got alongside the animal it popped right back into the hedgerow! Always worth getting out early. Pulling in at Barningham we went to see the water powered Archimedes screw driving a small turbine to generate electricity for the village. Very interesting not least because the thing was not running because there was not enough water in the river. It is the river Bain that provides the power which I hope does not signify that the lack of water which can occur for over half of the year in Wensleydale is not a bane on the whole project .Food for thought for those making claims about so called renewable energy. Buy lots of candles folks! Next we went on to the National Nature Reserve on the plain beneath Ingleborough Hill near Ingleton. There are acres of limestone pavements all conveniently laid out by the last glaciation and before that by warm shallow seas 360 million years ago and from a distance they look very regular but when you actually walk on them they are very irregular eroded all over the place and the grikes the gaps between the clints have whole mini ecosytems of ferns, flowering plants and spiders . There are 12 varieties of fern living in these mini worlds which are very sheltered because of the depth of them . Today we never saw sheep skulls which is what I saw a lot of the last time I was near here in the '70s because the sheep fall into the grikes and can't get out , no one can see them and they starve to death. Always reminded of that Betjeman poem "Late flowering Lust" "The mouth that I kiss has no tongue inside" neither does a sheep's skull wedged in a grike. Ingleborough Hill loomed over us constantly and I was very tempted to go piling up its flanks to tread those Millstone Grit capped peaks but Fiona said a very and I mean very firm " No". We saw loads of Wheatears as well, mostly fledglings so the breeding season has gone well and they'll be off back to Africa soon. Also spotted the tiniest and cutest frog I've ever seen it was so small that it grabbed a thin piece of grass and just held on for dear life trying to blend in and not get eaten . Lucky I wasn't a heron! Onward to visit Fiona's Mun at Dalton and she was in good fettle and we took several family 'photo albums and she really enjoyed them particularly seeing herself over 20 years ago . It really got her thinking and talking . A beautiful experience not least because she is in a steadily declining phase at the moment but she is plucky , tries hard , gets the jokes and points things out . Its difficult for us sometimes but the enjoyment she gets from seeing us far outweighs any hassle . A road many of us will have to tread because its the price of living longer . I've told the lads I'm going over Whitby cliffs if I get fed up when I'm a lot older! They actually took that seriously when I first said it! Good! Coming back over the A66 I'm always struck by the geological diversity of our amazing UK. Driving over Carboniferous rocks under the road I get to look at the Jurassic under the North York Moors with the Silurian under the Howgills to the right . What was best about our Ingleborough walk in Chapel le Dale was standing next to a huge cairn with Carboniferous limestone all around us for miles and walking off after lunch only to find a small blackish boulder about the size of a football which was was so rough that you had to be careful you didn't graze your self stroking it and it was a Borrowdale volcanic rock a piece of tuff , flying ash from a volcano spewing it out around 400 million years ago when Scotland joined England in a final act of union. This rock had been dragged all the way to Ingleborough from the Lake District by a glacier 14000 years ago and deposited . It is truly amazing what you find and just as amazing looking at this process from the past still affecting my understanding and wonderment of the earth now . Get out there folks there is a lot to see and understand and its great fun .

Today with the family the first of the Lake District walks got underway . Going over to Ullswater via the A66 cross Pennine route with the Carboniferous Pennines on the right all rolling and anticline ( look it up its a good one ) with a fluffy duvet cover of grey white clouds following the gradients and on the right the sun blazing away over the Howgills , Mallerstang and Wild Boar Fells were all putting us in the right frame of mind for a good foot slogging . Chicago 1, the album not the show thank God, was rocking out of the stereo and it was Jazz Rock all the way to Glenridding and because we were early virtually nobody there ! Well the lads were going the high way up to Hellvelyn via Striding edge which is a bit of a joke because that's the last place you can stride unless you want to break your leg , and tred around Red Tarn and then a deviation from what I suggested to "lengthen the walk " as Miles said. Good lad . The intrepid Fo and Paul were going the low way around the Ullswater Lake to a Delta near Hopetown named because if you get there there's no hope of getting back and when we watchfully went along the path with a might be a Whinchat or Stone Chat we actually saw two bird species that we were confident we could identify when we got back because they were rare but blindingly obvious namely a Common Crossbill all orange and err Crossbilled , thats what millions of years of eating nuts does for you but best of all after scanning an oak tree with more forensic intent than CSI we saw a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker and joy of joys it flew straight at and over us and its mate or brother or sister joined it and they winged over to a prominent Larch and just perched there just posing for us to look at them . Wonderful and they pranced around a load of rocks as well putting on a good show . Well all of this within 250 metres and on the rest of the 8 mile walk we saw little but got quite into some interesting droppings which were jet black like blackberry jam but they had undigested red berries in the stuff and for the life of us we could find no Flora with red berries . We think it was the droppings of a Pine Marten because we've seen similar droppings in Grisedale forest but the jury is still out . After getting close to Hope Town but with no hope of getting there and getting back to the boys in time we ripped back just to make sure we were on time and galloping through the rocky woods was great , so great that we realized we had got well ahead of time so we crashed out near where we saw the woodpeckers and amongst about 50 Cubs doing hiking and a fine bunch of young hiking ladies went by all courtesy, fine legs and curves and I wish my lads had been there to see that the Hiking Lady species is not dieing and is there just waiting to be ummm hiked with . They're coming with us next time although they ran into a large group of young hiking ladies trudging down a steep bit of Hellvelyn and they looked like they'd gone a long way . A great day and several birds we saw like the Little Grebe or was it a Wigeon we are busy trying to nail down . We've got to take notebooks to write down what we see because its easy to forget . A great day out !

Today , without Miles again due to his cold, me and the rest of the family had a sweet 2 hour walk around the Durham City River Wear area. The river was muddy brown due to the heavy downpours that have occurred all over the north but when they happen in the Upper Pennines the valleys concentrate the force of the water and a lot of erosion occurs , hence the brown water heavily laden with peat sediment. Over the whole river area barely a bird in sight. July seems to be a quiet month for birds ! Biscuit break in Durham City center was interesting because there was a South American duo playing tribal music and one of the guys had a Pan Pipe that trailed all the way to the ground . Massive. It was so low in pitch that when he played it whales were attracted up the Wear estuary way down in Sunderland.Really good and they were raking in the money . On the way back we had a typical husband wife series of comments : Fiona " Oo look Paul at those flowers in the hanging baskets " Paul (trying to impress his wife with Bob Dylan lyrics " Can you cook and sow make flowers grow do you understand my pain " , looking meaningfully at Fiona . Fiona : " Yes Paul but I don't share it!" If anyone wonders why I love her now you know ! A nice afternoon out .

Well, with Fiona and Clifford but not Miles because he was zonked with a nasty cold we did the first walk of the holiday a glorious 8 mile pad around York. Fiona loved Homestead Park gardens and they have a new wildflower section there and after enjoying that we trekked into the center and on to the York Uni campus. The weather was sultry and this was reflected in the very quiet and calm ducks we saw at Derwent College lake and when sat down having a rest I unsuccessfully tried to get one of these ducks to put its head in my old Cornish Pasty bag so it could nibble the crumbs . No chance , ducks are not daft ! Good fun though and the activity was terminated by my youngest son telling me quite affectionately " Dad I'd better take that off you now" Which he did . Ahhh hes treating me like an old man. Ummm. Further down the lake we saw a Great Crested Grebe a young one , so they had nested somewhere on the lake after all but whilst viewing this bird with the binoculars we looked up and saw a huge seagull through this transparent roof and what looked like a fish . "Ignore the seagull" my little brain said but then there were several short stabbing thumps and the seagull had a live fish up there and was busy stabbing the thing to death. Isn't nature so nice !? There was a fair bit of red flesh showing and as we moved further down the lake we saw the seagull wolfing down the fish in chunks. Its never boring . Trotting off over the Walmgate Stray we saw a gorgeous Bullfinch and it was doing its single short tweets , not those tweets , because this little bird was in a tree and it is well known that our feathered friends only access the net when perched on phone lines . And yes they are recharging their batteries when they are perched on power lines. Oh, must get this in on the way down that very unnatural nature reserve called the A19 motorway we saw a huge Buzzard circling in a cornfield . Nice . Anyway back to the Stray; the allotments at the end were full of birds and overgrown with produce on its way to what looks like a good harvest . A good , humorous and fit warm up for the rest of the holiday and Fo was pretty tired when we got back to the car and slept most of the way back to Darlington! Start as you mean to go on!

On Saturday with the family on a very wet and blustery day I went to Duncombe Park in Helmsley North Yorkshire. As usual for our weekend walk we go anywhere within an hours drive of our house but the particular reason for going to this part of Yorkshire was that a lovely Facebook friend Julie Shackson and her partner Toby Philpott and the Stoical Dandy Doggins were having a weekend there at the reputable Black Swan Hotel. We had also wanted to visit Duncombe Park for years and given that there are so many places to go to in our area and we go back to the same places again and again because they are so great we had driven past Duncombe Park loads of times on the way somewhere else but on Saturday we stopped! Unbelievably for me I forgot to take my coat which considering I always check that the family have got thiers was very annoying . Still it was warm and once I had got thoroughly soaked through to the skin , after half an hour, I was comfortable. There are managed mini forests of Ash , Lime , Oak and Elm predominantly which with all the rain soaking through the carpet of mostly rotted leaves brought out the sweetest and most interesting smells I had whiffed in years! It was sensual and pungent and if we hadn't gone out on such a wet day we would have missed it all. I'd wanted to look at some birds but with all the rain there was very little around . We go very close to a flock of swallows moving ahead of us on a fence and saw a large hare in the distance . There were some gorgeous views of the small and winding Ryedale Valley going up to Rievaulx Abbey and just further up from there is the small and twee Hawnby Hill where Fiona and I had our first date walking when we were courting and I realized that she was a very nice lady , good to talk with and physically very pretty not least because she had good walking legs and just plodded on very much as I did . That was the foundation for a marriage that had lasted nearly 23 years! We were supposed to meet Julie and Toby at the tearoom but it was closed in fact I've never been to such a laid back country house and grounds because there was no one there at all! They just had an honesty rox at the house and of course Miles just had to know if it was secured to the table or not , but Fiona prodded it first out of criminal curiosity as I subsequently teased and then claimed she wasn't testing its security at all . I'd never realised until then what dark interests my wife and eldest son had! Soaking wet we met Julie and Toby back in Helmlsley and had a really nice chat .They are great people who I sincerely hope I meet again . I've now got a good reason to go to Wales and of course they have mountains, superb geology and great fauna and flora . So watch out Wales the Saunders-Priem family is coming . A great weekend and it was a sheer pleasure to tell my lads to stop complaining about the rain although we let them mutter on about having "Crazy parents" because that is so true!

A very pleasant and interesting weekend. On Saturday whilst the family were tucked up in bed I really fancied a good 2 1/2 hour walk around York and that's what I did. I went round the usual route and early morning York was serene and purposeful as usual. Whilst going past the Central Hall in York University the General Synod was in progress and I didn't think it was a good idea to go tell them to get way into Christian Unity and making a better society and don't get diverted by all these silly issues to do with homosexuality and women priests. There is absolutely nothing explicit in the Bible which forbids same-sex relationships or women priests. Women priests are a good thing in my view. When I went back through the centre of York a whole load of people had turned up many of them dressed up because it was Race Day which would explain the very horsey looks. That's gambling for you. On Sunday with the family we went to see Veronica Fionas Mum over in the South Lakes and on the way we stopped at the foot of Bowderdale and had a one hour walk into the valley. Which was totally amazing. The strong sweet smell of freshly cut grass where the farmers had just laid out the Hay was overpowering and beautiful. The lads shot off ahead to stretch their legs and Fiona and I kept stopping to look at the various plants and geography features such as the amazing gullies that carve up into the sides of the dale and the various alluvial fans massive deposits of gravel and small rock which were in the gullies a few thousand years ago. Actually, as I found out today some of the gravel was in the gullies only 30 years ago and Bowderdale is a well studied one with lots of information about it . Through the binoculars looking up at the snakelike meander of the river coming down from the large Fell of Yarlside was magical. When we got to see Veronica she was in good health or as well as she can be and we had a really good laugh and a nice talk. It is truly gratifying to know that she is in such a fine old people's home where they really care for the residents. A very nice day and I cannot wait to go back to the Howgills and Bowderdale in a couple of weeks time to look at all the plants, birds, geology and geography features and I'm planning the route already. Though I must mention this I really enjoyed the Wham Charity Bash on Saturday sitting in with all the people and talking with them but I found playing difficult because the sound quality was so abysmal. There were several mikes at the front of the stage and one of them had been left turned up way too much and was just constantly feeding back throughout the set. I thought it was my amp at first but it wasn't. Next year I will insist on a sound check before we get going. It was my fault really given was the most experienced musician there! I feel I let Button Hall Jam down a little bit and was disappointed that I did not manage to have a good warbling session with Klara the female lead singer although there was plenty of harmonica blasting out! A good weekend.

Yesterday with the family we had a lovely two hour walk around Billy Banks Woods in Richmond North Yorkshire. It felt like walking through a heat sandwich between the white grey fluffy clouds and the lovely land of Richmond. When we got down to the River Swale all the brown murky peat of the showers last week had washed out and the colour of the water was a light apple brown clear and beautiful. Just as we got past Round Howe the remnants of an oxbow River formation we noticed a sudden flapping on our right and straight away I realised this was something more than just a couple of wild Mallards and I was right because as we peered through the tree canopy down into the river we saw joy of joys a small flock of about seven fledgeling Goosanders. They were swiftly moving away from us using the current and paddling very quickly downstream. Immediately I said to the boys to meet back at the Green Bridge so they could do the full walk but Fiona and I went off to look at this highly prized and very unique sight of fledgeling Goosanders. We had seen many Goosanders last winter when County Durham was frozen over and there was nowhere else for them to go but to fast flowing water which was not iced up that being the only place where they could feed. I had often wondered where they went to breed because over the summer I never saw Goosanders. Well now I know! They go anywhere where there is water full of fish. They don't go anywhere particularly quiet to breed because the riverbank we were walking on is frequented quite regularly by dog walkers but I noticed that the Goosander fledgelings were on the opposite side of the bank which is not open to the public. We swiftly walked back to Round Howe so we could attempt to meet up with the boys as they were circling back and we belted up the bank and were ahead of them so we asked a couple who were walking on the path going in the direction of the boys to tell them that we were ahead of them! I was also manically enthusing about Goosanders and must have sounded a bit deranged to them! So what's new! We sauntered off down to the Green Bridge through a field of tall fine grass and sweet smelling clover where when you stood still all you could hear was the quiet hum of thousands of bees feeding off the nectar of the clover. It was a magical and heavenly moment and if we hadn't had to meet up with the boys it would've been nice just to lay in the field listening to it all and smelling it. Beautiful. We had biscuit break in the woods and were quietly pelted with the outer casings of beech mast dropping from the trees although we have yet to confirm that. We met the boys at the Green Bridge and they would not have caught up with us after all because Miles had taken a diversion! He certainly takes after his Dad although he had more sense than to call it a short cut as I often do. A smashing walk and seeing fledgeling Goosanders has been the high spot of my year!

I went to an old friends funeral today : Alan Riley . It was a beautiful and sad experience but a lot more hope and joy I noticed rather than sadness . The vicar was brilliant : thank God for the Church of England what would we do without it. He said just the right things . Several Richmond friends I had not seen for years were there, including old school friends , of course I was still at school when I met Alan in the pub , different times , and that was really good. Alan was a well liked man. We all went back to the Comrades Club in Richmond from Darlington and had a reception there and it was very cheerful by that time although a couple of people still were a bit teary . I was a bit teary at the Crematorium when I thought about the first times I met Alan in 1972. I'd like to thank Nic Jones Alan's friend from when they were 6 for organizing everything . What shocked me today was I met a lady who was part of our partying scene at the time (mid '70s) and we had a great and in depth chat about kids and getting through life . She'd been married since the late '70s. I hope to keep in touch with her. Her daughter is going to York Uni this October studying Physics and Clifford will (hopefully ) be in York Uni in her third year (2013). I dimly remember a very straight up and down young lady between 1976 and 1980 but I still can't quite picture her . A beautiful but thought provoking day and it was great to meet a lot of Alan's musician friends who seemed to know a lot about me as well. RIP Alan Riley.

Last Saturday with the family we had a great 2 hour walk around Durham. The River Wear continues to drop and is very low but this did not stop a Universities Boat Race happening which was fun to watch as we walked along the riverbank. York Uni. boat team were there as well. On Sunday on the way to visiting Fiona's Mum we walked around Cautley Spout in The Howgills under a threatening sky but it was beautiful as usual and there were many birds out . I saw a Goldfinch and a Wheatear and of course many Sky Larks. The lads had an hour to get up Yarlside and back and we saw them stepping briskly up the side of the valley heading for a mini gorge which I thought was not on the shortest route up Yarlside . Go Miles because he was in charge. Still they got back to the car in 1 hour and 20 minutes which wasn't bad for a 4 mile walk and a 1500 foot climb up. They jogged back down ! Good lads. We met a nice hiking man from Appleby who's back window looks out onto Cross Fell where we were last week . Small world . I gave him my address card and I hope he gets in touch. Fiona's Mum was in good fettle and we had a really good laugh . She really enjoys the wordplay and humour as well as loads of photos that we showed her . It is a privilege to visit her and the boys really enjoy it . When we got back I got a call from my Mum telling me that a friend of mine Alan Riley had died . He was the drummer of the first band I ever played in in 1972. We had remained in touch ever since and I'd seen a lot of him when we lived in Richmond but not so much when we moved to Darlington. He was a great musician , good man and good friend . I will miss him . You have a great day out and come back to some sadness but there is no avoiding it . A great weekend but with a thoughtful ending . I will be going to his funeral next week.