After a very nice start to the day me and the whole family went out to the Durham Woods River Walk. The River Wear was raised up a little but the water was very clear indicating some of the snow that had occurred in the Upper Northern Pennines was melting already. Very nice and a superb backdrop to the lovely Little Grebe diving up and down amongst the reeds on the far side of the bank. The sporty Durham Students were out and about today and it was nice to see a lot of male and female freshfaced youngsters being eagerly boisterous and competing. I don't do any sport but I think it is a very good thing and over the years have offered various activities such as Judo to the boys but they never wanted to do that sort of thing they were more interested in skateboarding and hiking. Good lads!

Onward into the gorge which curves around Durham Cathedral and we had a good look at the vertical rockface which drops straight into the River Wear in only a 50 m section the other parts of the gorge have been quarried back over the centuries to provide stone for the Cathedral as well as local buildings. Very interesting. Just beneath Prebend Bridge weir there were a pair of Goosanders roosting on the water minding their own business with a bit of preening here and there but away from them was a juvenile Goosander hunting very vigourously. Must be going through a growth spurt!

Biscuit break was on our usual perch right in the centre of the Market Square underneath the statue but when we nipped over to Tesco's to get some treats for this evening Fiona's eye was caught by a gorgeous market stall full of very attractive clothing for what I would say would be young female students but the Fur Cape she saw really caught her eye and she had that eminently attractive fixed look of "I would like this please" so she tried it on and looked absolutely beautiful, very twee, and is going to wear it at the Butterknowle Open Mike night tomorrow. My wife's occasional compulsions are very attractive and she looked lovely.

Under a brightening sky walking into a milky setting sun amongst the clouds we made our way back to Shincliffe. We were quite lively today which was nice and Fiona was feeling better so when we got back and saw the latest Leonard Cohen CD plonked on our doormat we were very happy and immediately got everything in and went and crashed out to have a listen to it. It was lovely music thoughtful, mature and very musically sophisticated but in a simplistic way. That man just gets better with age and I sincerely hope that with whatever talent I have I can follow in his footsteps. A lovely afternoon out.