Today Fiona was totally wasted from yesterday's walking in Whitby , Miles seemed to need more sleep than usual he did not get up until pretty late and then wanted to do a few hours on his Open University assignment to make sure it was all correct. Good lad because I have been encouraging him to do some weekend work, given that he will be required to do that in the future and will want to as part of his general enthusiasm for mathematics, so I am very pleased when he just gets on with this instead of sticking to his tried and trusted formula or five hours of maths a day, more or less, Monday to Friday.

So me and my youngest doggie Clifford went for a stroll around the River Wear area and into Durham City. I barely saw a bird and saw no ducks whatsoever until we got to the Elvet Bridge and they were just overfed Mallards. There were plenty of the overfed in the centre of Durham and the streets were pretty busy with people shopping who looked busy and acquisitive which must have been the weather, which was slightly cold, because when it is warm in Durham city the consumerites actually walk around quite slowly. Biscuit break was perched on the main monument in the market of which even though I sit on this thing quite often I still do not know who is on the monument. Monuments do not interest me that much. We slurped some lovely coffee at Starbucks and then trundled back to the car going straight through the town because it is always an interesting walk looking at the buildings.

On getting home I was pleased to see the other half of the family had got out of bed although Fiona was still pretty tired although on talking about it we thought she was just shattered from yesterday's exertions rather than anything to do with a cold or sinusitis. Good, because we have many more exertions coming up. One thing I learnt about health problems having been in hospital a lot when I was a young child was that the best route to recovery is to get up and about and fling yourself around. Very young, young, not so young, middle-aged or nearly dead, it is the best way to get over anything in my view. Call me Spartan!

We have now changed the use of the lads study room to a reception room as well as a day study room for Miles and it is really cosy watching Star Trek in there and instead of sticking the disc in a DVD player I have bought a HDMI cable and stick it into my new laptop and this outputs to the television screen and is really good. We are planning on extending our house so Fiona and I can have a downstairs bedroom where the garage currently is which means Clifford can have our old room and a lot more space. His head is expanding with all the mathematics he is doing so it stands to reason that he will need more room. Is that logical? Yes of course it is you idiot where you think your lads get it from! Who the hell are you? I'm the person you talk to when you think. Oh, I wondered who he was! Anyway I know you have been here a long time and I should have said this a long time ago but "Welcome to my head".

Well, the weekend is going well, I'm disappointed that my man Joe James cannot visit tomorrow but he has promised he will come around the May bank holiday time which is also my birthday. Whoopee that will be good because he is a very nice man, so concerned with justice for ordinary people and I dearly love him. His wife Liz is a smasher as well!