I had a really nice weekend, starting out with doing a Bahai stall in the centre of Darlington on Saturday morning. It was really cold and the coldest I have been in a long while but as I have sometimes said, we Baha'i's accustom our children to hardship so it is best to lead from the front as a parent and I sat and stood by my stall and enjoyed the cold. A few people were interested and I had a nice little conversation with an old lady who said I was very "hardy"! I really like it when old people talk to me as if I'm just a kid because the age gap between them and me is that between a parent and a child.

Miles is really getting his tail up with this mathematics and did not want to come to Durham with us for a walk, he preferred to study, good lad, so it was just the three of us heading out into a very misty County Durham but as we approached Shincliffe the mist lifted into a very pleasant early winter haze. We walked alongside the River Wear hoping to see Goosander's and Little Grebes but they were not there. It was very quiet with few people about because of the cold but as we walked up to Durham Cathedral it looked like it was soaring out of the misty haze and we trekked into the comfortable Cloisters and had our biscuit break there under the watchful eye of a very tiny bat on the opposite wall. It is great fun noticing the bats every week. Amazing little animals!

As we came back down the A1 there was a ground mist a few metres high in several shallow valleys on either side of the motorway as well as in riverbeds and hollows. Very magical and I'm getting to like Durham County almost as much as I like North Yorkshire and Yorkshire in general. God's country.

I really like the fact that as a family we do things on a very regular basis and this allows us to notice changes of state for one time period to the next both with each other, with our friends and the many places that we visit. New is good but seeing the familiar in a new way for me is even better.

 A very nice weekend and I have been doing some pretty extensive thinking about what I am to do with my life now because I do not have a full-time role as a househusband or home educator anymore. Get more serious about the music and kiss goodbye to family life as I know it? Get a job working with learning disabled people or as a maths teaching assistant and continue on with this great life that I have and helping people as well? Hard  to say but I am going to have to make my moves soon and I have started doing this already. I am singing and playing better than I ever have but I've also noticed that because of all the science, mathematics, life sciences and history that I get into my brain feels really sharp and understanding is easier now than it ever has been. I wish I had all of this when I was a young lad and I am glad my two young lads have got all of this now.

God bless education and the educators like Klara and Bryan Whiley, Fiona Saunders-Priem, Mr Kipling, Mr Cotgrave, Mrs Johnson in Longfield School, Linda Griffiths Fiona's colleague from Dodmire and all those people who just get other people thinking because they are crazy enthusiastic nuts about whatever they want to study in a fairly rigourous way. I think I could have blessed myself there!