Gosh, just got my first pay cheque for a very long time and it feels really good. I have worked for and earned every penny of it but the best thing of all was the great hug from Fiona! A big thanks to all those people who encourage me as well as kick my rear  sometimes when I need it. Thank you!

The day got off to a good start and just kept going! The Bahai stall in the centre of Darlington went very well and I had a nice conversation with a man who   said that until the UK becomes more spiritual we will not become a better country. I totally agreed with that.

After the stall, Fiona, me  and Clifford had a nice stroll down and around the banks of the River Wear into Durham city and I was amazed at how green everything has suddenly become and becoming. All of the plants are starting to go into spring overdrive and greening into the landscape giving it a much welcome bit of colour after what feels like a long winter. Very nice!

Biscuit break in Durham Cathedral Cloisters was a good laugh as usual but we changed where we sat which is a big thing for us Saunders-Priem's because we usually do the same thing every time. We decided to sit on the sunny side of the Cloisters facing into the sun and it was really nice and could be our permanent biscuit break place from now on.

Stepping back to Shincliffe Village where we started from under a very deep blue sky with high wispy cirrus clouds which I found hard to identify, and the usual trying to get somewhere but we can't quite yet because it is not warm enough cumulus clouds , were beautiful. I find I cannot lose on the walks these days if there are no birds, get into the plants, if the plants are not interesting get into the clouds and the rocks are always there to catch my interest or if I feel bad about something they don't mind being kicked!

Miles stayed in again today to crack on with his Maths and he is filling in application forms to do his Masters at various universities, Durham and Leeds are the first ones he is going for. He has always been a talented lad and I put that down to good family environment and his genes, mostly his genes but the hard work he has to put a lot of effort into and I feel really proud of that because that is his bit, he just gets the encouragement from us and he does the rest. Good man.

And on the subject of good men of which which I know several in this area as well as globally, my friend from the skate park Daniel Green has also been working his head off completing his Games Programming degree at Teesside University and I like the fact that he puts up little snippets of the stuff that he does which I find mostly incomprehensible .I  get inspired by Daniel and other youngies who really go for it and low and behold they start to succeed. I am a go for it sort of person myself and have been for the last 25 years. If there is a go for it musician out their young or old please get in touch!

Well, when we got back home we crashed and we cuddled and Leonard Cohen inspired us to fall asleep in each other's arms but I am now wide-awake and getting the tea together for the hungry hordes. It seems the better I cook this stuff the hungrier they get. Good! With the forthcoming food we will be watching two episodes of the "Young Ones" and it is really funny comedy much funnier than I found it back in the 80s where I did not find it funny at all because I did not understand it. For me understanding is the basis of everything and I put a lot of time and effort into this. It also makes life more fun. How many funs can I get into this paragraph?! "Paul stop going on you idiot!"

A beautiful day, I am ironing out some of the weaknesses in my singing voice and feeling pretty good about life and where it may go. Anyway, I know where it is going for the next few days and I thank God for my family and my friends.

After 25 years of marriage I do not have a heart anymore just a shrunken hand desperately clutching onto normality. The Shrunken Hand theory of marriage is worth getting into. It is where they all end up when they are successful and I feel really happy about this. Fiona's hand shrinks less than mine but both of our hands are shrinking no less. Sometimes when I'm out in York and places like that small children occasionally notice my hand shrinking and that is the start of their understanding about how to eventually be good wives and husbands. All of the above is a stone cold scientific and sociological fact believed by millions of people who are just as crazy and misguided as I am. God bless us!

After a really nice couple of hours walking around the Durham University Arboretum with Fiona I have got down to cooking the tea having my usual tussle with the mushy peas. This week I have lowered the amount of bicarbonate of soda because there is already some present in the peas I have got from Morrisons. They still keep me waiting right until the last 10 min and then the mush occurs much to my relief. O the trials and tribulations of a man fearful that his family will push him out into the snow, well okay the daffodils, if he gets the meal wrong!

The Durham University Arboretum was totally wonderful. We have got season tickets so we can look at it all year round and it is a gorgeous extension of our Durham Woods Walk. For the last couple of weeks we have seen no Jays in the Durham Woods but today we saw and heard at least half a dozen of them. So now we know where they have all gone: the Arboretum. The Cactus House and the Tropical House incorporating the Insect House were really interesting and next time we go, like every time from now on, we will be taking our magnifying glasses and loupes. The Arboretum is also an excellent place for birdwatching.

I have been wanting to get more into the Botany side of nature and this is a good chance to do it and we can see the development of the plants through all four seasons. A nice afternoon out with my lovely wife and it looks like the mushy peas have stop walking on the wild side and have come in from the cold to reach their true destiny of being mushed.

One very beautiful moment was when we walked across a bridge and Fiona spotted what looked like bubbles in some very still water alongside the stream but she knew they were Toad eggs and I am very excited about looking at the development of them over the next two or three weeks. I will be taking a small cup to scoop one of them up to look at it through my magnifying glass . Life is really exciting!
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With Fiona I had a nice ramble around the Durham Woods this afternoon specifically to do birdwatching but we saw few birds. We heard the high looping whistle of many Nuthatches but never saw any of them until we climbed up the bank and I noticed a bird hanging on a tree trunk and then flitting to another one and lo and behold it was a Nuthatch.

That was great because it was only the second time I had  seen one but it got even better because I saw it go into a hole in a knoll in a tree which was its nest. It went in there several times but I could not see whether it was taking nesting material or insects for its young. Totally brilliant and we will be able to observe it for the next few weeks as it raises its chicks.

My lovely wife was absolutely brilliant and delightful company today as she always is. To see the rapturous look on her face when she gets into her birdwatching is totally wonderful. As Bob Dylan said about the woman he was singing about who he admired so much it hurt, "Everything about you is bringing me misery". Man, I am so unhappy!

A great end to a week of a residential training course, making a really useful discovery with my singing voice and getting the focus right with my music which is away from harmonica and more towards singing. Man, I am getting so bored with the harmonica in terms of being "serious" about it. I feel much more serious about my singing.

Anyway, outside of my usual imaginative and not so serious ruminations I had a great day today starting with taking Miles down to RKade Skate park first thing this morning only to find that he had got it wrong and not checked that it was a session he could attend: it was the under 12's session but due to the kindness of Nicky one of the managers of the park Miles and a few other really dozy youngies were allowed in.

After this it was straight back home and immediately out to have a nice 4 mile walk around the Durham Woods with the good wife Fiona and my fine second son Clifford. The temperature was up above 10 centigrade today so there were magnificently big cumulus clouds moving into the cumulus congestus range starting to rise high but not getting too high because it was not warm enough. Biscuit break in the cloisters was high and happy as it usually is not least because I felt exceptionally excited as I often do these days. I suspect I will only calm down when I am dead. Maybe I will still be as excited in the next life I do not know but for the sake of all those around me I hope I have calmed down.

Driving back I was thinking about the deep fun  I am having reading Euclid's Elements the basis of mathematical geometry which is fairly straightforward but thoughtful and strangely relevant to my life at the moment. I don't know why I bother. I'm not doing my mathematics degree anymore and I can't become a mathematics teacher due to not being able to use the computer because of RSI but it is just very intellectually interesting with no real application to the real world for me. But what the hell: it's all jazz.

When we got back Fiona and I had a crash and a cuddle and I ran the music through a 60 W keyboard amp I have and it sounded absolutely great: very clear and there were parts of the music I had not heard before. I now see why people can get quite excited about the right speakers for listening to music. I'm not sure I am using the right speakers but it sounds good.

At the moment I have just made the home-made pork burgers with plenty of garlic and onion, the sauce is a bubbling, the pasta water is on long-range boil which it will come to in about 25 min and I have a strong feeling of expectancy in my life which is possibly due to the reorganisation which is going on in the company I work for which doesn't really apply to me because I have already passed the interview stage but not only that I feel I may go somewhere with music now I am working on the one weakness I have   had with my voice which is consistency. I can hit the highs and lows but a singer needs  consistency   to front a band every night.

.A very good day at the end of an excellent week particularly on the residential course where I never learnt anything I didn't already know but what I did discover is that the fine people around me were doing their job in a very committed and good way with Learning Disabled people, so outside of the great advancements in civilisation we have through science and technology just basically caring for people who have a problem, which could be you or me one day, is also advancing. Amen to that!

 A cracking day starting out with doing a Baha'i stall in Darlington centre which went really well. A lady had picked up a leaflet a few months ago and said she will be in touch with us soon. Whether it is enquiring about the Baha'i Faith or joining it I do not know but she  and her family are very welcome. Another delightful moment was meeting one of Fiona's ex-colleagues Linda Griffiths a lovely lady like most primary teachers. When I think about it most of the finest men and women I know are primary teachers. Bizarre. And I am married to one. Ummmmm!

After getting totally frozen on my stall I got back to the family and with Fiona and Clifford went straight out for a walk around the river Wear  in Durham City. The skyscape was wonderful with a deep blue shade and oblong rectangular shaped puffy cumulus clouds which just couldn't get going up because there was not enough convection to raise them really high. Beautiful though.

Durham city was fairly busy what with the Grand National going on as well which seems to boost the pub business but everybody was happy and smiley which is how I like to see people. Biscuit break was just joyous as it usually is.

Fiona got a bit fragged  out with the walk so was fast asleep within 10 min of being in the car on the way back. When we got back joy of joys my new book, a history of the American Civil Rights movement "Eyes on the Prize" had arrived which means I will have a really good evening as opposed to just a good evening getting stuck into that. I will do a few other things as well I'm going to sing a few songs this evening as well as watch some star Trek episodes.

Miles stayed at home today to crack on with this mathematics, good lad, and I'm impressed with his hard work and devotion to his subject. Well, I am doing home-made burgers which aren't really burgers because I use a cylindrical cutter to make them about 2 1/2 inches wide and a little bit higher cylinder shaped, a lovely tomato sauce, fresh spaghetti and the usual garlic bread. My family brings out the best in me, so do my friends and I'm positively inspired by them particularly my mate Don Bertram who got a promotion in his job running a windfarm down in Norfolk. I need people to look up to and inspire me and between my family and my friends I get all the inspiration I would ever need. Plus the odd kick up the backside sometimes which I need to push me on as well as cut me down when I get too excited. God bless them all!

Man, life is tricky. Last week I thought I had lost my mush and this week I have got too much. The mushy peas seem to be going the way of a green soup. Got to rectify this in the next 5 min or else the family will kick me out in the snow and leave me to die with my harmonica pucker whistling in the wind. Mushy peas: a true test of a man's Yorkshire credibility.

I had a lovely walk around York a couple of days ago, 6 miles no less, with the lovely Fiona and Clifford. There weren't many birds to see but the sky and clouds were beautiful and it was amazing to see the top parts of cumulus clouds getting so high that they started to spread out, the ice crystals sinking and evaporating in front of our eyes. I've never seen clouds disappear so quickly just leaving a milky white trace behind spread out across thousands of square metres of sky.

Today the fantabulous Fiona accepted my offer to take her for a nice walk around Billy Banks Words in Richmond which was great. The spring is very late so it felt quite wintry complete with a biting north-east wind. Still, after delicately flitting through part of the woods and stomping our way through World War I style mud in another part we eventually arrived back at Richmond town centre and purchased the last two Fat Rascals to revive our flagging energy. Our boots were really heavy by then covered in mud but we kicked a lot of it off when we were sat underneath Richmond town clock which brought a nice comment from a lady about it being okay to leave a load of mud around the marketplace because we are in the country anyway. Did she really need to tell me that? But God bless, she did and it reminded me of the many times that people have given me a quizzical look when I have told them something similar.

Well, the mushy peas look like they are going to get there and my place in the family is safe. To everybody out there doing the family bit, walking or just aiming to have a good time: have a great weekend!

"Teachers are warning that young people are being damaged by an over-sexualised culture."

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21990043

Yes this is true . We did not get involved with  quite  a lot of parents or their children because the parents did little to stop there children from toddlers on behaving like mini adults . Its a judgement but one I'm glad we made. There was the constant harping on from some parents that kids that don't do what every other kid does are "missing out" . Really?  True choice for parents and children is  when you give all sorts of experiences to kids and then form a parental judgement  about whether the activity furthers and protects them.  Fiona and I rarely see families walking the hills or even the countryside just outside of towns . That choice is obviously not being offered to kids!

To put this in some perspective . Some children are trim and fit . Are they missing out because they are not fat and unfit like an increasing amout of them are ?