I have had a cracking day. I sketched out some more melodies and words for songs this morning as well as putting the few I have done onto Youtube because more people will hear me  with my songwriting and harmonica playing. What I am doing is pursuing my job rather vigourously working with Learning Disabled people but also writing songs as well as getting my harmonica up to scratch with a view to going out touring and just letting the Good Lord decide which way it pans out.

Other than a morning of complete self-indulgence I had a great walk with the whole family around the Durham Flower Meadows on the North West side of Durham City. A beautiful surprise awaited us on the top of the first hill which was several Northern Marsh Orchids and Early Marsh Orchids the same ones we saw up in Teesdale last week. We were amazed to see them about half a kilometre from the centre of Durham. The soil must be very calcareous there and I know that Durham is situated on the Pennine Coal Measures rocks consisting of sandstone, limestone and of course coal but it did not occur to me that lime loving plants would be there. Of course they will be!

The family was in good fettle and both lads have finished their exams. However, Miles, who is applying to do his Post Graduate MSc in Mathematics at Durham University amongst many others, received his "questions which have to be solved in a week" yesterday from the Maths Department. So, he was busy yesterday that was until he cracked the first one in 90 min and he is busy with the second one. There are only four and I cannot quite see what the purpose of it is given that they are fairly straightforward for the lad. But there may be a catch which is why he will be spending several hours no doubt making sure there isn't. But according to His Highness today, there is no catch and it is solved. Good lad. I think!?

The Blues Brothers first film  vee vill be vatching, the meatballs are knocked up and cooking as well as the tomato sauce and I am feeling very constructive at the moment as in constructing things both at work as well as with my current hobby of writing songs. Fiona is getting fitter which is nice and the lads seem to be on their way to the next stage of their life which involves Universities. I am astonished at the peace of mind that has come upon me over the last few weeks. This is usually a prelude to something very busy happening and it is quite exciting thinking what will it be? Getting more involved with Learning Disabled work or warbling and tootling in the music industry. Who knows! Who cares :  life is very exciting anyway. Woof woof!

Totally gorgeous and wonderful walk in Teesdale with Fiona today . We walked between Low Force and High Force and saw everything we wanted to see and more . The Northern Marsh Orchid , lovely surprises like Lapwing fledglings pondering around very carefully , all downy and flightless and very vunerable . Very cute as well. Fiona saw loads of the plants she was into and it was a great walk . We took just over 3 hours to walk around three miles and the intensive look at the birds and plants was wonderful. We are going up Cronkley Scar just a couple of miles further up next week  because Fiona is getting fitter and there are lots of plants and birds we want to see up there as well.  I identified my first Stonechat today , well when I got back home and it is a gorgeous bird.  Some brilliant ferns unfurling their , err, ferns and I'm going to make sure I can identify them all next time !

Funny how just going for it in life can put you on a sort of high. I am enjoying my job, getting into songwriting because that is the only way forward with regard to playing professionally and coming to the end of my adviser role with my lads education which I must admit is taking a load off my mind. I feel a lot more mentally relaxed now and I did not know really until recently just how determined I was in the nicest and most intelligent sort of way, because force does not work, that my two children would optimise the abilities that they have. Job done I think although like anything it could always be done better and I kick myself in the shin since I started thinking  like that because it really is: job done. Time to move on!

Miles my eldest finished his mathematics degree finals yesterday and on three out of four he thinks he has got over 80% and one of them 70% or above. He is applying for Masters courses next week with a good chance of getting on one of them and developing the mathematical skills to do a Ph.D. after that. He knows of course that even if he does a Masters and gets a Ph.D. it  still does not guarantee being a maths researcher because that takes that little bit extra luck  as well as talent.

Clifford's A-levels are going okay although I had to do a mega talk to the chappie about managing fear and not to worry about it because he cannot fail in the long run. If he blows it this year he does a handful of maths courses again next year  and then goes to university. I sometimes think the culture in this country of fear of failure is not too good and the kids should just be encouraged to do their best and accept failure which is inevitable in something or other but what is not inevitable is just sitting on your backside and not getting up and going again. Never give up thats what I say.

Fiona is definitely getting healthier and in a couple of weeks time we are going to hit the big hills and walk up them although we will not be doing the tops because we find them quite boring now  being into birds, plants and rocks. Clouds as well! I sometimes think outside of the sinusitis, she is just tired from 30 years of doing 60 to 70 hour weeks the last 16 of which have been very heavy indeed. Anyway, she is a grand lass and I love her to bits for her stoicism as well as determination.

Waffling done, time to see how my home-made pork burgers are doing and then we're going to watch a film called "Men of Honour" a film about the first black American Navy diver. I love watching these films which show the progress of racial unity one of the major foundations of achieving the unity between all human beings on the planet.

Just got back from a great walk in Buttercup filled fields around Durham City with Clifford and Fiona. It looked and felt ethereal, cool and heavenly because although there was a hot sun there was also a very cool breeze blowing from the north-east. Not many clouds in the sky but what we did see were fallstreak clouds where the ice particles are heavier than the surrounding ice particles and fall down ,  the whole thing looking like a bent  ice cream cone  flowing in the direction of the wind. Really exciting and it was the first time I had seen this phenomena. There were several   little ones as well. What was unusual was that there is usually a hole in a huge flat hozizontal cloud   but in this case there was no hole just this downward flowing  bent ice cream cone. Nice!

Pretty wild walk and Fiona got very excited when she spotted an extremely active tree creeper from  2 m away shooting up the tree looking for food. She also went to a second-hand clothes stall which has excellent stuff from the 80s and 90s and she bought a jean jacket which makes her look very cool indeed. So cool that I feel the need for a personal fire extinguisher when around her. For me that is . Oh well, who says life gets quieter as you get older.

Very unusually for our family, being into routine in an almost autistic way, we are having our Persian Rice this evening with sausages and green beans. I do believe we are going to watch " Nacho Libre" a crazy film about Mexican wrestling starring Jack Black.

Fiona took a couple of tumbles scrambling round part  of a wood and I am always impressed by her willingness to throw herself up and down things. She got into an  an argument with some brambles as well which she is busy combing out of her hair at this moment. A great afternoon out!

Yesterday when out in Richmond with Fiona, we sat on a bench with a lady and because she had a rucksack I inevitably asked her where she was walking   and it turned out she was a German lady called Verona and she loves Yorkshire and comes to visit quite often wandering around the place. She was based in York on holiday, a city she loves, and we had a nice conversation about walks around the northern part of Yorkshire. She had a huge book of Yorkshire walks and dutifully ticked  the ones I recommended. I gave her our card and I hope she gets in touch. She lives in Berlin at the moment and it is great there are Yorkshire fanatics worldwide. A very nice lady.

With the gorgeous Fiona I had a nice afternoon out visiting my mum and doing a mini trek around Richmond. My mum is in good fettle but she is weakening a bit as she gets older. Still, she managed an hour of my wayward sense of humour which  cheered  her up.

After this, Fiona and I did a nice 2 mile circular walk around the West end of Westfield's a nice roughly square mile of common land at the, errrr , West of Richmond . As we plodded up the hill there were huge fields full of Buttercups and Sedges which looked especially beautiful under a mostly blue sky, with very high cirrus stratus and a nice backdrop of gathering cumulus clouds over the North Yorkshire moors. It felt like paradise and Richmond is a very beautiful place.

Very strange with the cumulus clouds at the moment because they are not towering up to become cumulus congestus clouds they are merely staying fairly flat which is a clear indication of a lack of heat and not much convection. I personally think this is one of the first signs an ice age but I don't think anybody will believe me. Anyway, it will be a couple of thousand years before it really kicks in but if in my lifetime I start to see patches of ice still left on top of the Lake District peaks over the summer that would be a sure sign of global cooling not warming. Funny how ideas can get in my head and I go around thinking about this quite a lot. It is quite likely to be a wrong idea but it is good fun thinking it through.

Before we even went out this morning I had a really good session with my harmonica and singing and it is coming together quite nicely. I have been amazed that when I start to do some exercises with the harmonica it really improves my playing no end. I cannot do them for very long   like I used to when I did them all day but I only need a bit of seasoning these days I already have the body of practice done. A lovely afternoon out with my beautiful wife.