My eldest child Miles got his Mathematics Degree result today obtaining a 2.1. He has worked really hard and fully deserves the place he has just got at Durham University to do his Masters in Mathematics. No doubt he will work even harder. I love him to bits because he is a great Bahai lad who truly believes that work is worship and he loves God well before he loves his parents or anything else. Which is the way it should be !

My wife maimed one of my cacti tonight. I wonder if she wants it to look a bit more like me. A crippled cactus living with a crippled man. Symmetric. Anyway, no problem, because on the grounds that I need a cactus that can fight back, I should be able to get a sheep eating one now. To any of you young guys out there who eventually want to settle down with a good woman: spot every little thing to impress her with how forgiving you are and "Please can I have my sheep eating cactus now". A sheep eating cactus is the key to a great marriage either having one, wanting one or avoiding one. You heard it here first lads!

A cracking day. Took Miles to RKade skate park at Redcar AM. Spoke to some lovely friends there. Back home and then out to see Mum at Richmond in Swaledale and had a lovely chat with her PM!  Muggy low cloud weather in Richmond was gorgeous and felt like the Mississippi Delta as we strolled around.  The Ice  Age is coming but not today!

 Well, that's it has finally come to the point where I do not understand anything about what my eldest lad studies for mathematics particularly with regard to what he will be studying next year for his MSc at Durham.  I will keep my mathematics stuff up to A level and Further Maths standard just to keep the old brain ticking over but that is it. Songwriting, jazz harmonica, geology, botany, birdwatching, history Bahai studies and trying to keep being a good husband and bloke  are the only interests for me from now on.

The lad is on his own: hooray! Goodness, he is only going to be 20 miles up the flaming road!

Miles education

My eldest son Miles has been given an offer to study for a MSc in Mathematics at Durham University. The offer is unconditional. I would like to say, the lad has talent mostly from his genes and the very optimise a kid's talents way he has been brought up by his parents. But the real icing on the cake is   the sheer determination and hard work that he puts in without which the genes and his parental upbringing would count for nothing. That is entirely his own doing and I love him to bits for that. That really is his choice.

He had to do a series of tests, mathematical problems, one of which was very challenging and he has crossed the bar which this pretty good University expects there Postgraduates to reach. Well done Miles!

Now, in order to pay for his studies next year : does anybody want to buy a kidney?