With the family I had a nice 6 mile walk around Durham. Just an exercise walk. We saw one heron and there were no cormorants on the weir. The giant hog weed had shot up since we were last there and the whole walk is a lot more greener. The army were out in Durham centre with a 10 metre 4 sided climbing wall and it was good to see them letting everyone know about and getting the kids involved with an important aspect of our national life. I know that Bahai's cannot elect to serve in the forces because they are primarily for national defence but I also know that Bahai's will be able to serve in any international force that eventually arises because that will be protecting and in some cases implementing the will of a democratically elected world government.

When we got back Miles and I had a great discussion and mutual demonstration with pencils and paper for the algebraic justification for a step being missed out of the formula for geometric sequences in the A Level specification.He's a bright lad and sometimes I think I'm in there as well! Star Trek and maths this evening and some great rock music. Good day.

I've had a good day. Miles has done his second from last exam and as usual he has come out of it very relaxed. He explained out one of the questions to me between the College and the car. After all the work this week he is knackered but keen to put in a few miles this weekend and a good skateboard session. My youngest lad is really getting into his maths which he studies offsite as part of his flexischooling. He got in 3 hours today which was great . The lad has been really tired due to the growth spurt he is undergoing. By this September it will have been 2 years but the Doctor is not worried about a thing. He hears about all the exercise he gets and just shrugs. A good doctor. Well footie and Star Trek this evening and no doubt a bit of maths . I'm on the run to employment I think.

Events in our front and back garden can be quite interesting. Although we often go for long walks to have a look at interesting features of nature they also occur under one's nose. A couple of days ago we noticed that a piece of Yoredale series sandstone in our front garden had been split in two by frost shatter. This particular rock arrived in our garden about five years ago and it must have been split by our last severe winter. Pretty amazing. The other interesting event was that quite often over most of my life I have seen dandelion seeds like a big fluffy head on a stalk partially damaged which I always put down to the wind. I went into the study room yesterday and noticed a large fine male bullfinch perching on a lower branch of one of our conifers and it was eating the seeds on the head of the flower. It was also the first time I had seen a bullfinch in our garden.

I had a good rehearsal this morning with Mel my guitarist pal. We are learning new songs for the next Butterknowle music club session. Then with the family I had a nice 4 mile walk around Durham and saw 2 herons . There seem to be a lot around at the moment. I didn't want to take the lads on too long a walk because they both have a lot of academic work and exams next week. Got to save their little legs so the brain functions well. Come the summer though and we are back to 10 miler's and they are looking forward to that . A good day.

My total wimpola children are tired out after the last two days exertions. They really went for it in RKade skatepark last night so we are not going to Leeds, The Works skate park tonight and Fo and I are not getting our 8 mile bash around Leeds. I must admit Miles looked totally exhausted last night , good lad. He did an hours exam practice this morning and seemed to have trouble keeping his pencil upright so he is taking the rest of the day off. Are young people getting less physically resilient or is it just Fo and I are running our lads out to much?

Myself and the family had a good 8 mile walk around York yesterday over the afternoon and early evening. We saw the grebes and their chicks on the University lake and Fiona was really enthralled by them . After the walk we had a kebab and a good conversation with the Kurdish owners of the business. They were originally from Turkey so we talked a lot about the incident in the Mediterranean. We then went to Rowntrees Park skate park where the lads skated for about an hour and were totally awesome. They both seemed a bit tired afterwards! As parents we have been tiring them out pretty much from when they could walk. It is a good parenting strategy. A good day.

Fiona and I had a very good evening at the Butterknowle Acoustic Club. The musicians were very good and I particularly enjoyed Valse Maria. I found their repertoire a bit mixed up and I would rather they stuck to the more serious stuff which I think they did absolutely brilliantly. But the acoustic club is a pitch for the middle place and that is exactly what they did. Mel and myself did our three songs bit and considering I have not played in public for years I thought I was up to my usual exuberant self. It was very hard to not break out into bebop! Within the context of a country music night I'm pretty sure that bebop would not go down too well.I promised Fiona I would not play bebop on any song and I kept to that! Mel was as solid as a rock, a nice performer.

I particularly enjoyed the family atmosphere in the village hall and I have a fondness for village halls because of the great memories of playing in them from my early teens.Many thanks to Bryan, Klara, Heather and Kev for putting together a wonderful evening which totally enhances the quality of life in the Lower Teesdale/Weardale area. I sincerely wish there were more venues like this across northeast England and they adopt the format of having an open mike night for the first half of the evening and then give a local group or solo performer an opportunity to do 10 or so songs to let people know what they have got.