On Friday night, my ipod gave out half way round my run. I didn’t realise quite how much difference it makes - I barely struggled back home, making a mental note not to let it go without charging it up again.

The weekend was a fairly full one – why I even bother saying that, I don’t know. It always is… This time, it was Lisa’s birthday – which co-incided with Mons’ 40th, so it got a bit swamped. We started with a champagne Breakfast for Lisa, then moved on to the Herne Tavern for Mons. The Herne Tavern turns out to be a great kids pub with a huge enclosed garden full (today at least) with lots of Mons’ friends most of whom we hadn’t seen for ages.

Anyway, it was the hottest day of the year so far, and I tried to give Lisa as much of a chance to socialise as possible while I played with George (or actually, followed George around chatting to people and putting his sun hat back on every time he pulled it off – a job which I obviously failed in because he was sick in the night – a sure sign that he’s had too much sun).

On Sunday, we went to see Waiting for Godot. Patrick Stewart, Ian Mckellen, Simon Callow – an incredible cast and a play that most people are suspicious of because it’s Beckett and people think Beckett is obscure – rather than just funny. Actually it’s a fantastic play –and these actors made the play anything but obscure. And they’re right in saying it’s actually quite joyful – despite the nature of some of the subjects it covers. By creating a really simple world in which nothing really happens, Becket manages to explore what really drives people from day to day – and although it doesn’t come to any trite answers, it’s really powerful in a quiet sort of way.

It was a shame Andrew couldn’t make it – he would have loved to have seen it and we wanted to get him a ticket – but his work is changing and it looks like he’s going to be moving to Grimsby….

Lisa’s parents came – for Lisa’s Dad’s birthday – and he’d seen the play before, in 1961. he said this performance concentrated more on the humour – I think that’s a trend actually. We tend to treat “classics” with a bit less somber reverence than we used to (which can’t be bad) – hopefully they’ll start to loose their reputation for stuffyness and elitism.

Doing my O level English Literature, I remember feeling quite releaved on discovering that the “classics” we’d been given were actually quite good. I thought I’d had a lucky escape.

It wasn’t until years afterwards that it occurred to me that this was the point - that the fact that they were quite good was why they were called “classics”.


…Anyway, I’ve decided not to go for the Action Aid half marathon. Simply because it’s going to be run at the end of September, so the question is not whether I can be prepared to run a half marathon… it’s whether I can be prepared to run a half marathon, then go straight to the hospital, hold Lisa in a stressed position for 8 hours, not sleep for the next six weeks and not complain about it.

and I can’t. not for Africa – not for anyone.

And, of course, if that’s the real reason, then I’ve no choice but to book in to do it next year…


This week we got our first crop of mushrooms from the DIY mushroom farming set I bought at B&Q a few weeks ago. Shiitake mushrooms are – well, mushrooming from the block of spore covered brick I keep in the bathroom.

The four small results are almost worth the foul smelling stagnant pond and clouds of tiny flies the mushroom farm also produces… almost, but not quite.



This week we also went for our scan for the new baby. As usual, everyone involved is trained to talk only to the mother, and ignore the fact that I even exist. Fair enough, really, I suppose. However, what really surprised us was that everything was fine. Every measurement, all the chambers of the heart, all the fluids and timings were perfect. No veins going in the wrong direction. Nothing. However hard they looked, they couldn’t find anything wrong.

This is profoundly at odds with our experience of scans… but it’s quite nice.