Diary 4th March

Monday 2nd March

Weekend with the kids was fun. We didn’t go far and didn’t do much, but everyone still had a good couple of days. Visited the kitchen place on Saturday and finalized the choices we had to make: door shapes, colours and worktop. Should look great. We have to choose tiles and flooring still though. Ended up wandering in Roundhay Park, feeding birds etc. Saturday night Rach and I finished off season 5 of The Wire. This season perhaps hadn’t been quite as good as previous ones, although it was still great. The last two episodes however were amazing, and they brought it all back full circle: same as it ever was. Nice that Bubbles got a happy ending, and McNulty… sort of. Omar had been shockingly killed off a couple of episodes previous.

Sunday we’d promised Holly we’d go to the Guiseley Play Barn so we did that. The Play Barn has had a bit of a change round which is an improvement and it was v.busy. We got evangelicised by some lady asking if we’d like to take/send Holly on a pilgrimage to Lourdes. She was completely out of order in that she presumed that H needed help and that she and her pilgrimage should be the method to provide said assistance. On questioning she stated that it was definitley not a miracle cure kind of trip, but was a bit vague as to what it was other than this. (It's Lourdes, right - what else do they hope for there?) She was also annoyingly persistent and I suprised myself by remaining polite, even when she handed me her phone number and web site address after numerous 'no thanks'. Ho hum. It was interesting that Holly obviously didn’t like her at all: she can spot a wierdo a mile off! Holly actually proved quite an attraction: a few people came and spoke to us/her while we were there. It's interesting to see how the folk who have disabled kids are just comfortable and address her directly. Others need to say something for some reason and then either talk to her like she's retarded or don't address her at all and just speak to me. Kids will just stare at her - we had a couple in the sand pit who were almost nose to nose, gawping. H ignores them, and in the end I have to say something. F*ck off would be a bit harsh to a 5 year old, admittedly.

We finished off again in the park and Jamie had a whiz up and down the grass banks on his bike: he’s getting pretty brave on that thing now – next we’ll need to get home one with gears. I had to do the same grass banks pushing Holly in her chair which was hard work. Decent sunny weather so the park was very busy.

Got a contact from Nikki Eastwood (now Nicky something un pronounceable as she’s married to a Dutch guy) via Facebook over the weekend which was nice. She’s still doing vet thing – training animal nurses – and lives in Lincoln.

U2’s new CD comes out today and they are all over the media: BBC seemed to get them all weekend with a couple of live performances of new songs, including one from the roof of BBC broadcasting house. Have had the new stuff for a couple of weeks now (it was leaked) and it’s very, very good. A grower though.

Wednesday 4th March

Rich Eatough emailed yesterday and proposed that he and I do a cycle tour this year. Hurrah. Ireland seems to be the popular choice, so we will work towards sorting something out for June maybe. There’s some decent looking Sustrans routes over there so we should find some nice stuff. I like the look of the “North West Trail” myself.

Looking forward to this weekend as we are off staying in the Dales with John, Karen, Bill and Katherine in a cottage we’ve booked. Up in the North East Dales, quite near Reeth, Richmond etc. Was thinking of taking the mountain bike but the weather forecast is looking pretty lousy at the moment so we shall see.

Jamie started kick boxing classes Monday night in Horsforth. I hope he manages to stick it out longer than he did the tennis as Liz seems to have signed him up and paid for 6 months as well as a load of kit. He does seem very enthusiastic and I guess that learning a ‘martial art’ can only do him good. First punch on the nose he gets he'll be out the door though...