This morning after two hours of planning and and a couple of brief phone calls to book B&Bs with nice farmer’s wives, James and Joe embarked on a boys own adventure. They are cycling from Bicester to York in four days, stopping only for pork pies, pastries and punctures. In their bag they have their toothbrushes and waterproofs that fold so small, they disappear to nothing (I think Joe has weighed it down with his gadgets, but don’t tell James).

Good luck! See you at the other end …

Have I had a holiday? If I have, I’d like another one please.

By the way, 30 days until James washes his jeans … that will make it a year of wearing without washing. They’ve been frozen and pegged out on the line but quite frankly, they still smell a little.

Back from Ireland and the sun is shining!

It’s lovely over there, well I think it is. The bit we went to was lovely but not in a fall in love with lovely, just a little bit lovely. Don’t get me wrong we had lovely holiday and the people are lovely and the cottage was lovely too. It was lovely being away and lovely playing cards every night and lovely just being so relaxed. But I think there are lovelier bits of Ireland that we didn’t see. We did nice bike rides and stayed in bed late everyday (the beauty of having teenagers), it was all, lovely.

Our boy was thirteen yesterday! He slept in his own little caravan on holiday … Lovely.