Half

The half way mark of 2011 has arrived.

I'll try to steer clear of the "my, doesn't time fly" kind of comments, in the hope of avoiding cementing my reputation as an old fuddy duddy too much.

In reviewing the blogs for the last six months, we've had lots of fun times so far this year.

A highlight from each month:

January - a trip with Jake to look at the shiny boats at Excel, on a brief respite from living in Brighton.

February - birthday.

March - getting the all important news through at the start of the month about what would be happening in September. All seems positive since then thanks to open evenings and taster days.

April - a month of many bank holidays, one of which we spent on a day trip to London, where we enjoyed a visit to the British Museum, and rowing in Regent's Park.

May - Springtime in Paris.

June - a boys' trip to the sunny, sandy, seaside-ey, super Isle of Wight.

Here's hoping for more good times in the second half. With two trips to Disney on the horizon, I'm pretty hopeful!

Omens

Looking back on Men's quarter-finals day, and only Murray made it through without losing a set. Can this be a good omen. Or, am I already clutching at straws given that he has to play Nadal on Friday.

Our holiday tickets arrived today. Now that's definitely a good omen!

Birthday

Today we've been celebrating another birthday at our house.

A 4th birthday to be precise.

Scorcher

Phew, what a scorcher, as the tabloids will no doubt be screaming tomorrow morning, just in case we hadn't noticed that it's been rather warm today.

Driving around the M25 just after lunchtime, the car thermometer was reading 35 - that must be into the nineties in old money.

At home, it was far too hot to walk the dog during the day and so I took her out about half an hour before it got dark. Even that was fairly warm work, evidenced by the fact that as soon as we got home Barley went out in the garden and had a quick wade in the paddling pool that Nicky had bought for her today.

Nicky had a physio appointment today (thanks to there being a cancellation when she phoned this morning). Apparently, some of the pain has been caused by a strain in her calf muscles where she has been limping around for the last few weeks. The kneading of the ankle and lower leg was painful, "but in a good way".

I was in London this afternoon for a meeting just along the road from St Pancras, and as my meeting finished at about quarter to five I popped into the British Library to have a look at their "Out of this World" exhibition about science fiction. It was a good distraction for twenty minutes or so. They had lots of early editions and manuscripts of important works, and it turns out that even C S Lewis had a go at SF in his time. Being the uncultured soul that I am, I was particularly pleased to see a model DeLorean in the Alternate Realities section!

I finished off Ed Stourton's book yesterday. He clearly is a fully paid up member of the dog lovers' club now. Some of the passages about Kudu were very Barley-esque! I particularly enjoyed his quote from Kipling, even if, as he said, it is rather sentimental.

Wimbledon has been interesting today, with all of the fourth round matches taking place. Murray made it through in straight sets, but some of the others made harder work of it - Nadal and Federer both dropped sets on the way through, and the ladies' line up lost a few big names including both Williams sisters.

As it says on the way in to Centre Court, Kipling again: "If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same".

(By the way - Dad - good to see the picture banner back - no idea why it went away, and equally no idea what brought it back - but at least it has reappeared!)

Book3

It was my turn on the rota at church today, and up and away for our 9:30 service. The hymn books that we use at church come in (at least 3) volumes, and today we had a hymn from book 3. Unfortunately it means that separate word sheets have to be handed out as the words only edition only covers books 1 and 2.

Rose kindly dropped a copy of book 3 round to me on Friday so that I could have a practice, as I don't have a copy at home. The one that was on today was ok, but not one of my favourites. However, there were a few pages in Rose's copy that were marked with sticky tabs, and one of them turned out to be a rather lovely song by Jarrod Cooper called "King of Kings, Majesty" which I have enjoyed playing.

After church, John and Margaret came round for a barbecue, and we had a very pleasant al fresco lunch, and then admired the photos from St Petersburg. J&M also very kindly brought me back a picture from St Petersburg - we really need to take a load of our pictures from travels along to a framer so that we can get them up on the wall soon.

It's been pretty warm here today - the street cricket game was hot work this afternoon - thankfully I was let off after a short game as Jake joined in with the street-wide water fight that was taking place along our road.

I must also take this opportunity to tell my wife how gorgeous she is, and promise to bring her flowers home this week as it has been far too long since I spoilt her like that. Come to think of it, I must be due to buy her some more Chanel perfume, as I noticed this morning that the bottle Jake and I bought her for Mother's day has nearly gone and she does smell divine when she wears it.

World

Bit of a late post tonight, and it's all Coldplay's fault - I've been watching them at Glastonbury. They were very good, and I'm just grateful that I can retire to bed now, rather than having to go and find my tent somewhere in a muddy field with tens of thousands of others!

This evening we have put up my Fathers' Day present - the world map. It now has pride of place in the games room. Getting the backing paper off and then getting the map transferred onto the wall proved to be a bit of a challenge. We got there in the end. The only hiccup was that at one point Ireland came off on my finger, and is now at a slightly jaunty angle compared to the mainland of the UK!

Off

Jake had a day off from school today (training day) to round off a fairly cushy week - only made it to his own school for two days at the start of the week, and then had Wimbledon followed by taster day followed by training day. Not bad at all.

Still I can't complain too much - after all I shared the Wimbledon day with him which was good fun (after a shaky and wet start).

As for the weekend, looking forward to seeing the photo collection from the cruise ...

Vapours

Jake had his taster day at big school today. Sounds like it went well - not heard too much about it, but so far so good, and I'm sure we'll hear more over the next few days.

Nanny and Grandad are back from their cruise, and so a little row of Russian dolls has appeared in the lounge.

I've been dashing around in the car today. Needed to get to a meeting in Eastbourne at 12:30, and didn't have time to stop for petrol on the way, so did my best to ignore the flashing low fuel indicator most of the way there.

Stopped to fill up at the first garage I found on the way out of Eastbourne, and put exactly 32 litres of petrol into the tank.

When I got home, I thought I'd just check what the owner's manual said about the tank capacity: "approximately 32 litres"!

Lucky

OK, how about this:

- I manage to get a pair of ground passes through work for the first Wednesday at Wimbledon

- Jake gets an authorised day off school to come with me

- Five minutes after we arrive at the grounds, I get a call from my boss - he has a couple of debenture tickets to Court 1 going spare

- We meet up and shelter from the rain in the rather nice debenture lounge

- The rain clears up mid afternoon and we watch the number 6 seed and finalist from last year, Tomas Berdych, win in straight sets

- Next on court is Andy Murray, and we similarly watch him through in straight sets (enjoying a drinks and cake break back in the lounge at the end of the second set).

Overall - mustn't grumble!

Previous

Today I am reminded of posts from last year.

I've just finished the latest Alex Cross paperback. Around this time last year I was having a jolly good moan about Patterson's books. Strangely, I really enjoyed this one! I think it is probably me that's being inconsistent, and not the author. I've also realised that I've missed one in the series (Cross Country) and so may well have to pick that up and read it some time soon.

Also, today is the longest day (and so our half anniversary as well). Last year I marked it with the words of a song.

Wimbledon seemed to go ok without rain delays today. Fingers crossed for tomorrow ...

Weather

Back to the Mac this evening - no need to stay glued to the TV with Rory!

Weather watch has been the order of the day, and weather forecast watching as well. According to the latest, we are in for some sun tomorrow, but some rain on Wednesday, so we may need to head off to Wimbledon well prepared with coats and umbrellas!

Work today a little stressful. I await the phone call to tell me I'm in trouble over independence matters, and the poring over of my files has begun, and will probably last through this week and next. Ho hum!

Fathers

Good evening once again from the lounge laptop. Thanks Jake. Can't possibly tear myself away from the golf coverage. Rory has just hit his tee shot to within 6 inches on the tenth, and tapped in to go 17 under par. It's stopped being a question of if he will win, but rather what will the winning margin be, and how many more records will he break along the way. Also great to see the American crowd cheering and chanting him every step of the way from here on in.

I've had a great Fathers' Day. Nicky and Jake got me a world map poster which we are going to put up in the games room. It comes with stickers that we can put on it to show where we've been in the world. They also got me the largest bar of toblerone in the world, which I might have to go and find in a few minutes - would make a rather good accompaniment to watching the golf.

This afternoon we've been for roast dinner with Bec, Mark H&O, and Mum and Dad as well. Lovely to see everyone as always, and as a bonus, I got another present from Mum and Dad - some more scrummy chocolate (clearly I have a reputation) and Ed Stourton's dog-walking book. Mum must have been having a pyschic moment at Waterstone's, as I'd been reading reviews and thinking that it looked like a good read just the other day.

Played some more street cricket with Jake when we got home. He's not bad at all - I reckon that he'll be fine with the two days of cricket at school at the start of the holidays - hopefully he'll enjoy it.

Then for the rest of the evening up to now I've been hunting for paperwork and filling in my compliance form for work. Will submit it tomorrow, and wait and see which bits of it get me in trouble!

(By the way, Dad - I've got the publish button working!)

First

Still blogging from Jake's laptop, but main reason today is that it means that I can sit in the lounge and keep an eye on the golf whilst I am doing it!

Well, rain stopped play a few times today, and I don't just mean at the Rose Bowl. Jake and I have been out with the cricket bat, and managed to get a decent knock this evening after we got home.

Lazy Saturday morning here, and in the first rain break Jake and I headed over to Hempstead to run a few chores - needed to swap over some shirts (Jake needs a white shirt for his taster day at the Math next week) as well as getting some passport photos done - which he needs to go with his bus pass application - it's all systems go with getting ready for new school.

This afternoon we went over to Ashford on a first birthday present delivery visit, and enjoyed spending some time with Mikey. Then we popped in for a quick wander around the outlet stores as we were down that way, although truth be told, one member of our party wasn't really in a shopping mood.

The good news from the US is that McIlroy is extending his lead - come on Rory!

(By the way, can't actually publish from the laptop as for some reason the publish button doesn't work - have to save it from laptop and then publish from Mac - weird!)

Rory

The Mac seems to be on go-slow at the moment, so I've pinched Jake's laptop again. I won't tell him if you don't. Maybe it's Apple's way of telling me that I really should be getting that MacBook Air sometime soon.

Well the weekend has arrived, and I do need to do just a little bit of work over the next couple of days. I need to fill in a form for work with lots of details as to my financial affairs, so that they can check up on me from an independence perspective - to make sure that I'm not investing in things that I shouldn't be. The form is rather detailed - I have to fill in details of bank accounts, credit cards, loans, mortgages, insurance and more (under the insurance category they even want to know who we use for pet insurance)!

Loving the US Open coverage. Shame that Rory had a hiccup on the 18th, but he's miles clear of the field. Hopefully this time he'll be able to hang on to it through to the end of Sunday.

Dinner

Off out for dinner tonight, and not sure if I will be home in time to blog before the clock ticks round to tomorrow, so thought I'd put in a quick message from work.

Hoping that tonight will be entertaining. I've dusted off the DJ, and it's off to Epsom for the CBI Dinner. Our after dinner speaker is Sandi Toksvig!

Visits

A day of visits. Let me tell you about the second one first - we had a meeting this evening at Jake's new school, which he will be joining in September.

As we arrived, parents and pupils were split, with parents ushered into the hall for various talks whilst the pupils went to meet the rest of their form and their new teacher.

Afterwards, Jake returned happy, and we had a chance to have a quick chat with his year 7 teacher. First impressions are good, and Jake seems to be very positive about the impending change.

I've been very impressed with the transition process and how the school helps pupils and parents with the change. This evening's session was worthwhile, Jake has already had a visit to his current school from one of the teachers at his new one, he will be spending a taster day there next Thursday, he's signed up for a two day cricket course at the start of the school holidays when he will get a chance to meet some more teachers and fellow year 7 pupils, and we've booked his (no doubt expensive) appointment to go into the school uniform shop during the summer holidays to get kitted out.

Hopefully by September it will feel like pretty familiar territory.

My other visit today was to Wimbledon, as I had a meeting to attend at the tennis club. It also gave me a chance to pick up our passes for next week, and we had a quick wander around the site, which included walking through the players' entrance to Centre Court (past the cabinets containing the trophies and underneath the famous "If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same" quote) although obviously standing on the grass was not permitted. We also had a quick look at the newly completed No.3 court, and we were shown where we would be able to sit on this show(ish) court with our ground passes.

Also whilst we were there we were able to watch one of the tournament entrants having a practice on an outside court. To the side of the court, right where we walked past were some rather famous spectators as well.

So, the names of the people we saw today: Federer, Henman, and Middleton!

Conference

Work conference in London today. We were in the Grosvenor House Hotel - all 800 or so of us.

Here isn't the place to go on about some of the strategy stuff that we talked about, but one speaker we had was a doctor (Dr John Briffa), and he was there to talk to us about healthy eating and healthy lifestyles.

Here are the key messages as I understood them and took them away from his talk:

• Eat like a caveman (meat, fruit, vegetables, berries, nuts - things that our ancestors ate, avoid too much carbohydrate, and avoid processed foods that have been dreamt up in laboratories in recent years that our bodies aren't well equipped to deal with).
• Drink plenty of water (our brains suffer when we are dehydrated).
• Get some exercise (don't have to go mad at the gym, but walk, take the stairs, be more active).
• Get enough sleep (go to bed earlier, an hour of sleep before midnight is worth two after).
• Get out in the sunlight (the health giving properties of getting a decent amount of light exposure outweigh the perceived risks from the sun).
• Be positive about making a change (it doesn't take a complete overhaul, a few small changes can make a significant difference - have the right attitude).

Right, I'd better get off to bed then!

Saving

This evening, in my usual delusional way, I have been working out how much money we are "saving".

I use the "" as I'm not sure it all stands up to rational analysis, but hey, it makes me feel good.

As friends and family know, we are members of the Disney Vacation Club. This marvellous institution provides us with an allotment of points each year to be spent as we please staying either in one of the club hotels or almost anywhere else around the world.

So far during our membership, we've stayed on Disney property (best value for the points) but we have been to California and to France, as well as to many of the Florida hotels.

In keeping with my nerdy reputation, I work out how much each point costs us each year, by tallying up the annual payments along with an annual proportion of the cost of buying them in the first place. Then I can work out how much each holiday costs us in pound equivalents of the points.

Then, I go hunting online for the cost to non club members of staying in the same accommodation. It isn't always available to the general riff raff (!!) so sometimes I have to make a guesstimate based on similar hotels.

Then I take one away from the other to give me my saving amount.

If my calculations are correct, and they almost certainly are not, then by the end of this year we will have saved over £14,000 since we joined at the end of 2007.

All nonsense, but makes me feel good about being a DVC member!

Keepers

Ain't technology grand. Once in a while I'm reminded me of how useful this stuff can be. I am typing my blog whilst at the same time watching the Grand Prix from Canada in another window on my screen, some photos are being uploaded to flickr at the same time, and to top it all off, we have discovered the wonders of Facetime, having spoken to (and pulled faces at!) the Pitt family earlier on.

Magic!

Anyway, today was the final chapter in the 11th birthday celebrations saga, and we took Jake and Owen to Wingham Wildlife Park to be keepers for the day. We went there back in April, and even though we're now into mid June, the weather then was much better then than it was today.

Still, we didn't do too badly given all the rain that's been around, and as I type this, it is making a racket on the conservatory roof. It stayed dry for almost all of our time at the park, and we only had one or two little showers.

Jake and Owen both enjoyed their morning, which was spent feeding the animals. However, the afternoon wasn't considered to be quite as much fun, as some mucking out was involved!

Still, overall a good time was had by all!

Wingham is great for taking photos, as they have some thoroughly cute animals (meerkats, prairie dogs, lemurs, penguins), all of which can be photographed without any fences in between the camera and the animal.

There are a few of the animals who can't be photographed as easily. Most notably the tiger cubs, who are unbelievably photogenic, but their enclosure is surrounded by a wire fence, and then another wooden barrier is placed about three feet away from the fence. This means that it is not possible to get right up to the fence and put the camera next to one of the gaps to eliminate it from the shot. So, on autofocus, the camera wants to take a pretty picture of chain link, with a blurry furry thing behind it! The next best bet is to put the manual focus setting on the camera. But the problem with this is that it then involves trying to estimate the distance to your subject (which keeps moving). This is why I have lots of pictures of fence and lots of orange and black fuzz - all in the hope of getting one or two decent ones.

The uploading of today's set may well take quite a while to get through completely, so here are a few to be going on with.

Growing

Forrest Gump is playing in the lounge, but I've torn myself away to blog. Isn't Forrest just the sweetest, nicest guy in the world! Poor old Bubba didn't make it back from Vietnam, but at least his name will live on!

We've been back to Bluewater with Jake today as he wanted to have another go at spending his birthday money. When we got there he decided that parents are definitely no longer cool to be going shopping with, and so he asked if he could go off on his own for a while.

Well, he is 11 now after all, and a very grown up one at that, so we took a deep breath and said yes. As always, he wasn't wearing a watch and had left his phone at home, so Nicky lent him hers, and we watched him saunter off.

Nicky made a beeline for the Radley store as she had her eye on a bag that she'd seen in their on line sale. It wasn't on display, but this didn't deter her, and after she'd sent the shop staff off to hunt, a transaction was successfully completed.

We decided to enjoy our grown up time by retiring to Costa for a coffee, but whilst we were there, and still half an hour before our appointed meeting up time, a text came through from Jake to say that he couldn't find anything that he wanted and that he was bored!

Judging by his mood when he came and found us, he clearly wasn't up for a shop at that point. So after a look in a couple of other places we went for tea at Ponti's, and true to form, a bit of food served to pick up his mood.

After a feed, he got stuck into a bit of shopping (proving that he is Nicky's son after all) and as a further indication of growing up, his birthday money purchases for today were a t-shirt, some headphones, and a pair of sunglasses.

Spending his own money on something other than computer games and sweets - times they are a changing.

Whistle

Jake had friends round for a birthday tea today, and when I got home a cricket match was in full swing on the road in front of our house. Jake has even more presents, including a penny whistle, and yes, we are looking forward to thanking the friend who thought that would be a good idea!

Ping

Whilst I was away on holiday, a very progressive move was made in the office. Namely, a ping pong table has arrived. I enjoyed a game this afternoon, particularly as I edged a 21-19 win against a fairly decent player.

Whilst we were at Bluewater on Jake's birthday, I snuck into Waterstone's for a while, and came out with four new books. I've already started two of them. One is Dave Gorman's latest, in which he takes on all comers at games of their choice (after posting a tweet to ask if anyone fancied a game) and he's already enjoyed a few games of table tennis. The other one (thanks to a recommendation from Mum and Dad) is Lyttelton's Britain, which is a collection of Humph's geographical introductions from I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. I've already been banned from reading that one in bed, because I keep sniggering. (There's only one thing missing from that book - I can hear Humph's voice as I read them, and surely every one of them should end with "Now, let's meet the teams!")

A final mention for the ping pong - Jake and I had a game at Robin Hill last week - they have an outdoor table on the playing field at the bottom of the hill, and we could borrow bats and balls from the ice cream hut. I found it fairly tough going - I was playing into the wind.

Catching up on other book news, I finished off the latest Grisham (The Confession) the other day. Another page turner, and another rant against the death penalty, and rightly so. The latest Alex Cross (Cross Fire) came out in paperback today so I picked that up as Waterstone's had it for less than half price. Noticed while I was in there that Grisham's second Theodore Boone has also just come out in hardback. One to grab when the paperback appears.

I had a quick break in the middle of the Grisham to read I Left My Tent in San Francisco, borrowed from Nanny. I had spotted in the Smiths at Ebbsfleet whilst we were waiting to board our Eurostar train a few weeks ago, and thought it looked good. Having looked at the reviews, her earlier book, (The Tent, The Bucket and Me) gets higher praise, so I may have to give that a go sometime soon.

So many books, so little time.

Late

Late home, and only just time to blog briefly before today turns into tomorrow.

Been out this evening for a meal at the Hotel du Vin in Brighton, and very nice it was too.

Managed to get a brief report from Jake on the phone earlier about his day at the cricket tournament. Sounded good, Hopefully I'll get to hear more about it tomorrow.

Birthday

As the birthday comes to a close, and Jake has headed for bed, I have pinched one of his presents! We got Jake a laptop, and so I am trying it out for blogging purposes - taking a bit longer than it should because I am not used to his keyboard, and when I try to backspace to correct I keep hitting the home button.

Jake was up and the crack of dawn this morning to do his unwrapping, and had requested a cooked breakfast before school. I worked from home this morning and had to pop in to London this afternoon, so I was able to meet up with Nicky and Jake at Bluewater. Jake was keen to take his birthday money shopping, and then we had tea at Ed's.

Stopped in to see Nanny and Grandad on our way home to enjoy a piece of (home made and beautifully decorated) football birthday cake.

Last year, just before his birthday, I blogged a load of pictures of Jake through the years. This year, there is one in particular that I would like to share with you, taken last Thursday stood on the walls at Carisbrooke Castle.

Tickets

The news today was saying that over half of the people who applied for Olympic tickets ended up with nothing. So, we should be pleased that some money did get taken from our credit card towards the end of last month, even if it was only one tenth of the total amount that we applied for.

The annoying thing now is that we know we have something, but we're not sure what, and we will have to wait about another fortnight to find out which tickets we have got. Not sure I understand why there has to be such a delay between taking the money and confirming what you've ended up with?

NF3

And so to the end of Half Term. Packed up at the caravan and made our slow and soggy way home through the rain and the queues.

Tomorrow is back to work and back to school, but as Jake keeps reminding us, his birthday is fast approaching!

NF2

Well I suppose it was going to happen sooner or later, and holiday - out of routine time - was the most likely. Forgot to blog yesterday.

So let's just pretend it is still Saturday evening.

A quick summary of Saturday -

- took dog for a walk in the morning before it got too hot. Went down to the beach. Too early for the ice cream kiosk.

- played tennis with Jake. He beat me 6-2 6-2.

- BBQ for lunch with Auntie Audrey.

- another walk with the dog, down to the beach so that she could cool down in the sea, but she was too scared to go in. This time the kiosk was open and Jake and I had 99s.

- first proper scones with jam and cream for tea - first cream tea of the holiday.

- more sporting with Jake - this time cricket on the field at Shorefields.

There - caught up now and we can move on to Sunday.

IOW5 & NF1

Our last day on the Isle of Wight today, and we were up, breakfasted, packed and away from our hotel by about half past ten.

Our destination was Robin Hill, where we made a beeline for the falconry display. The show went on a little longer than planned as the final bird disappeared for about 20 mins before finally swooping back down.

We had a wander through the woodland walk and made our way to the toboggan run for a zoom down the hillside. Then a sporting moment - table tennis and cricket, before a well-earned drink.

After leaving Robin Hill we went over to Yarmouth and I had a look around the fair before we boarded our ferry for Lymington.

We've been to the Royal Oak for dinner, and we're settled in at the caravan with Nicky, Nanny, Grandad and Barley.

IOW4

Getting into a routine here. Up at the usual time and down for breakfast, where Jake had his regular cooked selection, but was pleased to see a plate of pastries so had a pain au chocolat, as well as pinching a muffin ( blueberry this time) for later.

Along to the arcade on the esplanade, and we did a pretty impressive job of cleaning out the prizes from one of the 2p machines.

Poppa's ferry arrived at the end of the pier just after half past eleven and so we walked along to meet him. I'd forgotten how long Ryde pier is.

We decided that Carisbrooke would be the destination today, and one of our first stops was the cafe for some lunch. Fortified we did the wall walk as well as climbing the steps to the top of the castle.

After Carisbrooke there was enough time for a visit to a crazy golf course, where Poppa triumphed, and then we took Poppa back to the end of the pier, this time by car, and he made his ferry, with almost a whole minute to spare.

Having waved Poppa off we came back to the hotel just long enough to pick up the football and head to the beach for a kick about. Even as it was approaching five, the beach was still very warm.

At Jake's request tea this evening was at KFC, and we carried on up the hill for our after dinner stroll. Now back and in front of Britain's Got Talent.

Funny how we settle into a routine - cooked beeline, trip out (likely to include some or all of arcades, crazy golf and ice cream), game of foot on the beach, tea, stroll, home for TV before bed.

All change tomorrow as we have to pack up and ship out.

IOW3

Without wanting to suggest that our hotel is anything other than lovely, our day didn't get off to the very best of starts. When we woke up we could hear a dripping in the bathroom. Thinking that it was a tap, I went to investigate, but it turned out to be coming from the ceiling above the bath. I called reception and they came to investigate and called a plumber. We were given the key to another room where we could use the shower.

Drama over we went down for breakfast, and had the dining room to ourselves. As per yesterday Jake nabbed a chocolate muffin for later on, before tucking into his sausage, bacon and beans.

Ready to face the world, we set off for the Needles, and as expected our first stop when we arrived was the crazy golf. Jake is keeping a cumulative score of all of the rounds that we've played, and suffice it to say, he extended his lead.

Next up we made our way over to the chairlift, and descended to the beach, where we boarded the boat for the trip out to the Needles, taking loads of photos, of the Needles, the colored cliffs, and a rather nice Sunseeker that was moored in the bay.

Piece of trivia that the crew shared with us that I didn't know - why the Needles are called the Needles. Today there are three chalk rocks that head out in a row to the lighthouse. But there used to be four. The fourth one was much taller and thinner than the others and was known as Needle rock. However, during a particularly bad storm a couple of hundred years ago, it fell into the sea. The rock disappeared under the waves, but the name has survived.

Back at the top of the cliffs, we made the obligatory sand-filled souvenir (a guitar this time), had a quick stop in the arcade to add a key ring to our collection, and then departed.

We were going to stop in at Calbourne Mill, but decided against it, so carried on back towards Ryde. With promises of a tea room, I persuaded Jake that we should stop off at Quarr Abbey, a place that I have walked past many times (on our way to the Fishbourne Inn) but had never been to. A new tea room is being built at the moment, and so they are currently housed in a portacabin. However, that didn't stop the cheesy scones and the chocolate brownies from being scrummy.

We had a quick look in the shop and even popped our heads around the door of the abbey, before getting back on the road. Next stop Puckpool Park, but that proved to be a bit of a disappointment as we were looking for beach and the tide was in. So, back to the hotel for a little while and onto the beach at Ryde for a game of beach football.

After our half time ice cream break I suffered a minor sporting injury, so we retired back to the hotel, and again had tea here. Jake chose from the children's menu, and whilst he enjoyed his sausage and mash, he did look a little disappointed by the portion size. Still, left him with room for applie pie for pudding.

We had our after dinner stroll along the promenade and came back here to settle in to watch Britain's Got Talent.

Looking forward to seeing Poppa tomorrow.