The Time Bubble

Full on - the title of this entry being a pretty accurate description of the week so far. I shall try and give you a summary of the main points here, which is after all the main purpose of an online diary. Unlike my usual offerings which divert off into complete randomness all too easily, which some people sadly just don't get. I was wondering - what percentage of you out there can distinguish between when I am being deadly serious and when I am exaggerating things for comic effect? I guess you have to know me. I've been hanging around the deli counter in Sainsbury rather a lot (as you do if you are me) and I think the girls on there are getting to know me rather well now. To the extent that they know that any reduced offal that they are desperate to get rid of may tempt me, but as one of my new found friends discovered yesterday, even I have my limits. Sorry, "brawn" is off the menu, but I am sure there must be some fans out there, they wouldn't sell it otherwi...

Whilst I was trawling around on the internet the other day in search of ever more obscure factoids, I came across this rather amazing claim with regard to molecules of water. The gist of it was that every single living person on earth has at least one molecule of water in them that was once pissed out by Oliver Cromwell. Quite why Oliver Cromwell should have been chosen to represent this "fact" I am not sure as presumably it could have been applied to any historical figure or indeed anyone who ever lived. I am not even sure if it is true or just one of those "urban myths" that crops up from time to time. Further digging suggested it may have once been mentioned on QI, though I am not sure if that is where it came from or someone on the show heard it elsewhere and thought it worthy of an airing. It is all to do with the sheer scale of the numbers involved. Atoms and molecules, being the extremely small things they are means that even in a single drop of water the...

Out with the old, and in with the new. It sounds like New Year, doesn't it, but I have been sitting here thinking how this year really has been a new dawn for our town. One of the things that really gets my goat is people running our town down - both people that live here and people that used to live here. It is a shame that there are so many that want to see the negatives, because there has been so much good happening this year, that barely a month has gone by without some exciting new event or opening, that me, in my journalistic capacity as Bicester's leading blogger, I feel duty bound to report on. However it seems I am destined still not to get in to the cinema to see the film I wanted. Yes, despite the cinema being open six weeks I am still to go there. The fact that the opening has coincided with the school holidays has not helped, along with the fact that the film I specifically wanted to see opened on the weekend we left for a two week holiday. But even so, I was...

It seems I have written acres of material about my kids since I started - enough to fill two books and more. It hasn't escaped Ollie's notice and he has begun to take an interest in what I am doing. So much so, it has inspired him to start writing his own diary of what he did on holiday. It's his birthday soon - he will be 6 at the end of August and I am toying with ideas for what to get him. He has already grown out of the leappad and I am well aware of the existence of tablets designed specifically for children such as the Kurio one. How young is too young to access the internet, have an email address or write a blog? In my opinion, as long as it is safe and filtered, it is never too early to start. With the speed that technology is developing, I believe IT skills to be every bit as important as the classic "3 R's". Anyone not tech savvy in the next generation may as well be illiterate. So I am now handing over my blog to Ollie, with pictures of the firs...

What a weird title for this entry, don't you think? All will become clear in the fullness of time. Speaking of fullness, this has been the most full on holiday we have ever had. I often feel we don't do enough as a family back home as real life just gets in the way but this holiday has been literally packed from dawn to dusk with activities. So much so I have precious little time to write, but write I must, because every day that passes, I forget a little of what I have done. I wish I had started writing like this decades ago and kept a complete record of my life. I think back to say, a holiday down here in a caravan we had in 1988 and I can remember scant details at best. Had I written it all down at the time it would be preserved forever now for future generations to enjoy. And regardless of the quality of my writign, enjoy they surely would. I feel I know so little about my parents and grandparents lives. Truly I would cherish being able to read back to the 1940s, som...

So here we are in rural Cornwall, and rural it certainly is. That means that the mobile signal is non-existent. I was under the impression that coverage was pretty much 99.9% these days, guess we must be in that 0.1%. And the signal is zero, everywhere in this caravan park. But it doesn't matter because it is absolutely beautiful here. We are at Sea Acres by the village of Kuggar, near Lizard Point. From our caravan we have stunning panoramic sea views. We are in caravan No. 1, the first one at the front of the park, right next to the pool, play area, restaurant. In fact, everything is within about 30 seconds walk. This is not the caravan we booked either, we have been upgraded for no obvious reason into one of the top of the range 3 bedroom caravans that sleep 8. It costs hundreds more per week than the one I booked. I am not complaining,  obviously. I have lived in houses smaller than this. We have been doing a lot of travelling around. In fact I have driven over 100 mil...

My attempts to write on this holiday have been seriously hampered by a couple of problems. Firstly that my bluetooth keyboard, so handy in Fuerteventura absolutely refuses to work, leaving me to type on the touchscreen which I hate and secondly the wifi here at Butlins is highly unreliable. At least in the room anyway. You get 15 mins a day free, after that it is 7 quid a day, which I would consider if it was fast and reliable but it drops out all the time so I won't pay it. And the 3g signal here is even worse than usual, my phone has accessed it extremely sporadically. It took about 8 hours on Tuesday to upload that picture I took of Ollie bowling. There is no point me rabbitting on about what a holiday at Butlins is like as you have heard it all before, so I will focus on something new. Today I am afraid you all missed an extremely rare opportunity to see me make an absolute laughing stock in public. This completely unplanned and unscripted debut of mine into the world of a...

Now there is an interesting title. Not an unsurprising one for me, after all, we all know by now my meat obsession and it is not beyond the realms of the imagination to think that I might fantasise about it. In a completely non-sexual way I hasten to add. No oven-ready chickens have ever been abused in this house. What shall I talk about first - meat, or fantasy? I'll put it out to my new instant blog reader votagram...here we go...and it's meat! One of the great things about the new Sainsbury is the deli counter - specifically the part that has the cooked meats on it. Now all week I have been getting the most amazing offers here. We all know that generally, meat off the deli is quite expensive - and being Sainsbury, this is no exception. However, nearly every day they are marking down stuff by quite considerable margins to get rid of it. Now I know that instantly that will wipe out a lot of you as potential purchasers. Many people just feel squeamish about buying food ne...