Some freaky fish thing is going on. Step 1, H and her friend C attend the fair at Claygate Flower Show and win two goldfish. They live overnight in a big tupperware and make it through the night - one of them dies, which we appreciate. The other one makes it back to Southampton in the tupperware and lives on, tired but ok, until R gets home on Monday with a glass tank from the dump, £2, which he has carried on his bike in a carrier bag, risking untimely death or aterial damage at least if he had made one wrong move on his bike. Tank is dutifully filled with gravel and water and fish is re homed, at which point it gets a new lease of life and dashes about exploring. Friday, the fish gets its new friend, a posh fish from a proper shop, and new proper gravel and a skull and some stones and looks happy. New posh fish looks tired. Saturday night - fair fish two now dead. Posh fish happy. So, in a week, we have acquired and buried two dead goldfish and have ended up with one from a shop that we would never have bought. Damn the things! They have found a loophole in my anti pets policy. I got a book out of the school library about looking after a fish, and it says you need pumps and all sorts. We had a goldfish for years on the sideboard and it never had a pump and lasted for way too long. If you have a spare pump, we will give it a go, but this fish is going to live 1980s style.

Apart from dealing in dead fish, we continue to celebrate H's birthday, which goes on and on. We had the weekend without A in Swanage, then her actual birthday which coincided with the Claygate Flower Show so was spent there, an early start as we were taking up exhibits for the girls, H got a second for her decorated cake, A won a cup as she got a first and a second prize in her age group. For a collage scene in a shoe box with a working light, and for a drum kit made out of yogurt pots. I was ill, still am not great with a cough, but last weekend I was grim, with no voice at all on Friday ( stupidly went to school though) and a temperature. I seem to have a weird virus in my throat that has been there for months, have not swum or run for weeks and my cycling limited to a short commute, I am hoping that the end of term will come and I will magically have energy to go out cycling again.

A weekend before Swanage, dad retired from active scouting and we went to the AGM to see him get his thankyou and well done, and it was a lovely occasion, when you grow up with a scout group like 1st Claygate you get to thinking that everyone lives in a great community with amazing scouts and guides that do exciting things. The Scout and Guide band are playing at Disneyland Paris this year, good luck to them, I shall not be returning to watch. The Claygate flower show obviously is a flagship for Claygate ness every year, and this was no different, apart from the usual impeccable weather, it was raining in the morning to the extent that the thornhill festival was cancelled, but Claygate is in a different league, and floods and tempests would not stop the flower show. I managed to swerve into the WI tent where my mum was selling bric a brac and limply sit for a while on a camp chair, but my illness made the experience far less fun than usual. Well, sitting on a WI chair is probably about the same in fun factor, but I would not normally be doing such, but would be watching dogs or classic cars. On Sunday morning, R was swimming from Hampton Court to Kingston, and so we went to watch. It poured with rain and we were wetter than he was. Plus we couldn't tell who he was as there were over 1200 swimmers and we didn't even know what colour hat he was wearing (yellow). He then spent the rest of the day falling asleep - in the bath, on the sofa, driving, on a different sofa and on the rug. Then in bed. The organisers told the swimmers that after the event they should drink a can of coke to kill any bugs they had swallowed. Yuk. What kind of bugs would be killed by coke? Or what kind of drink would kill bugs? I am going to start using it as a cleaning product to clean surfaces in the kitchen.

Sign in toilets at Paultons Park:

It is likely that these facilities will be cleaned by male and female attendants.

I would have said it was more than likely, but absolutely certain, unless they have asexual aliens doing the cleaning. I know what they meant. But they did not say what they meant.

Everyone is very tetchy and fractious at school, that's just the staff! No, we are holding up well in the face of adversity, in the form of tired children and a full up curriculum, but the children are tired and flagging, tomorrow is meet the new teacher day, always nice as the new class are trying so hard to behave for you! I have a whole bunch just finishing Year R, so will be well trained and hopefully not too wriggly - or squiffly. A uses the word squiffle as a verb, as in 'I squiffled up the tree'. It is a super word and describes her motion upward perfectly. She is a bit of a good squiffler up trees, getting to heights I expect most koalas think twice about.

Apart from holding it together in the classroom, I have been on strike, which was interesting, I don't know if it will change anything but united we stand, and a two year pay freeze amounts to a 10% drop in pay in real terms, apparently, plus the higher pension contributions demanded, and the bit that gets me, they want me to carry on teaching til I am 67. 67! My parents are 68 and I don't think either of them would relish the idea of having just given up a full time teaching job - it kind of shows that people who decide these things don't know how demanding it is, exhausting, being on stage all the time, that is why we need the holidays, to sleep, become human again and catch up on all the planning and paperwork that is thrown at us with constant changes and tweaks and improvements. When I am 67 I might want to work, but I don't think all 67 year old teachers will want to, or be in good health to. I will need a nap after lunch, not a rounders lesson!

Spent some time the other day at Bursledon windmill, which is worth a visit if you are ever near at the weekend. They have been milling flour but the cuts have left them without a miller, and needing volunteers. So, if you fancy learning to mill, now is the time, hear the call! In the meantime, get in quick to buy any of their milled flour. Am off to Bursledon Brickworks next week so will tell you all about that - never been there either, but both these places are very local history for the children at Hamble to study. And interesting for me to go on pre visits to.

Amy's quiz

She made this up at the weekend, it is rather eclectic mix of information, google came up with the answers if you get stuck.

Who invented dynamite?
How many shops are there in West Quay?
How do you spell supercalorfragilisticexpilalidocious?
Name two brands of toothpaste.
What is the longest road in Thornhill?

Where does her mind wander? Now you know. She also invented a new service of washing up, for the price of 50 p per item, she will get your dirty pans SPARKLING. So far I am her only customer and am using her for trials.

H, meanwhile, was busy making a powerpoint about pedometers, by researching on Amazon, she is able to show you the prices and features of an array of reasonably priced pedometers.

Alberto Contador was reccying the T de F and got stopped on a ride by the gendarmarie for not having lights on his bike in a tunnel. good on them. Who does he think he is?

It is a very exciting time of year for sport, with the T de F about to start in a couple of weeks, after Wimbldon finishes. Sadly, I spread myself too thinly over too many sports and once again missed the cut for either of these events. The Olympics didn't want me either, saying that all the tickets I wanted had gone. Really? Other people were prepared to pay to watch grown men play ping pong? I seriously thought we were in with a chance on that one.

You will be delighted to hear that my prayer for healing worked on my ankle, I can now run over 5km with no pain at all in my ankle and a tincy bit of discomfort in my knee. As a consequence, I have now entered a triathlon in September with a 10k run, so something to work up towards again. Wahoo! I have really enjoyed a couple of runs lately, knowing I can do it again. I did a lovely sunny evening bike ride to the north of Winchester on Thursday night, the girls were at Brownies at the planetarium getting their stargazer badges. I hardly saw another car, and no other cyclists, and after a long haul up the A272 towards Petersfield, I cut off down through Rodfield and across the A31 to meander along with the river Itchen. Glorious.

My Friday night and Saturday were spent in an Anglican church, in Bitterne Park, enjoying the brilliant teaching and ministry of Lin Button and her team. You have to go see her! Superb stuff, really simply presented quite complex issues of the human condition. Got a lot out of it.

More great sailing, less Scrabble. Yesterday was F5 gusting F6, and R and I were home alone without the girls, so we headed off to sail together, in very exciting conditions and with only 5 other boats attempting to race, and them full of hardcore sailing nutters, we knew it would be fun. I have never been so wet, drunk so much sea water or had so much fun! I loved it, despite not being able to see or breathe at times. R is great at helming the boat and with me being confident I could enjoy it rather than think about jumping off and swimming home. We had a bit of 'running' when at times the boat would catch the top of a wave and surf for a bit - wow! Fanastic result! Today we got up at 3.30am to do a triathlon in Arundel, a beautiful if hilly part of the world. R and our super fit triathlon PE teacher friend Claire had a 6.30am swim start in the Lido, and were doing double the distance to me, as I had downgraded as ankle/knee still not functioning as it should. I didn't start til 8.45am so went back to bed in the car for a couple of hours. I was a bit disappointed with my swim time, but my bike and run were great (for me) and I was delighted to post a time under 1 hour 30 mins, 1 hour 28 mins and 0 seconds, to be precise. The bike ride was started with about 15 minutes of climbing up, so that warmed the legs up. We went to the sailing club barbecue for tea which was chilled, chatted with some friends and there were not many people about, so plenty of food to go round. I was going to retire from triathlons after this one today, but I enjoyed it so much I think I might do another one....

Today I saw something so jaw droppingly scary I felt better about taking Amy on the back of my bike when she was little. She did wear a helmet, since you ask. We were driving to Hamble, car on autopilot, and along Ingleside in Netley Abbey we slowed down behind a pony and trap, which Hannah told me was a cruel way of using a horse and it had a brading line or something on it. How did she get to know so much about horses? Anyway, a man and lady were being trotted along, and the lady stuck her leg to the left to show they were turning left at the t junction ahead. At which point, in swivelling around slightly, I could see that in her left arm she was holding a baby girl. Goodness, don't we all have our funny ways?

Another weird thing I heard about is a man in our Triathlon club, a fellow triathlete no less, but who takes his traithletes in bigger chunks than I do. First, he does Ironman distance, which involves swimming a couple of miles, cycling over a hundred miles and then staggering off your bike and RUNNING A MARATHON. When I did nearly 100 miles on my bike, and no swimming, the last thing I could imagine doing is running a marathon. Anyhow, this guy, is going to do that 10, yes TEN days in a row. He must have a screw loose, as my mum would say. Meanwhile, in the Bowen house, Mr Triathlon himself is still nursing a nasty injury to the arm after falling off his bike in the triathlon we both did a week ago. My knee and ankle combo meant that I did a 5k run in the longest ever time recorded in the history of the earth, 2 minutes longer than it took me two years ago. I made time on the swim and the ride though, and finished in just over 1 hour 30. R did it in 1 hour 21 I think, the winner, a guy in his forties, made it in 57 minutes. It was a lovely day, sunny and windy. Granny Mary met us and looked after the girls, offered moral support and a lovely picnic afterwards. R was so amazing, with his injured arm all bloody, he ran around to support me on my last few hundred metres before seeking first aid help. What a star.

Today I had a phone conversation with my oncology consultant, saving me the horror and hassle of sitting in outpatients at the Princess Anne, not one of my favourite places for a variety of unhappy associations. Dr Marshall tells me that my blood results are fine, keep taking the tablets and she'll see me in a year. It is a funny time of year, in between my blood results going in and getting the result, I am sure the feelings fade, but its still an anxious few weeks. Still, another year of grace, nothing lurking in my blood, so you are not getting rid of me yet.

Last week I was in Portswood, hanging out at the delightful Llama Lounge, or something like that, which used to be Pizza Hut. I went into October Books, which I love for its subversive nature, and i actually bought a book. I am not one for buying books when a perfectly good library service exists, still my premonitions of the end of a perfectly good library service ( we don't have one in Thornhill anymore, we don't even have a Post Office here anymore) led me to buy a book. It is called the Sacredness of Questioning Everything, by Dave Dark. I question the author's surname before we go any further.

Last week Lou and I were in the post office pick up point in Northam, trying to pick up some postmen, and were chatting to them about surnames. One told us this, which deserves to be an urban legend and to which end I am passing on: A family have the surname Hogflesh. Pronounced Ho Flay. How Hyacinth Bucket is that? We laughed like drains and wandered out into the sunset, feeling slightly more of a comedy duo than when we arrived.

I railed against the evils of Facebook and Xbox to Lou and another friend the same night, poor girls, they don't know what to do with me when I get like that, foaming at the mouth and all. Friend wanted R to go round and help her set up her X box. I suggested that if he were the last man alive, he still wouldn't be the man for the job. We don't have an X box, a horse box or any kind of box other than cardboard ones that bike bits arrive in and A sleeps in and makes into a house for her teddies.

Sailing has been great lately, I had a fabulous sail one evening last weekend in gusty conditions, a year ago I would have been crying and begging to get off and swim for home, and now I am laughing maniacally and loving it. R and H sailed on the weekend, H did one race with R on a borrowed boat ( it was a series for a bigger type of boat) and then she had other commitments, so R did the rounds of teenagers at the club to find crew, and went out in such windy conditions that the mast fell down and they were towed in. Now, I suspect that I would have been crying and jumping off in those winds. R's career 2.2 as a sailing instructor is going well, if unpaid, as he is doing a couple of weekends teaching children at the club. I have got all my duties out of the way for the year, I was the very responsible post of Officer of the Day, having to open the safe and set the alarm and other such things like look after keys, and add up money, which don't play to my strengths at all, but I got through it! It was actually fine, and a lot of it is signposting people to other people to help them.

H has taken up netball club, to add to her wide range of sporting activities, so we now have swimming on Mon for me, R and A, and H has orchestra. Tue, choir, followed later by diving for girls. Wed H swims. Thur H netball, both Brownies. Fri H swims. Sat H triathlon, K and R swim. Good grief, I need a PA or au pair or someone just to keep up with the costume changes.