Phew got there in the end. These are some of the photos I promised back in February, from our trip to Manchester. Sorry I have not learnt how to turn them round yet, you will have to tilt your head to look at Rob. I liked the idea of an emergency which was so severe you had to break a seal. Maybe melting of the polar ice cap, if you were a polar bear, would be reason enough to strangle one of your friends. The top picture is the window cleaner who asked if I was from the social. Remember?

Its the New Furzey Gardens. Mayfield Park, Weston. All these years it has been inches from our home, and millimetres from Chamberlayne leisure centre where I occasionally go for Pilates torture. It has everything that Furzey has, apart from the cross and the tree houses and the boat and the appealing drive past New Forest ponies, and the llamas. Not much left, you think. Well, Mayfield does have azaleas and rhodedenrons, a nursery and cafe run by Mind as a rehab/therapy centre, so something socially enterprising along the same lines as Minstead Project. It has a park, mature woodlands, a bowling green, and the best thing of all is that it is within cycling distance for the Bowens. So it is the new environmentally conscious Furzey replacement. I must confess that we went there via Tescos, and I drove to Tescos while rest of the family cycled. So probably lost all my environmental brownie points in one go. I did decline to buy plain flour in Tescos as I remembered there is a working windmill across the road we have visited once before. So I dragged my two girls across the A27 to buy flour (H asked if that was where Tesco bought their flour from - ha!). The windmill was shut. No 24/7 service from Dusty.

Mayfield Park, which has avoided us for so long, got our attention today because it was hosting a 'Spring into Action' day. I can usually find some free event in Southampton on most weekends, and as we pay £100 a month for our council tax I like to feel I am getting my money's worth in free activities. They do put some good things on in the parks. At this one we made masks, egg shaped animals and a bamboo pile of twigs for bees to lay eggs in. We did not bother queuing up for face painting on this one, we did do the treasure hunt and touched a snake and a velociraptor. Jut checking you still with me. It is an awful lot of mask making and snake touching to make it worth £100 a month, but my long suffering family humour me and off we trot to wherever I have found is offering free crafts this weekend.

The most exciting part of today (I know - if you were me you would have been sitting down after the velociraptor touching and would have called it a day then) was cleaing my kitchen with my new ENJO products. I got so excited I cleaned all the windows in the house as well. And then cleaned my bike. Due to short notice only a few of you managed to come along to my cleaning cloth party, but I intend to have another and to give you plenty of notice. It really is amazing. I even did the washing up with one of the cloths. I can't say too much here because it does sound too good to be true, but I will let you know when the next party is so you can make sure you are there. Or if you want to come round and do a bit of cleaning anytime to check it out you can.

When I got home there were lots of letters on the doormat, and one of our Girls God Gang (GGG) who needed a plaster for her knee. She actually needed a skin graft in my opinion, but I gave her a Melonin square and some micropore. You know, I forgot to pray for her. Rubbish. Anyway, she doesn't wear shoes much and has feet that show it, and her mum has more children than the lady who lived in a shoe. (Maybe they don't wear shoes because they live in them?) The letters included bills and bank statements. My lovely GGG friend said to me 'Anything exciting?' about the letters, and I said 'No, just bills and bank statements'. She said: 'Oh it is always exciting when a Giro comes isn't it?' and I realised what a different world I have lived in from her, how the 'protestant work ethic' is so deeply etched in me and how much I have to learn about people and Jesus. I told her that Rob went to work and got his money that way, which I honestly think was a new thing to her. I tell this story more to show how much more work God has to do with me than to make any deeply political point about the benefits system.

I met up with the mum of one of the lads we know who is a bit of a local 'yoof' but is really a big kid who never got to play. She told me they were hoping to move in the next couple of weeks, and so another of 'my boys' departs. When Jamie and Taylor and Reilly moved my heart was broken, and I guess I have toughened up my heart now and expect these young people whose world I share to move on, and have to trust God to look after them.

You know, I think it is just what happens to everyone that whenever I get to be friends with someone they move. Or is it just me? What a reflective heart I have today.

Popped to the gym at Chamberlayne as well today and did 40mins, mainly upper body weights. Hope you can tell. x

I need to reply to some of my comments.

Lou, if you go back to near the beginning you will find the reasons for my peculiar desire to write 'sic'. I could explain again but it is really too sad and dull, if you take me out for a very posh dinner sometime I will chat you through it.

SJ and E. Congratulations. When can you be back in Bitterne? I would love to take some really extreme wedding photos in the precinct, perhaps abseiling down the front of Peacocks, bowling in Bitterne bowl, using the public conveniences ( not close up shots though). I could do them in black and white soft focus if you like. Just let me know a date. If you could make it a Tue evening in the next 3 weeks I could arrange for the whole class to come and make an outing of it for them all.

This is my 5oth posting. I feel like I have come of age in the blogging world. Shame I still don't know how to do links or upload photos, except by accident.

Yesterday we did Bitterne - the Leisure Centre (swim and creche), the bottle bank and through the graveyard to the Police station. It sounds like a new version of Cluedo - Bitterne Cluedo, or maybe Monopoly. Anyway, the police were unhelpful and the graveyard was nice. Full of fake flowers and corpses. There was one epitaph which read

'Fred Bloggs' ( made that up to protect the indentity of the deceased)

1923-1982 ( and made that up too 'cos I can't remember the precise dates)

Alto saxophonist.



that was it. What would the one skill be that you put on your own gravestone? I don't think I am enough of a purist at anything, so think I would put 'jack of all trades' on mine.

Certainly not flautist. I played the flute at school, and was very very bad at it. I failed my grade 3 exam and passed the second time around with one mark to spare, then I failed my grade 4, by spectacularly playing the whole piece in the wrong key, among other painful mistakes I have buried in my deep subconscience. The only reason I kept going was because you got to belong to the orchestra, which was lots of fun, involved lots of trips to old people's homes and junior schools and warm practice rooms during the winter. I quite liked the bit where you cleaned your flute by shaking the spit out onto the floor. I did not like my flute teacher, Mr Taggart ( sorry mate) who slobbered on my flute and then gave it back and I had to try to clean his spit off with my sleeve before playing. My flute was held together with a cocktail stick which probably explained some of my problems. I had to buy Rizla papers to clean it with. My only foray into drugs and tobacco paraphernalia.

I just reread and thought I should mention that the graveyard corpses are all buried ones. Well, I assumed they were there, did not dig around too much. Another freaky thing about the graveyard was that it rained for the exact time we walked through it. A bit of a twilight zone I fear.

H had a concert last night for her singing group, and I was a helper, which as I had predicted meant escorting children to and from the toilets for several hours. The university concert hall was the venue, and it was an impressive show of singing talent from the Southampton Music Service singing groups. It was good to go back to the university with a different view on it from when I was a student. I did think it was good when I was there, but probably did not appreciate the luxury of being able to study there and what a good place of learning it is. And of cultural experience. I did go to a few things like concerts and theatre and films and comedy, but if I was a student now I am sure I would do loads more of that kind of stuff. It was interesting to walk past places that had been a big part of my experience all those years ago, and now although I live in the same city I couldn't be further away from it, geographically and socially.

Hey!That is a picture out of 'sample pictures' that I did things to with Picassa at my course tonight. I tried to put it on my blog and IT WORKED! Tonight I remembered my USB leads, had done my homework and was early, but I had not checked and the battery was dead in my camera. I had lots of fun using Picassa and taught the rest of the class how to use the 'collage' feature' to produce pictures that look arty-ish. We were allowed to print some of our pictures tonight, for added excitement. Next week we are using Photoshop. If anyone has a wedding or other occasion and would like me to do the photos, I also learnt tonight how to use the anti red eye feature, so would be well worth a gamble. £50 for the whole package? Steve?

Have overdosed on Bitterne, dear reader. I know it sounds impossible, but I have done BLC twice in two days (one swim, one gym and swim) and checked out the library and the charity shops on one of those visits. The guy who tried to steal the child was 53, btw, not 23. Don't know if that makes the previous entry better or worse, but at least it is now factually corrected. One of the mums from school was one of the people on the scene who shooed him off and had to give a statement to the police. So she was a reliable source.

One quite exciting thing is that Bitterne Library is going to be opening on Thursdays from now on. Libraries in Southampton are traditionally shut on Thursdays, so it is quite a departure to open on a Thursday if you are a library. I can see that I might have built that up too much by describing it as 'quite exciting'. But that is relevant to life in Bitterne. Another exciting thing was that I found a new flavour of Snack a Jacks in the newsagents in Bitterne. Prawn cocktail. Mmm. I don't think I have ever eaten a real prawn cocktail so I don't know how little the crisps taste like the real thing, but I love the synthetic flavour, along with Worcester sauce flavour crisps.

Incidentally, I have never eaten a steak.