Have just entered for a 10 k, a 10 mile and a tri, in Mar, Jul and May in that order. Fans will be held back by my security staff near Farnham, Brokenhurst and Salisbury, again, in that order. I once had a near miss with Fareham and Wareham, getting onto the wrong platform at Southampton and nearly heading the wrong way along the south coast. It's odd how I never knew anything about Fareham when I was at uni, except for seeing a road sign to it, and nearly accidentally going there, and now R works there and has done for nearly 10 years, and I used to work there and have a soft spot for it as a shopping centre, with its lovely Christian cafe and all under one roof handy shopping centre.

In case you needed more inspiration to save the planet and have been hibernating, I will tell you about the 10.10 idea which the Guardian dedicated a supplement to this week. I think the idea is that you reduce your carbon input/output/use by 10% this year coming. By, for example, turning off one of the ten lights in your house, or reducing your wattage of your living room light from 100 watts to 90, just as an example. There was an article about a man who is not going to buy any new clothes. I don't really like buying clothes much anyway and tend to do it in desperate times - ie on the way to a wedding when realise only have jeans with hole in - but I am going to try not to buy any clothes for myself this year. Although I already have failed as been intending for ages to buy some new running shoes for new season as mine smell and have probably had their day in terms of mileage. I realise that having 2 children of the same sex is environmentally friendlier option as the clothes are easy to recycle for them. Converting flowery skirts into shorts for boys would be a challenge to even the most green goddess of a mother.

Am writing from the comfort of my kitchen table, looking admiringly at my new cupboards that R has worked so hard to put up. The girls helped him loads, in fact, one of the cupboards was entirely constructed by H, so if you have ever been beaten by B and Q flatpack in the past, you could feel completely demoralised at this point, knowing that an 8 year old can do it and you can't. Or you could put it down to R's great parenting skill and patience and realise that if you had done the drilling on the other 5 under his careful tutelage you too would have safely been able to do that last cupboard yourself. We are recycling the playroom worktop into a new kitchen worktop, and then going to the tip to get a new worktop for playroom - unless you have one lying about - 1.5m would be nice.

Today we played Star Wars Monopoly (yes, it pains me to tell you it was the Star Wars version) and despite being really rather ill and not in this world, R managed to win really well, with 2 boys we played against going bankrupt. I came a comfortable second but had not managed to buy half the board as R had. The family we played had great rules which made things a lot faster and more interesting than we had previously played. Move over Scrabble!

Played tennis today, had our family half hour practice ( A's hands were too cold to hold the bat) and then R and I were signed up for an hour, but in his ill condition we only managed half an hour before retreating to the bar. I did my 20 lengths while the girls played mermaids and R continued to hog a whole comfy sofa in the adults only section. Of the bar, not the pool.

We were up in Claygate for a few days in the week, and we had a tasty meal out with ma and pa and the Little Bookhamers in Leatherhead, at Caesars. The portions were truly fit for a king, next time we go we will order one meal for the four of us. My meal included 2 jacket potatoes which were taken home to feed the chicken. We took in the delights of Leatherhead town centre in the rain, and what a spectacle it is, a kind of Surrey version of Bitterne, with a Next and a Dorothy Perkins and a Currys where you would expect to find Peacocks, QS and 99p store. It has a theatre, where we used to have a Bowling alley.

Running around Claygate is fabulous because it is flat. And there are loads of woods and fields and you only get people with nice dogs like labradors, not any rough old Staffies or Pit Bull terriers or other similar dogs that snarl at runners around Bitterne.

Nearly forgot, yesterday was new year's day and R went to do the sailing race. It was a beautiful sunny day and despite my feeling ill and A having been sick that am ( I don't drink alcohol any more so not a self inflicted new year's day illness, thank you for asking,) we loved being in the sun and H had a good go at climbing lots of trees before we retreated to the club house to do crosswords and eat chips.