Like waiting for a bus, we were lucky enough to have two hot summer holidays abroad this year. If anyone knows of any good carbon offsetting schemes for all those air miles, just let me know.

House guests of Katie’s family friend Tom Stoddart, we enjoyed the almost surreal luxury of being catered for all week in a beautiful and spacious home in Targa, on the northern suburbs of Marrakech. Tom, is well-off enough to have several domestic employees - all of whom were very friendly and helped us all to feel like we’d mixed with local people. Our French linguistics had to be dusted off a bit and with a strong regional accent, some words were hard to distinguish, but we got by.

The house was made even more child friendly by having a supply of dog and even eight 3-week old dachshund puppies. Olly and Lily made several daily visits to their little den each day.

Although it was lovely to have had a pool all to ourselves and enjoy the children (we went with Katie’s family: Sally, Simon, Olly, Lucy, Jean and Bill), we also had enough opportunities to nip into this amazing city a few times, too.

There’s some family photos here and less familyesque photos on Flickr here. The sunsets were particularly enjoyable - even without much immediate topography other than palm trees and olive groves. Simon and Sally’s flickr photos are here.

I also managed to keep the training going all holiday and ran each morning for a minimum of 35 minutes in some temperatures that would suggest a lot more lying in bed. The theory was to get up early and get out or get cooked. Daytime temperatures reached the mid 40s on some days but it was only in the high 20s in the mornings. I acclimatised well though, and running was a real joy in such a different environment. Google Earth tracks of the runs from my Garmin 305 are here, showing some nice zig-zagging through the shade of the olive groves and the dusty barren ‘fields’, complete with tumble weed.

Great fun - thanks Tom and we’ll come and see you again when you move to Agadir!

A good friend from my late teens was killed in very tragic circumstances on Saturday. Anderson Patrick was just known as ‘Plug’ to us back in my sixth form - one of those names people get given at school when they have sticky-out ears.

Plug was one of those people who were good to party with. Katie remembers his dancing in a dodgy but very enthusiastic fashion; arms flailing and just going for it. We had some great times - particularly in the summer of 1988 when we left school - but onwards for the next couple of years, too.

People started dancing on the tables at the first ever Little Boogie Machine gig in the Brown Cow, Lancaster; Plug and his close friend Jamie Kineer were the first up there.

I haven’t been in contact with Plug for a long time now - we went off doing our own things as you do, but he’s one of the people I’d have loved to see again. The fact that I won’t do is not of any consequence to me. What I can’t think about for more than a few seconds is how his wife and three children won’t see him again.

Great stay with Dippy, Jane, Libby and Flo this weekend. It sadly seems only an annual event with everyone’s busy lives, but we had another great trip. We missed out on some pretty poor weather back home too, which is a great bonus.

On Saturday we had a great trip to the park and on to a noodle bar for lunch (Helmshore, for some reason, hasn’t got its own noodle bar yet). After that, it was an afternoon of romping on the lawn with hose pipe, paddling pool, croquet set and some willing and very playful young people.

On Sunday, Dips and I took the girls to the pool and had another water-based good laugh.

Big thanks from us all to you all for a lovely stay.

This year was a brilliant Tour de France. [Oh, Dave - stop being so silly and provocative - what about all the drugs in cycling?]. No - sorry - it was a fantastic race this year.

The London and Kent start to the Tour was different but very succesful.

The first week was action packed with a bitter battle for the stage finishes going on and no one team dominating the sprints. We had the usual brave men seeking out a win with infeasibly long breakaways, and some truly superb mountain stages. Add to that two edge-of-the-seat time trials and the closest finish since 1989.

The drugs? The scandals?
As a bonus we had two people caught doping who were booted out, and a habitual fibber kicked out when leading (how did his team let him in in the first place?!). This is all gereat proof that drug testing is working. Furthermore, the team organisations have also come round to stamping it out. Astana and Cofidis both withdrew from the race voluntarily after their rider had sinned.

At last the whole cycling infrastructure seems ready to reject doping. People will always try to cheat where there’s big money and glory involved. Just look at the drug taking in professional football - no-one dares to test for performance enhancing drugs there (for now). What’s important is that cycling’s infrastructure is ready to reject doping.

Storms ravage the country, and once again we managed to keep Devon relatively dry for a long weekend. We should get paid for this.

A lovely time had by all - lots of Dartmoor running, plenty of drinking, not a disastrous amount of sleep loss, the Tour de France’s crucial stages on TV in the the background (and occasionally the foreground), excellent young-people-swimming trampolinic bouncing, a stone of cow rib to eat a youth bike ride, and Timothy Taylor’s Landlord. And a bit of sneezing.

Oh, and some extreme retrieving by Elvis.