Although we had two lovely days of fine weather this long weekend, we chose the wet day to go to the seaside…

We did have a grand day out though - on the Lancashire coast - at Southport (along with its huge pier) and another quick trip to Crosby. Lily’s bike riding’s really coming along and she took full advantage of the soft sand to build her confidence in turning safely (well, relatively).

Katie managed to manoeuvre her large abdomen very well in the circumstances and enjoyed the fresh air and fun.
Photos here

In the mid 1980s, Yorkshire Television made a documentary about a lady called Annice Sidwells, a talented operatic singer with a beautiful and special contralto voice. Annice lived in Settle, North Yorkshire, but the documentary was based around the unlikely story of how a singer from a small-town amateur operatic society made it big in the early days of wireless radio, travelling down to London to perform live on national radio. The romantic angle was added to the story when her boyfriend of the time came to take her home, away from the smog, back to Settle, and marry her.

The man was Matt Haygarth, my grandfather, who died at the age of 50 and I never met. Annice, my grandmother was a wonderful and special lady with an unrivalled joy for life, and I feel very lucky to have this film about her life!

Quite the most delightful bit of animation that I think I’ve seen since Pixar’s ‘Robots’ - this appeals to me on so many levels; the epitome of how alive sequenced, electronic music can be if you just use your imagination. Wonderful… ten out of ten.

Poor old Lily - she went to school this morning for her special Reception Class assembly - parents could attend and the whole year proudly performed their assembly themed on ‘food’. Katie and I came home feeling typically proud, as would be expected.

Later on, she came home having fallen in the playground at lunchtime looking like this.

Lily got a toy drum kit for Christmas, which is regularly put through its paces. This video makes me smile the most though, when I showed her my John Bonham performing one of those fashionable 70s drum solos on DVD. Those of you lucky to remember me drumming will recognise the tongue sticking out, and the inevitability that new drum skins will be needed shortly.