Summer hols..

Last day before a week away in a thatched cottage in Norfolk. Country "fayre" on Saturday, childrens' zoo on Sunday and hopefully a few days out at the seaside enjoying some warmer weather. Plenty of outdoor activities and evening's spent by the inglenook fireplace toasting marshmallows or whatever it is you do. We are going with my sister-in-law's family, so the children should largely occupy themselves (wishful thinking) and my eldest should be distracted sufficiently to stop fretting about her chicken-pox.

It may only be a week but I need a break. In amongst my working commitments, I began a project to renovate my bathroom a few weeks back and have so far spent 12 man-days (6 with a mate) cutting rafters out in my ceilings, removing the old water-tank and installing a couple of Velux windows. Lighting, insulation and boarding will be done early week after next, before I return to the day job. After that I can actually start in the bathroom where everything's got to come out for some tanking, a walk-in shower and complete re-tile. Like all good building programmes, I suspect I'll be lucky to get it all completed before Christmas although October is my target!

I'm not helped by the start of the new season as I plan to attend most of the opening games and will be out for four consecutive Saturdays (Bournemouth, Wycombe, Hartlepool and Walsall). This will exhaust all of my Brownie points, so I am also working on replenishing these - a trip to see Walking with Dinosaurs has been floated and well received. Throw in a couple of weeks of Jury Service and August will be gone. Perhaps the new-season-new-division enthusiasm will have been well and truly beaten out of me by then and I will revert to mostly attending just home games with just the odd away-day excursion so the renovation can resume at pace?