Been a short break from the blog again, mostly because of things going on at home. I've now got another free 5 minutes waiting for a train at Manchester Airport where I've been for a meeting (we have staff based there).

Looking forward to Jessica's birthday now. The plan is to take some friends to see Kung Fu Panda this weekend. Looks like fun, but I'll get the job of looking after Alex at home.

Alex wasn't well yesterday, throwiing up even water. However you could almost pinpoint the moment he began feeling better. He looked up at me and said "Daddy, I feel better, what can I eat?". I took the day off work to look after him, and took the opportunity to run software updates on 4 of my 5 computers (the other one is running FreeNAS but I haven't quite got it sorted out properly yet).

Deb is still feeling somewhat fragile - mostly because of the situation at school - but that's a story for another blog post.

Time to go and find my train.

Back to work today after a week off over half term. It's a bit miserable being back, particularly since I don't have a tremendous amount to do (hence I am blogging in work on my Palm again).

Great time off, made slightly more difficult by Jessica's teenage tendencies. Highlights were the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry (plus a visit to the Wagamama); seeing Antony Gormley's "Another Place" at Crosby beach; and a 5 mile walk around Hockenhull Platts in Cheshire (we managed around 10 miles walking in total over the weekend).

"Another Place" was undoubtedly the highlight. It's an incredibly thought provoking piece of art, and well worth a visit. We spent over an hour sitting on the beach watching the tide slowly come in and cover the statues. I kept wondering what they were all waiting for. Deb commented that it reminded her of a scene from Doctor Who - they've all been hypnotized and are walking into the water together. There's something haunting about the fact that they are all facing the same direction. Truly stunning.

Jessica is still being a teenager. She would really rather spend time with her friends than with us, and this led to some rows in the later part of the holiday, but we managed OK.

Techniquest at Wrexham was also worth a visit, although I wouldn't spend more than a couple of hours there. Very robust science experiments for kids, although in a slightly odd campus location.

Still, back to work, without really having enough to do. Hey ho.