Daily dose of Byzantium:

From "Change in Byzantine Culture in the 11th and 12th Centuries" p56.

While there was economic growth in provincial towns during the 11th and 12th centuries, this was not accompanied by political liberation. Subjugated to the state, to the episcopate, and to the landed magnates,the urban populations did not become an independent, antifeudal political and cultural force.

I think I rather agree with this comment piece by Simon Jenkins:

http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gmg/op/sLY4AYdzQNHKuj41C1_S3Xg/view.m?id=276024&tid=120787&cat=Comment

(sorry for the mobile version, I'm on my phone):

Walking on Wirral today - the 'Dungeon' just off the Wirral Way.

Donating platelets at the moment. It's a little uncomfortable, but is something I'm very committed to. Means I'll be late home again though.

Currently on the train coming back from an EFQM workshop in Birmingham. This is something I've been interested in for some time, and have finally managed to get the funding to do. I've little interest in the assessment process. But EFQM feels like being given the instruction booklet for leadership, really insightful stuff. Of course, it help that I once worked for someone I respected who was evangelical about it.

Just finished reading Alan Harvey's thesis "Economix Expansion in the Byzantine Empire 900 to 1200". Good stuff but a little heavy. I like the genesis of a Marxist interpretation. The Byzantine state doesn't fail in the 11th century because the economy is in decline, but because the mode of production has shifted. Large landowners are more prevalent, and have less and less interest in the maintenance of a centralised state. Concessions to Venice are not weakness, but a rational facilitation of the expansion of the economy and trade. In the end, the state collapses because of these contradictions which *do* end up fatally weakening it long before the turks or crusaders arrive to finish it off.

Like I said, fascinating stuff.

Enjoyed reading the synopsis of Edward Luttwak's new book on Byzantine Grand Strategy: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/017/131xyleq.asp?pg=1

I have read Luttwak's book on the grand strategy of the Roman empire, and I'm intrigued by the idea of the same style of analysis being made of the Byzantines. In some ways, it cuts to the core of my interest in Byzantium, which is to do with the continuity of policy making as a result of the mechanisms of the imperial administration.

So once this is released in the UK, I think you might just find this on my bookshelf.

Posting again from my Perl script. I need to post the source to this at some point - although I'm sure that it won't be useful to anyone else, it's certainly useful for me. I couldn't find anything that allowed me to do quite what this does...so that's good enough for now.

Where to start with what's happened over the last few days?

Well, first off I'm now more connected on my 'phone after signing up to an all-you-can-eat internet deal. This means I can pick up my email properly - something I've been after doing on my mobile for ages (although I don't have push email, I can still set it to collect by POP3 every 15 minutes). This means I can now ditch my Palm TX completely (a sad moment). The last thing I was using it for was to pick up the Guardian every morning using Plucker. Now I just read it on the web.

The other news is that I have been offered a job on promotion. Woo hoo! Very nervous because it will involve lots of travelling, but I'm not about to turn a promotion down. It's also shaken me up because I'll then be very close to my 'target' grade. I just never thought I'd make it this far. So very happy.

I'm on the bus again at the moment. Need to stop before I start to feel nauseous from looking at my 'phone screen too much!

This update is me testing whether the Perl script I've written to run updates to blogger is working. It's the first draft, so it will be lucky if it is!

Quick update to note that I have had confirmation that I passed the PRINCE exam. I am now an accredited PRINCE2 practitioner.

At the bottom of Moel Famau, having just come down from the top. Weather has just turned a bit sunnier, but was greyier than we expected while climbing the hill.

Walking down along Offa's Dyke path gives some spectacular views of the Vale of Clwyd. Really worth the effort despite the heft to get up there.

The kids are well used to it, having this walk four or five times. Once we'd warned them last night that we wanted to do a walk, they managed without major moans. Big plus!

Having a cup of tea now from the little van in the carpark.

Knackered today after a 5 or so mile bike ride yesterday evening. I'm trying to keep my hand in even though I'm not cycling to work anymore, but it's hard work. I do miss cycling to work and back. It can really brighten your day. I think it must be something to do with the sense of achievement. Or maybe it's a chemical thing - about how your body reacts to it.

Had some thoughts about a historical materialist interpretation of 11th - 12th century Byzantine history. Must jot them down here at some point.

Training event in Croydon - with a 9:30 start, which means I've been up since 5:30. Gurk.

Not looking forward to the journey back either - heading through London at 17:00. I do have a seat booked on one train, so fingers crossed I can make that one.

Almost back to normal now after the weekend. Deb seems to be OK, but we have to wait and see how she goes really. Stressed me out completely.

Back in work now, at least my job interview has been put off for a couple of weeks. I was afraid it might have been pulled forward to this week, leaving me no preparation time.

5:30 start tomorrow to go to Croydon :-(

Tough day yesterday. After the Practitioner exam, I travelled home. Everyone was glad to see me back (including me). But Deb wasn't very well - I won't give details because she would be embarrassed to see it on the web. I ended up calling an ambulance, and spent the next 3 hours in A&E. They were extremely busy - the older woman next to Deb had been on a trolley there for 8 hours, and had been offered no food during that time. They were just taking her up to a ward.

They were only really treating people who were close to 'breaching' the target time. In the end, we gave up and Deb discharged herself without having been seen.

So, a bit stressful.

Still glad to be home though.

On my way home now after being on a PRINCE2 course all week. Completed the Practitioner exam this afternoon. Now I just have to wait 2 weeks for the results. I'm fairly confident that I've passed, but still very nervous in case I haven't.

Bizarrely enough, the course has come when the project I'm working on is winding down. And it looks like my next job will be in planning rather than projects. It will still be good to have the qualification under my belt for the CV (assuming I've passed!).

Next stop EFQM - hoping to go on an introductory course for that in December. Not at the moment planning to go all the way to being an accredited assessor, it's just for my own interest.

Can't wait to get home, I've missed Deb and the kids very much. It's been a long time since I've stayed away from home for this long.

In Manchester at the moment on a PRINCE2 training course. It's very intense, like having someone open your mind and slosh a bucket load of facts into it. I take the foundation exam tomorrow, and hopefully the Practitioner exam on Friday (if I pass tomorrow). I did manage to complete the pre-reading, going through the manual. Thank goodness I did, because I don't think I'd have coped otherwise.

Back to reading Byzantine history again, and need to update bkkeepr. I have the "Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies" at home - very expensive, bought for my birthday and worth every penny. Finishing "the Byzantine Economy" now before moving on to "Economic Expansion in the Byzantine Empire 900 to 1200". So it's busy busy busy.

Oh, and I have an interview for a job on promotion in 2 weeks time.

And dont't even get me started on George Osbourne. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy that I and my colleagues get to pay for the mistakes of a bunch of highly paid bankers (had to be very careful with the spelling there...)

Just found out I have an interview for another job on promotion. Woo hoo! Already starting to feel nervous about it though...

I'm just coming to the end of Jacques Lefort's chapter in the Economic History of Byzantium (which is available online from Dumbarton Oaks).

There's some fascinating analysis here of the detail and development of the rural economy of Byzantium. In particular around the trend for the countryside to change from a village commune organisation to a structure based more around large estates, and the interaction between this and economic development. Historically, the movement towards large estates has been seen as a retrograde step, leading to stagnation - and that this was part of the background to political collapse in the 11th. Century. What Lefort does is place the movement to large estates into the context of economic growth and expansion, a natural trend that fitted in a structure that was always a mixture of social organisation in the countryside. He also outlines how this was a rational decision for the peasants, and not necessarily one which involved impoverishment.

Overall then, a fascinating analysis, with lots of implications for the period that I find interesting - that is the transition to civilian rule in the 11th century followed by collapse and domination by the great families.

You may note from bkkeepr that I have started reading the PRINCE2 manual. It's heavy going, but not too unfamiliar. I go on the course in early October, hoping to walk away with the 'practitioner' badge.

Also reading 'the Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies' but I haven't put that on bkkeepr yet.

Currently sitting with Jessica on Hilbre Island watching seals through binoculars. Will need to leave in about an hour before the tide comes in. The seals are fantastic, lazing around on a sandbank and bobbing around in the water in front of us. Jessica is writing notes in her seal diary.

Pictures of us on today's walk in the Clywdian Range. Fabulous walking in early autumn sunshine. Note Alex pretending to be Indiana Jones in my new silly hat.

I can't note what I'm currently reading through bkkeepr. It's "The Imperial Administrative System in the Ninth Century" by J B Bury. Still the book on the middle Byzantine civil service, but not in print. I found a pdf for free download. I'll have to root out the URL and post it. Anyway, I've nearly finished and I'm then moving onto "The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies".

Will post on the kids school progress later (on the bus perhaps?).

Jessica is home, and it sounds like the first day has gone very well. She said everyone was friendly and helped her find her way around. I haven't found out much about her classes yet, but at least she's happy about the whole thing. Great relief all around!

Put Jessica on the bus to new school this morning. She was incredibly nervous. Fingers crossed it went OK.

Back at work now, haven't really posted over my leave period - been too busy! The holiday in Northumbria was magnificent. The weather just about held for us, and the coastline was wonderful. I'll post some pictures of it some other time.

Alex is now back at his new school, and Jessica begins secondary school (!) tomorrow. She's very nervous, but is holding it in well. We chose the school for it's pastoral care, so fingers crossed everything will be OK. I'll post an update after tomorrow with how it went.

Work is quite quiet, although my project rumbles on, having been off for a couple of weeks quite a bit has been picked up by others, so it will take a while to reintegrate myself.

And Deb has now begun her leave. She doesn't go back to work until December!

So it's all go here.

Came back from our holiday in Northumbria on Saturday. Need to wrie more fully about this later. For the moment, we had a great time. The countryside and particularly the coastline were fabulous, and the beach at Embleton magnificent. The only fly really was that the car developed an engine management problem, but we managed to get home OK.

Still off work, but not looking like I'll get to do much.

Pictures to follow shortly.

Sitting at home recovering from having a wisdom tooth extracted. It was horrid (he broke it off while trying to pull it out), and is now very sore. My face is puffed out like a hamster, which the kids think is very funny.

Spent Sunday climbing a hill in the Clywdian range, fulfilling an ambition. Called Peny-Cloddiau it was an iron age hillfort, and the views across the Cheshire plain and the vale of Clwyd up to Snowdon (covered in cloud). 4 miles, not too much uphill. Really fabulous.

Saturday was a Roman reenactment day at Beeston castle. Great day, I'll post some pictures later.

The answer to the question "how do you interpolate a method call into a double quoted string in Perl" seems to be "not easily". This ones be exercising my googling for a short while now. I think I'll go for printing the method call outside the string for the time being.

Just had a look at a colleagues Huawei E160 mobile broadband dongle. Plugged it into my FreeBSD 7.2 s10e ideapad and it was seemingly recognised (at least I could see both a umass disk and crucially a ttyU0 usb-serial device, which I guess is the modem). I'm tempted. Didn't try to make it dial up though - I'd need to refresh on ppp first.

Watching the Outnumbered episode where they try to live without TV. It's like watching our life on television (oops...I don't think we're supposed to be watching TV).

Pictures from today's visit to the zoo. And yes, Alex really walk around the whole time dressed as a Star Wars clone trooper.

Highlights were the butterflies and the red ruffed lemurs. I didn't take a picture of either. I still like the leaf cutter ants, but the picture of them didn't really come out :-(

Why do I only seem to blog while on the bus? One of life's great imponderables. I guess it's the only time I really get to myself.

Just started reading "Everyday Life in Byzantium" by Tamara Talbot Rice. Picked up cheaply second hand. Can't find the ISBN so can't update bkkeepr. I'm glad to have left western European medieval history behind for a bit.

Just over a week into summer holidays and the kids are driving Deb crackers Jessica only wants to spend time with her friends (who aren't always available) and Alex just wants to play on computer.

Roll on the weekend.

More pictures of the maize maze.

At the maize maze for Jessica's birthday. A little later than planned, but a good day out in the sunshine.

Currently on my way home from work (another bus journey!). I've been feeling a bit icky, and I've just spoken to my GP. She tells me that I have a viral infection and should go home. What's more, I should isolate myself for a week because of the risk it could be swine flu.

So I'm on my way home, and I guess the swine flu blog starts here (well, not really but you never know...).

Currently sitting in work with a French flag pinned to my desk to celebrate Bastille Day.

We're off line at home again. Something broke at the exchange and we're waiting for BT to send an engineer. Probably won't be fixed until Thursday. Can't make voice calls or get on the 'net.

Life's been too busy to blog much. I'm not reading a lot at the moment. Trying to work on the website I've been plodding through for a while now. Still no where near getting it online.

Work is all project management, which means lots of ups and downs. Don't want to talk about that at the moment.

Feeling quite flat. Need something to energise me.

On the bus home at the moment. Thank goodness it's Friday. Feeling more than a touch groggy after go out for a meal with Deb last night (a night out!) and drinking way too much. Ended up with a row with her parents and them going off in a huff. Hey ho.

Also a bit strung out because Alex is being increasingly difficult in the mornings. He knows he's going to a new school, and is doing one day a week there already. Now he doesn't want to keep going to his old school, and won't get dressed or leave the house.

I suppose this is a good thing in a way - he likes the new school - but life from here to the end of term is going to be tough.

Jessica is going on an adventure sports week away with school next week. No doubt there will be tears to go with the week away from home, but hopefully she'll have a good time.

Gordon Brown continues to limp on. I don't quite know how to feel about this. I agree with the Guardian that it's time for him to go, but it seems clear that he's going to make a fight of it internally - even if he can't seem to manage the same ferocity with the Tories that he does with his own ministers.

I don't actually think the election results were as disastrous as they might have been. Yes, Labour support fell away. But the really interesting point was that the Conservatives didn't pull away. There is still an opening for a Labour leader who can articulate a reforming agenda on the constitution and the economy.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem the Brown is able to do that. And I don't see how they could now easily change leader without the party tearing itself apart and racing into an election.

So it's a slow death under Brown or a short sharp one now under whoever. Which should they choose?

I suppose the only remaining question is whether Brown can limp on until the election, or whether there will now be a steady erosion of authority until he's forced out in 6 months' time. That would surely be the worst outcome

Progress with the Lenovo s10e. I finally bit the bullet and put FreeBSD on it this morning. I couldn't get unetbootin to work at all - it would not boot. So I ended up pulling an external hard drive to bits so that I could hook up an IDE cd drive.

That booted the standard 7.2 release disc 1 ok, and I ran through a normal installation. This model has a normal hard drive, so I didn't need to do anything special for an SSD.

On booting, there are some issues with acpi that I haven't got figured yet. It won't, for instance, power off. It only halts, then needing a button press.

The broadcom wireless chip is not supported. I downloaded the driver from the Lenovo site and extracted it on a Windows machine. I then had to to use icon to convert the inf file from utf to ascii before feeding bcmwl5.inf and bcmwl5.sys to ndisgen. This created a kernel module which when loaded created ndis0. This can be treated like a normal wireless device, and I'm now up and running. It seems to need a separate "ifconfig ndis0 up" command after boot to work, so I'll need to work that into a boot script at some point

Back home from the weekend excursion, and back to work.

I'm sitting on the train at the moment on my way back from a meeting in Manchester. It wasn't riveting unfortunately - even though I was chairing it.

Work feels a little steadier this week. There are still some issues, but it doesn't seem as manic as last week.

I have a new toy at home, a Lenovo s10e. It's a netbook, and it's very nice Very nice indeed. I've been struggling with the SuSE Linux it came installed with though. I'd love to put FreeBSD on it, but I'm nervous. Particularly about the wireless card. I'm trying to build up the courage to have a go If I do I'll post my progress here - especially as there doesn't seem to be much info on the web at the moment about running FreeBSD on this machine

Enjoying the sunshine at the National Railway Museum at York at the moment. It's Alex's favourite place in the whole world, so we stopped off here on our way home from a visit to my parents. Overnight in a Holiday Inn last night, and then York today.

I'd love to go and see some of historic York, but Alex will never be dragged away from the NRM. In some ways it's a shame, because he would also love the Roman and Viking history. He just can't get past the trains.

Going for a sausage in a bun in a mo', and then wait for Deb and Jess to finish in York city before heading home.

Horrifically busy at work the moment, hence no updates for a while. This week I'm effectively covering for both my SEO and Grade 7. The project I'm working on is moving so fast that you only have to blink and you've missed something crucial.

This week has basically been about trying to broker a deal between 2 operational teams and training, all of whom have fallen out over schedules and material for training courses. I just want to bang some heads together and get it sorted!

To cap it all, by boss is on 3 weeks leave. She ran out of time to finish a key piece of work, but thought we'd be able to make do. The proverbial hit the fan today, so I had to make time to try to pick the pieces up. Sigh.

Trying to decide whether I can justify spending £200 on a Lenovo s9e netbook. I just need to know whether it would run FreeBSD...

Spent last night getting linux to run on my Palm TX. It's fantastic that it works, but slow and clunky. Not really a replacement for Palm OS yet. That said, there's a new version being worked on that promises to make it possible to use the wifi. That would be good, but it also needs to improve the responsiveness of the system.

I'm a huge fan of Palm - the TX is my third after an original Zire and a Tungsten E. It's a great machine, and very usable. But the age of the design is starting to show. I've just bought a Windows Mobile smartphone, and I'm slowly moving my PIM data over. Eventually, I'll probably end up getting rid of the Palm. That will be a sad day for me though. Windows Mobile doesn't feel as intuitive. But it has a GPRS connection, and potentially means carrying one less gadget.

I'm really struck by the software contrast. There's far less for Windows Mobile, and is far more difficult to get it working. With Palm, you just plonk the prc file on the device.

Perhaps if the linux for Palm gets better I can convert that into a proper miniature computer?

Long delay in blog posting, caused mostly by being extremely busy in work. I don't think I've been this busy for 3 years. Still, it has it's rewards. Found out today that I'm being full time onto the project I've been working on (which is what I wanted) and that I'll get 6 months of temporary promotion out of it.

Home is...home. Alex has been quite challenging of late. He's become very wedded to our extension room, where he will play a computer game whilst watching a DVD at the same time. He can get really aggressive when told to stop He's now been to visit his new school (from next year). Problem is he likes it more than his current school...

Jessica is doing her SATs. Urkk. Deb has just gone back to work after her operation. Urkk.

So life is 'fun' at the moment ;-)

"Panopticons" in Lancashire. Fabulous art which we visited at Easter.

Another week at work over.

Deb's recovery seems to be going reasonably well. She's getting frustrated that she still feels so tired though. She is back to doing the school run morning and afternoon.

I'm shattered after my two days away. Need some time to recover. Here's hoping for some nice weather over the bank holiday. The barbeque beckons!

Not much else to report. I'm reading sub-Roman Britain at the moment (some interesting links to Byzantium). I've also acquired the opportunity to go on a one week archaeology 'training excavation'. I'd love to do it, but I don't know where I'm going to find the week off.

On the train again, this time on my way home from London.

It's been an interesting couple of days. I felt that much of the real development work was aimed at people who were younger than me. This meant I went through a bit of a low point this morning trying to see some relevance for me in everything.

That said, I've ended up coming away with lots to think about. I'm not sure how to make the best of this development programme, so that really needs some thought.

It's been very intense, with lots of personal interaction, which has been exhausting in itself. I'm quite looking forward to the journey home to just have some quiet time.

I'm currently on the train on my way to London. I have a two day development session, which is part of this three year leadership programme I've just been accepted onto.

It's come at quite an inconvenient time. Deb has just had her stitches out, Alex is having some trouble at school, and Jessica has decided to get all anxious again about me being away. So I'm just hoping that everything at home hangs together until I get back.

I'm just coming to the end of Jacques Lefort's chapter in the Economic History of Byzantium (which is available online from Dumbarton Oaks). There's some fascinating analysis here of the detail and development of the rural economy of Byzantium. In particular around the trend for the countryside to change from a village commune organisation to a structure based more around large estates, and the interaction between this and economic development. Historically, the movement towards large estates has been seen as a retrograde step, leading to stagnation - and that this was part of the background to political collapse in the 11th. Century. What Lefort does is place the movement to large estates into the context of economic growth and expansion, a natural trend that fitted in a structure that was always a mixture of social organisation in the countryside. He also outlines how this was a rational decision for the peasants, and not necessarily one which involved impoverishment.

Overall then, a fascinating analysis, with lots of implications for the period that I find interesting - that is the transition to civilian rule in the 11th century followed by collapse and domination by a few great families.

On the bus home now. Rough week at work, doing the school run in the mornings and then coming in. I'm shattered. It doesn't help that Alex has been very angry and anti-school all week. It culminated today in a huge row to get dressed. Got there in the end, but it really takes it out of you.

Roll on the weekend!

Picture of Deb after the operation.

Deb is in hospital at the moment after having had the operation to have the (benign) lump in her neck removed.

Even though we'd had this planned for some time, it made for quite a fraught day. She went in yesterday morning while I did the school run.

Then she was in theatre for a looooong time. I 'phoned the ward just about every hour; and she was brought back up about 14:30.

So we went in to see her last night and she was fine. Groggy but fine.

Hopefully she'll be home today. Alex can't stop saying how much he misses her.

Pictures from the top of Moel Famau and Moel Fenlli. We climbed both today! Hard work but great in the sun, although a bit chilly at the top in the wind.

Sitting on top of Moel Famau! Just finished our picnic and on our way down Bright sunshine but windy and quite cold.

Flippin' eck, that was some week at work. The project I'm working on just keeps accelerating, and add that to holding down the day job...

Still, hopefully the wheels haven't fallen off anything quite yet. I've planned that for next week ;-)

Good weather in prospect over the weekend so will hopefully get some walking done. We managed about 15 or 20 miles over Easter while I was off. Mostly in small bits, but with one of 5 miles around Hockenhull Platts. Short trip to Burnley, and a great time finding all the panopticons. Great fun standing on the hill next to the singing ringing tree. You'll have to search for it if I'm not making sense!

So where to now? I really want to do some longer stuff in the Clywdian range, but I'm not sure the kids are up for it yet. Particularly after getting lost on Moel Findeg last weekend.

Reading Byzantines again. It's a slow march through the Economic History of Byzantium, which is fascinating but hard work.

Walking our favourite walk in Cheshire again. We are currently sitting in the Summertrees cafe near Willington. There's a field here which once had llamas in. Jessica is now disappointed every time we pass that they aren't there any more.

Even so, it's our favourite walk. We must have done it 8 times over the last year. It's about 3 miles circular which is just perfect for a gentle stroll. The kids find 5 miles a bit more strenuous. We're working on them.

Long pause in blog posting to be explained later.

You can now keep an eye on what I'm reading via twitter and bkkeepr at http://bkkeepr.com/people/4harrisons

Quick blog. We've been told today that Alex has a place at the specialist school we wanted for him. Yippee!

Very slow day in work today.

Waiting for things to move on in the project I'm working on, but not much will happen now until tomorrow at the earliest.

Alex's statement review will go to the special needs panel on Thursday, so we're hoping for good news from that - hopefully they'll agree that he needs to move out of mainstream. That should give us the decision we need to get him into the school we want for next year. Deb has been speakin to the local authority staff, and we're hopeful. But you can never count your chickens until it's all done and dusted. Did I just mix my metaphors? I'll probably Twitter the result first - if only to encourage anyone reading to follow me on Twitter. I'm not sure I understand the whole Twitter thing as yet, but I'm trying. It might help if I had some friends :-(

You can now follow me on Twitter as @4harrisons.

Well narked with Virgin at the moment. They're my ISP - although potentially not for very much longer. I've been offline now for just over 2 weeks.

What seems to have happened is that they've upgraded the connection at the exchange to ADSL2. Now I can't access the internet. The router can't see the ADSL signal on the line. 4 calls now to Virgin and I'm no further forward. Each time I go through the same rigmarole, and they report it to an engineer. And it doesn't get fixed. It seems that the relevant work is contracted to Cable & Wireless, and they seem to think everything is working fine.

Well it isn't.

If they don't get it sorted soon, then I'll be looking for another ISP - particularly as Virgin weren't that good really anyway.

This was posted from my Palm using my 'phone as a dial up modem over Bluetooth. I'm suffering serious withdrawal symptoms without internet access!

On a different note, today I donated Platelets for the first time. I need to make a longer post about that another time. Giving blood is something I'm very committed too, but the process of giving platelets took a long time and was quite painful. This is going to take a bit of getting used to.

Deb is at the hospital today seeing another consultant about the lump in her neck. She was told by the last one that see needed it removed through a procedure called a 'parotidectomy' which is quite an involved operation.

Deb was expecting her appointment in March, but this has been pulled forward at the last minute. We're not quite sure why, so I'm a bit nervous about what the outcome will be - although we're assuming that the hospital are just filling a cancellation.

It was half term last week, and I had a couple of days off. Still suffering with the head cold we've all had over the last week or so. Feeling very sinus-y and with a perpetually running nose. Back in work, and struggling to make sense of the project stuff I'm trying to fit around all my other jobs.

Great walk last Monday. Trying to follow a 5 mile circular route around the Cheshire plain, we managed to miss a turn and ended up completely off the route. Luckily, we'd taken the Ordnance Survey map with us and were able to work out a route back. It was very muddy though.

And another great walk yesterday - something we've been meaning to do for a while to the 'dungeon', a waterfall in a steep little valley just off the Wirral Way. Easy walking (good surfaces) and a cafe at the end for lunch. We made about a 3 mile circular route of it. Kids found it easy going (once we persuaded them to go) and we were done before lunch.

Kids back at school today and really cranky with it.

Challenges for March - Alex's statement review on the 9th.; I'm starting as a platelet donor on the 3rd.

Exhausted at the moment. We're trying Alex on another drug called Concerta instead of his normal Ritalin, and he's not reacting to it so well. He's struggling to sleep, and has been awake early all this week.

Neither Deb nor I like keeping him on the tablets he's been taking. The dose is quite high, and we're constantly worried about the short and long term effects. So Deb talked to the paediatrician about alternatives and this is what we ended up with.

I'm nervous about trying this after our experience with Stratera, and I'm aware of Concerta's reputation. But if we want things to change, we have to be willing to try new things - always a struggle where Alex is concerned,

Anyway, early feedback is not good. He's very jumpy and over-active all the time, it seems not to do too good a job at controlling his hyperactivity - which is the point of the exercise. School seem to think he's finding it harder to focus. And to cap it all his sleeping pattern is going to pot.

Sleeping is always something we've had to regulate for Alex. He has never really settled into a pattern by himself. Anything which disrupts this always has a strong impact on the rest of the family too. We're still using Melatonin to help, but Concerta seems to be reducing it's effectiveness.

So I guess he'll be back on Equasym shortly. Just in time for his statement review, which is on Monday. I'll post more about that another day. Too tired at the moment.

Snow!

Only a light dusting so far, but the kids couldn't wait to go out in it. Jessica was up and out of the door by 8:00, which is completely unheard of. Alex slightly more sanguine, he runs to a routine so wasn't about to do something spontaneous. That said, I've no doubt that he'll have been excited once he got outside.

Only a light dusting so far, so nothing to get too excited about. Forecast is for more tonight, so we'll see how we go.

Fwd: FW: Fireman Alex

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: peter.piggybox@virgin.net <peter.piggybox@virgin.net>
Date: 2009/1/31
Subject: FW: Fireman Alex
To: four.harrisons@googlemail.com

Interesting article in today's Guardian by Patrick Wintour on Brown.

Something to cheer me up

Jessica in the school play as Teaser the Talking Dog.

What a weekend!

I don't know what was going on - and I'll confess to being a bit grumpier than normal after a busy week with the journey to London etc. - but it was dreadful.

The back story is that both the kids can be a bit difficult to get out of the house at the weekend. To be blunt, they're both something of a couch potato. This is understandable with Alex, and Jessica is just reaching that teenage kind of thing. I don't like to spend all weekend knocking around the house. So you can see there's a source of tension there.

To cut a long story short, it all went horribly wrong. We still ended up knocking around the house, but had at least 3 major ("I hate you all" style) rows with Jessica. This of course set Alex off on the wrong foot too. All hell broke loose basically.

We've agreed that for next week we need to agree a plan of action well in advance so that we can forewarn the kids, and hopefully not row so much. It's reached the point that doing anything at the weekend requires a 2 hour row in the morning to force the kids out of the house. We need to find a way around that.

Changing the subject, my return to Byzantine history continues after my visit to the Byzantium exhibition at the Royal Academy last week. I've picked up a copy of Charles Diehl's "Byzantium: Greatness and Decline" on Ebay cheaply, which should make interesting reading, although it's a little old now. I am currently re-reading Robin Cormack's book on Byzantine Art.

I still haven't really thought through how I feel about the exhibition itself. I need to post again about that I think. I can understand why the minor arts have received so much attention though. Some of the ivories and enamel work is truly stunning.

Well, what a 48 hours! I am currently sitting on the train travelling back from London to Liverpool. Yesterday I was at a very intense interview day for a development and mentoring programme (probably more trouble than it's worth in terms of what the programme offers, but good practice to keep my interview skills up to scratch).

I spent the evening with my sister Katie, and then today visited the Byzantium exhibition at the Royal Academy. This is something I've been wanting to see since I first saw it advertised last year. I still can't quite believe that I've managed to see it.

Thoughts on the exhibition? I was impressed by the sheer quality of the smaller pieces - enamels and miniatures. There was an ivory plaque of Christ Pantokrator from the 10th century I've not seen a picture of which was very impressive. For the items I had seen in books, they were far more impressive in reality than a photograph can convey. Well worth the visit. I was surprised that the icons which most impressed me were the very late ones by Akotantos (unusual because the artist signed the work). Very strong emotionally. I treated myself to the catalogue mostly to remind me what I saw.

Katie was incredibly generous and helpful, looking after me and making sure I got where I needed to go, although she was in work both days. Steve as gracious as ever - I walked away with a byzatine coin and a book as gifts.

Time, to go but I will blog more on my thoughts on the Byzantium exhibition when I get home, assuming I get the time.