After more than 12 hours' labour, Emma gave birth to our third child today, a boy we have named Tristan Alexander Paddy Chivers.

He was born at 11:45 this morning and weighed in at 3.3 kg (or 7lb 4 oz in old money). I am of course duty bound to say that he's a little cutie.

We went up to the hospital at just before midnight last night, following the onset of contractions and Emma was initially examined to see how far the baby had progressed. The verdict was '-3 cm' and we were advised that it would probably be worth returning home and waiting until the contractions were much more severe before coming in, given how near we live to the hospital. So we went home, only to return less than an hour later, following what were to Emma some quite severe contractions.

She was examined again and indeed the baby had made quite some movement, so we stayed at the hospital. For the rest of the night very little movement occurred and the contractions were extremely irregular. By the time dawn came, we had both been awake for 24 hours and were pretty much exhausted. We were handed over to the next midwife shift and were looked after by a qualified midwide, Amanda and a student midwife, Jayne.

Amanda and Jayne (and all the other midwives who looked after us) were absolutely fantastic and were happy to ply us with hot drinks in addition to all their midwifery duties. They went out of their way to make Emma feel comfortable and really did a marvelous job all round.

From the early hours of the morning until mid morning, there was very little movement and the contractions were quite irregular.

By 11:00, the doctor on duty advised the midwives to try to move the contractions on using the hormone Syntosin and Emma also asked for pethadine as a pain killer. In the event, once the Syntosin and Pethadine had been administered, things moved along very quickly. At 11:45, Emma suddenly said that she felt she wanted to push and within a minute the baby was born - an extremely quick birth once it was underway. Emma was fantastic and the midwives commented on how easy she made it look.

Once things had settled down and Emma had had a bath I made a few phone calls to family, came home, had a shower, and grabbed a couple of hours' sleep. Emma's mum, Joyce, who is staying with us at the moment to help out, very kindly picked up the girls from school whilst I grabbed this opportunity before I returned to pick up Emma and Tristan from the hospital this evening. The orthopaedic doctor checked him over and then we were allowed to go.

I filmed the girls' first meeting with their new baby brother and Joyce's first meeting with her grandson.

I've got nothing but praise for the professionalism and skills of the labour ward staff at George Eliot hospital.

A wonderful day, witnessing the birth of a new life and our first son. I'm absolutely exhausted and am going to turn in very soon to catch up on some sleep, assuming that Tristan consents to oblige!

I session drummed for Beneva at the Barfly in Birmingham on Friday night, in support of Captain. The gig went really well, the venue was pretty full and the crowd were very much into the music.

We played for about half an hour and the audience visibly moved to the front to be closer to the stage. The sound engineer did a great job from what we could hear and didn't moan about my brass snare drum (which has a very metalic 'pang' sound to it that some sound engineers hate) nor my unmuffled toms. As time goes on, I realise that the good sound engineers with decent equipment know how to deal with proper drums - in the old days they asked you to put gaffa tape all over the kit, which may have made their lives much easier, but left the drum kit sounding like a set of cardboard boxes - yuck!

Captain seemed a little distant at first, except the keyboard player, Clare Szembek, who was very open and friendly. We feared a bit of the traditional snobbery that goes with being the headline act, but actually, as I returned to the back-stage area from the stage, I wished them a good gig and they gave a cheery 'thanks, you too!' response. The guitarist, Mario Athanasiou, seemed a little full of himself and ignorant to everyone outside the band, but it was his birthday and he seemingly had other things planned, such as seeking out the pleasure highlights of Birmingham.

We had extremely positive feedback from the audience after the gig for the Beneva set and many people clearly like the material that Malc and Nathan have written.

Captain themselves were excellent on stage. They're all clearly very competent musicians and I particularly appreciated that Clare, the keyboard player, switched to accordion for a couple of numbers and the bass player, Alex Yeoman, switched to playing bass on keyboard - nice touches. The drummer, Reuben Humphries, is a very good drummer who adds just the right amount of interest to standard beats without going over the top. He's also responsible for writing the band's most recent single, 'Keep An Open Mind', which has been plaguing me since I heard it!

They seem to have a good work ethic from what I could see and from what I've read, and a very down-to-earth approach to the music business. If they don't get caught up in the bad side of the music business and fall into the wasteful world of drugs, which has killed off many a good band, I think they'll be around for some time. They deserve to be, because they're the most original pop band I've heard in a long time.

For Beneva's part, we had a great night all round and met some very nice people after the gig. Chris (ex BAiT colleague) came along and managed to get some good pictures too.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7317352.stm

"... I'm so worried about the baggage retrieval system they've got at Heathrow" - I'm So Worried from the albums Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album and Monty Python Sings.

I bet Terry Jones never saw that one coming!

Took part in my first organised motorcycle run today to commemorate the motorcycle racer and F1 driver, Mike Hailwood MBE GC.

It was 27 years ago (1981) today that Mike's life was cut short in a motor accident involving a flatbed lorry between Birmingham and Redditch and the Birmingham Testers group organised a run to commemorate the anniversary from the former Norton Works in Bracebridge Street, Aston, Birmingham, to Tanworth in Arden, Warwickshire, where he is buried.

I didn't know anything about Mike Hailwood before this event, as I'm not interested in motor sport particularly, but having looked at his achievements in motorsport, even I recognise that he was something special. The run was recommended to me by Rod, the bass player in the band, to whom in turn the run had been recommended by a friend.

In the event, it snowed this morning, and so many people, having looked at the weather at around 8:00 this morning, chose not to come along. There were approximately 50 of us in all who set off on the relatively short journey down the M6, M42, and A435 to Tanworth in Arden. There was a great variety of bikes present, from vintage models to modern-day bikes. Rod was going to come along on his 1949 Vincent, but, having seen the roads, decided to spare it the salt and come on his Honda Transalp instead.

As it turned out, the weather was quite nice, albeit a bit on the chilly side. There was no rain, but there was a lot of salt on the roads, as was evidenced by my bike when I got home, so it had to have another wash today (I washed it only yesterday).

Once we arrived at Tanworth in Arden, we made a quick visit to the grave. The fact that his daughter, who was born three days before me, was also killed in the accident hit home while we were there. I thought about all my memories from back then and what I had done since and considered all the things that the poor girl had missed out on. Very sad.

We walked back from his grave and found that of another famous Englishman, Nick Drake, an acoustic artist who has a very loyal fanbase and is hailed as one of the top songwriters of the last 50 years. His story is equally sad, as commercial success eluded him until after his death in 1974, aged just 26. I had briefly seen a programme on Nick Drake, but will have to have a listen to some of his work.

Before we left Tanworth in Arden, we headed across the road to the pub for a couple of coffees and had a chat through a few band things before heading home. By early afternoon the sun had well and truly come out and the ride home was very enjoyable.

Had the final baby scan today before the big event at the end of next month. All is well and the baby is growing exactly as expected. We even managed to come away with a scan picture (unusual at this stage of the pregnancy). We asked for the doctor to confirm what sex the baby was, and she confirmed that it is a boy, as we had been told at the outset, so at least I'll have some backup at home now when the girls gang up.

Car went in for and failed its MOT on a front nearside spring and faulty number plate light. Not a major job to fix and get through, but more expense at a time when we could do without it.

The garage door broke towards the end of last week. It's an up-and-over design and has always been a bit temperamental, but this time it really ballsed up and I had to come home from work to sort it out. Having pondered having an automatic roller door, I organised for a local company to come in and quote for such a door today. They seemed pretty much the best price wise and seemed like nice enough people, so I went with them. The new door won't arrive for another three weeks, but they're going to fix our current door free of charge. Looking forward to being able to just press a button to open and close the door. It should offer better security and be much easier when I'm on the motorbike and want to get in and out of the garage easily.

Had quite a busy weekend with a couple of gigs; one with Ministry of Beaver in Northampton, at the King Billy, and on Saturday I sessioned for the Malc Evans band at Acoustic Amnesty 6.

The Beaver gig was my fourth with the band and it was the first time I felt happy playing without my cheat sheets on standby. We debuted three new songs: a rocked up version of Duran Duran's Hungry Like The Wolf; Run To You, by Bryan Adams, and the Green Day song, Jesus of Suburbia, which is a nine minute 'progressive punk' ('prunk', as I call it) piece. The Green Day song was also the first Beaver song to feature my SPD-S drum pad sampler unit, which is more affectionately known as 'the machine that goes ping'.

Our occasional sound engineer, Paul came along, because we decided to pull out all the stops and use the monster P.A. and did a great job of the live mix, from what I could hear and from what people said. A good, enjoyable gig, although on the way home I noticed that I was extremely tired and I was quite concerned about falling asleep at the wheel.

Saturday's gig with the Malc Evans band was quite a contrast from the Beaver gig. Malc is one half of Coventry acoustic duo Beneva; a couple of very talented tunesmiths who I finally got to see recently, having known of them for some time. Malc got in contact at the start of the year and asked if I'd be prepared to session for Beneva and Malc in his own band he was putting together to perform his music in a band context.

I went to see Beneva with fellow former BAiTer, Chris, and had a good chat with Malc and pretty much decided on the spot that it was something I'd be happy to do. The snag was, that on top of the thirty songs I'd learnt for Beaver, I now had to learn another twenty or so. Argghh! I only hope the Homer Simpson theory about new information into the brain pushing old information out isn't true.

So, Saturday saw the Malc Evans band play its first gig. Between us, we had Malc on vox and acoustic guitar, a cellist, keyboard player, Steve 'Skidders' Skidmore on bass, and me on drums and backing vox. We played about ten songs in a church hall in Allesley, Coventry, as part of the Acoustic Amnesty 6 gig. The other acts on where all excellent and then we went on last to finish the evening off. There was a certain amount of 'winging' going on by all of us, but it all came together pretty well. Malc, Steve, and I had only had three brief rehearsals and we'd never played with the other two at all, but it all worked out fine and there were some nice comments afterwards.

More Malc Evans and Beneva gigs are in the pipeline, so I need to brush up on learning the material.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has just settled my mind once and for all. This country needs to be properly secularised and disestablished. For any religion to be considered relevant to this country's statute book at any level, it should be proven to exist. No exemptions!

It's farcical that we continue to have any link between Church and State in the 21st century. Until the Archbishop opened his mouth, I was (relatively) happy to live with an established church. Now I've seen the writing on the wall and it sickens me - a vicar's son!

It's not that I have a problem with our institutions receiving suggestions from religious groups, but that is as far as things should go.

"Well, Mr Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Jew, Sikh, Hindu, Jedi, etc... Thanks for your input... we'll let you know..." - that's how it should work.

Sheesh!

After a frantic four weeks learning 26 songs,  ranging from the completely unknown (to me) to the vaguely familiar (most of them) to the couple that I knew quite well, Ministry of Beaver played its first gig tonight with me behind the drums.

The contrast between the music I played with Kill Clouseau couldn't be more different. Well, I suppose it could, if we were a death yodel band, but I think I've made my point. The Ministry of Beaver set comprises a much more rock-based (and even punk-based in a few instances) sound. They aren't songs that I would listen to out of choice at home (with a couple of exceptions), but hell, they're fun to play as a drummer and we have a pretty big sound for an instrumental 3 piece.

The gig took place at The Three Nuns pub in Loughborough. Rod, the bass player, had turned up at 18:00 with Paul, the sound engineer, to set up the P.A. I turned up an hour later and we all set up pretty efficiently, considering the mammoth P.A. that Rod and Paul had brought along.

The gig went as brilliantly as it could go. I made one obvious mistake with the start of a song, but otherwise, everything went swimmingly well and the gig went down a storm. Think we made a good impression!

Andi and Rod played a blinder and Mark did a great job on the vox. All the guys are very much into their instrument (vox in the case of Mark) and are extremely positive and forward looking individuals who love what they are doing. Hand on heart, I'm not used to being in such a positive band, with everyone pulling in the same direction and confident in themselves and it's a very big and refreshing change.

Really looking forward to the next gig now. Looks like the frantic last few days trying to learn the set have all been worth it!

Kill Clouseau played our final gig last night at the Radford Semele Sports and Social Club.

Family and friends came along and we played a pretty good gig, even if I do say so myself. I took along my DogCam camera and mini DV camera and filmed the whole thing. We recorded the whole gig on Nick's new-fangled digital mixing/recording desk, so we'll be able to put together a decent mix to the video and create a DVD as a memento of the final gig and our few months (and even fewer gigs!).

Will post on http://www.youtube.com/user/killclouseau when finished.

Mark (vocalist) has officially offered me the drumming stool in his main band, Ministry of Beaver and I'm going to take him up on it, now that I've got the gigging bug again.

What a strange Bank Holiday. Ross (rhinosoross) and I, having done a bike trip to the Cotswolds yesterday in pouring rain, planned to take a spin to Kington in Herefordshire today.

Kington is near a personal site of special rock pilrimege to me, i.e. Hergest Ridge, and The Beacon (now a guest house), where Mike Oldfield lived and recorded two of his (IMHO) finest albums, Hergest Ridge and Ommadawn in 1974/75. I was planning on going there today and Ross seemed up for the jaunt as a way to further break in his new sparkly KTM Superduke before our trip to God's Own County next weekend.

In the event, I got round to Ross' house at just after 08:00 this morning in the pouring rain. Having got soaked yesterday during our excursion to the Cotswolds, Ross had suggested a backup plan of sorting out our (or more specifically my) Autocom bike communication equipment, which has been a little problematic recently and we decided to go for that and see if the weather improved as the day went on.

Having tried various things, swapping out bits of my Autocom for bits of Ross' Autocom, we slowly worked our way through the various components to try to isolate the problematic part. Initially, having swapped things around, Ross suggested that the problem might just be water in the contacts in the lead that connects the helmet to the Autocom, so we sprayed the contacts with ACF 50 anti-corrosion water-repellent magic solution.

We plugged everything back in, Ross got all togged up to go and then, as we were about to leave, the horrible buzzing appeared in my ear again. Ross took off his helmet, earphones, jacket, neck warmer and we went back to trouble-shooting...

After much more swapping of components, we finally discovered that the problem was the combined Autocom microphone and headset lead which sits inside the helmet. I had recently bought the new mic and headset for my new helmet and, since I use my own earphones, had cut the earsets that come with the Autocom part out and very carefully taped them up. What I failed to notice, was that the new versions of this part have the + and - lead in one, with one running down the core and the other around the outside. When I cut the lead and taped it up, some strands must have remained in proximity and Ross realised that this was the problem.

So, he did a good job on insulating the cable. We plugged everything back together, got ready to go and I started my bike... except that it didn't start. Having spent approximately four and a half hours trying to get the Autocom working okay, we'd drained the battery on the bike. That was probably down to the headlights being on while we were testing things (you can't turn them off on the CBF-1000, or any new bikes come to that). Ross took off his helmet, earphones, jacket, neck warmer and we went back to trouble-shooting...

Out comes the world's biggest generator to kick-start the battery and off we go. After a couple of attempts, the bike sprang to life and then Ross vanished behind a 1930s style Flash Gordon explosion of sparks and the bike stopped. Apparently, he'd accidentally clipped a piece of metal he thought was plastic. The good news is, he survived. We had another cup of tea while the battery was quick-charging.

Having refreshed ourselves, we went back to the bikes and started them up. No problem, except that my Kenwood transceiver wasn't working... and nor was my Zumo 550 satnav unit. Ross took off his helmet, earphones, jacket, neck warmer and we went back to trouble-shooting...

The Kenwood was easy to fix. Turn it on! Durrr! The Zumo was less easy. Even out of its cradle, running on its own batteries it wasn't starting. I cursed myself for being stupid enough to leave it plugged in while we were shocking the bike back to life. I asked Ross if I could borrow his web access to check the Zumo forums for any advice. He could tell that my mind was on the potentially dead (and not especially cheap) Zumo. The WWW saved the day. Someone on the forum reported the same problem and said that they had managed to restart the Zumo by pressing the power button and then the + button thrice. I tried that and nothing happened. Then I pressed the power button again and the unit sprang to life. Huzzah and a big sigh of relief!

By this time, we had ruled out the run to Kington and decided to go for a quick potter round. It ended a little quicker than we had hoped when I failed to follow half of the planned route, but nevertheless, we had finally got out on the bikes.

The good news is that all if hunky-dory. I phoned Emma from the Zumo on the way home and the audio signal was great. The Zumo was playing MP3s at a very good volume level and the intercom side of things worked like a dream. So at least we're ready for the run up to North Yorkshire next weekend.

Here's hoping for good weather!

Took delivery of a new motorbike this morning - a Honda CBF1000, or Biffer, as it is nicknamed. It's a stunner of a bike (to my eyes anyway) and is entirely the fault of mate and work colleague Ross, who got one last year and talked me into getting one (whether consciously or not).

I'd had my old bike (my Yamaha Diversion XJ600S) for nearly five years and the bike itself was 11 years old and had racked up a fair old mileage (even if the odometer was stuck on 14845). She's been a trusty bike and has never let me down, even if my so-called friends did call her a bag of nails. Bah! So it was with mixed emotions that I picked up my spanking new black Biffer and waved goodbye to my Divvy.

So far, I've only done 25 miles, but I'm already in love with the bike. She is just so competent and comfortable to ride.

I had her kitted out with a hugger (basically a big rear mudguard), knuckle deflectors (to keep the wind away from my hands), heated grips, and GIVI panniers and top plate, which look absolutely fantastic.

Need to break her in now over the next month or so before the Three Amigos' (Ross, Tommo, and I) next trip we're planning up to God's Own County and the Lake District.

Well, they say that all good things come to an end, and so it has come to be with my main preoccupation outside family and work, BAiT; the band with whom I have played for over ten years.

We have had a bad few last months, initially triggered by issues with getting a full-time lead vocalist. Declan stepped in and initially seemed perfect for the role, but geography and time-constraints got in the way and so that came to an end, albeit with the positive result that the covers band, Kill Clouseau, was born.

Another contributing factor was that we lost our regular rehearsal place when Nick's ceiling collapsed at home and meant that we stopped rehearsing and writing together, or at least meeting regularly. External factors filled in the time usually given over to BAiT and so it became more difficult to all meet up.

Finally, there has been increasing pressure within the band to go in different directions. For me, the band existed as an artistic outlet for original songwriting and recording, plus occasional gigs, but nothing more. Two of us within the band had absolutely no desire to pursue the goal of making a living out of it, but did it for the love of it.

For my part, my involvement in original music is absolutely to play music I want to play and not to be dictated to by what is hip, cool, or will bring in the most punters. In my own eyes it is not a business, but an art. I want to play music that I (or the band) writes in the context of complete artistic freedom. That doesn't mean pretentious and inaccessible music, but simply what comes organically from within the band. When you start trying to change a band to write to an agenda, you break it in my eyes. A band should happily live or die commercially by its music and we do live in interesting times musically speaking, when crooners rub shoulders with girl-bands.

Additionally, my own preference is for melodic rock with progressive leanings. Queen is probably as close as you get to this. I don't mean that you should copy Queen, but that their whole method of working was one which I like.

To me, an album should not comprise 12 variations of the same song, but a collection of different musical ideas. Queen did it on pretty much all of their albums, particularly their 'classic' albums, where hard, furious rock coexists with operetta, 1920s music, ukulele, folk and progressive music. Wow! Not only that, but all the members of Queen wrote hits for the band. Then there's the small matter of that group, The Beatles, who did similar, sometimes even effectively doing solo work with string quartets (Eleanor Rigby) on a band album. Again, they all contributed songs.

I'm tired of hearing 'you'd be better off doing pop songs'. There are thousands of bands out there doing that. I don't want to jump on the cool indie band-wagon, where image dominates, and the same applies to the tired clichés of the modern punk crowd (yawn) and the 'heavier-than-thou' crowd. I hear these bands all the time in rehearsal rooms and frankly, it's all the same tired old crap.

BAiT had great potential as a band. It was always true to its own music and never bought into the latest scene, thank God. Music should be timeless, and I think that we achieved that in BAiT. I'm sad to see it come to an end, but I'd rather 'leave on a high' than go out on a damp squib, and I think that the last three songs we recorded were the most free we've ever been as a band, as they came out of full band jam sessions. We still have some work to do to finish these, but they will be a great swan song.

I'll have a rest from the original band scene now and concentrate of my own solo stuff and on becoming a better classical guitar player. When I'm ready, I'll keep an eye out for people of a similar mindset who want to play music for music's sake, ideally with slightly progressive rock type leanings, and with no other agenda.

Went skiing for the first time in 14 years today at the Ackers dry ski slope in Birmingham. Work colleague and fellow biker Chris invited the girls and me along, as his family was going.

Turned up at 10:00 and all was fairly quiet, except for a group of learners on the slope. Chris and family turned up shortly afterwards. Murron and Philippa headed for the toboggan slope next to the ski slope with Emma, Chris' girlfriend, Becky and his children.

I'd brought my ski equipment along (anno 1990, bought during my time working in Davos, Switzerland) and managed to remember how to put everything on. First of all I headed up the nursery slope, herringboning up to the top of the slope and doing a couple of test runs, just to ensure I still 'could', before I took the button lift to the top of the main slope.

It took me three or four runs down to get into the swing of things again, but it all came back very quickly really. The last time I had skied was on a glacier at Les Deux Alpes, France in July 1993, whilst studying at Grenoble in France.

By the end of the hour session, I was thoroughly enjoying myself and I have definitely got the bug again. My parallel turns were back in order and I was trying to fit more in each run. Unfortunately, Emma didn't manage to video any of my runs (I wanted to review my technique once I got home), but I managed to record a run down the slope from my viewpoint and then got Chris'[ run down.

Chris did quite well - it had been a few years since he last went skiing.

The kids all thoroughly enjoyed tobogganing, although Philippa came off towards the end of the session and scraped her cheek on the horrible Dendex stuff they use on dry ski slopes. Fortunately, by the time we got back, both she and Murron were looking forward to going back again.

Saddam Hussein was hanged this morning (03:00 GMT - 06:00 Baghdad time) for crimes against humanity, following the 1982 killings of 148 Shias in the town of Dujail.

Yes, the killings will continue. Yes, the allies screwed up the occupation of Iraq. Many are warning of increasing violence in Iraq, although it's hard to see how things could get much worse there.

Video footage of his final moments on the gallows has just been released. He looked calm, and the BBC are making much of this. The opponents of the death penalty are up in arms about his execution. The media are pushing the fact that he may be seen as a martyr. Iraqis have been celebrating in the streets.

Saddam's defence lawyers have said there has been a great injustice. There can be no doubt that he was guilty. No technicalities were going to save him and he deserved his sentence, which was carried out in a far more humane way than the justice he meted out.

Nevertheless, swathes of people will become apologists just because of the manner of his death. That's fine - argue against the death sentence, but please don't try to defend the indefensible.

Not very exciting, but I shaved my beard off today, so now my chin is going through getting used to the cold air again. One has to ring the changes a bit when one has no hair on one's head!

Yay! The hot water is fixed and the house is warm again. Having seen what the plumber did, I know what to do in future, but I'm still glad we got him in. It only cost us £30 to have the work done, so that wasn't as bad as I had expected.

Just got to leave the wall to dry for a couple of days and then try my hand at plastering, which is something I've never done before. Eek!

Brrrr....

Got back home today from Grimsby to a freezing cold house. We've left the heating off since I went through the water pipe, as I'm not sure how the whole hot water/central heating system fits together. Boy, do you miss central heating when you haven't got it!

When we go to Grimsby, we always stay with Emma's mum, Joyce, and Ron (her husband, and I suppose my step-father-in-law). We also visit my aunt, who moved to Grimsby in the early 1990s to be near my cousin Rosemary and family. Growing up, my family made the trip to Grimsby every year for New Year's Eve to be with my cousin Rosemary's family. Unfortunately, we just haven't seen them for the last five years or so. Last time we were in Grimsby, we had seen David, Rosemary's husband, who'd come to pick Aunty up and we promised him that we'd visit next time we were up, so we did this evening, after we'd had a nice Christmas dinner at Joyce and Ron's house.

It was great to see them all again. All David and Rosemary's family were there - the three we had looked forward to seeing every New Year - Lynda, Neil, and Peter. Lynda (who was chief bridesmaid at our wedding) was there with her husband, Andy and their two kids, Lauren and Mason, who we've never met. Neil came over with his girlfriend and family and Peter was there too.

The atmosphere there was great. They still welcome you with genuine gladness and were roped (gladly) into playing a quick game of Winkle's Wedding and Bingo - something we always used to do at New Year, albeit not too seriously. David is a keen model train enthusiast and has built an O gauge model railway in the area that was my Uncle and Aunt's granny flat until they went to live in a retirement home. I'm not into model railways, but I had to admire the sheer amount of work and attention to detail that's gone into what he's built with the help of four of his fellow enthusiasts.

David and Rosemary put in a huge effort to making the Christmas holidays special for any visitors, and particularly family. As we left, Rosemary said to me quietly that she was sure that my mum would have loved the scene, with lots of children, pedominantly little girls, enjoying themselves and playing together in a big family get-together. I had to agree, as a lump came to my throat.

Had a bit of a mix-up with plumbers this morning. At 9:00, I opened the door to a plumber and greeted him with, "Hello,Craig?". He acknowledged me and then followed me through to the utility room, examined and cut the plastic pipe and then went off to get some parts he needed. About half an hour later there was a knock at the door. I opened it and there was a different bloke there, who I assumed was the plumber's mate.

"Are you with Craig?" I asked.
"Yes" was his answer.

He walked through to the utility room.

"Ah, you've made a start then." he said.
"No. Craig did it."
"I am Craig."

The penny dropped. The first plumber I had spoken to had not picked up my subsequent message last night to cancel and had come round and made a start. Craig told me that it looked like the other guy was doing the job just fine and left me to it. No call out charge, so that was fine and he seemed genuinely okay with it.

Just after he'd gone I phoned back the first plumber to see where he was. He said that he'd gone to Coventry, as all the plumbing suppliers around Nuneaton were closed, but he'd got the bits he needed and was well on the way back. I explained what had happened and said that I would rather Craig did the job, as he had committed to 11:00. He was fine about that and said that he would pick up the pipe cutter and dush sheet he'd left at my house when next in the area, so I phoned back Craig and asked him to come back. He said fine and then phoned back at 10:40 to say that all the usual suppliers were closed. At that point, I'd had enough of the situation and told him that we'll leave it until the 27th when we get back from Grimsby.

Left as planned at 11:00 and took it easy on the drive up to Grimsby. We went the motorway route rather than the usual A46 route, as we took our cat, Paddy, with us and he always throws up on the A46, but was fine the last time we went the motorway route. We arrived in Grimsby at around 13:30 and after a quick coffee, headed off to see the pantomime Aladdin at the multiplex cinema in Cleethorpes. Seems like a good idea using a cinema for live shows.

Joyce (the Mother-in-Law) had managed to get front row seats, so I was expecting some kind of abuse from the performers. Sure enough, the guy playing Wishy Washy came off stage and called out "Here, Mum! Call the police! Someone's stolen this man's hair!" whilst giving me a few Benny Hill-esque slaps on the head. Wanker.

I was subsequently squirted with water by the same bloke and resolved to give him a good kicking if he did anything else. Fortunately, he turned his attention to other victims. In the end, it was a good show. At the end they invited a couple of quite clearly cherry-picked kids onto the stage, asking for a coople of volunteers. Philippa wasn't having any of it and made her own way across the stage confidently to gate crash the party. It was very funny really, because they had to quickly put together another goody bag for her.

Had enough of water today!

I decided to put up some shelves in the utility room in our house today, for which Emma has been asking for quite some time. All went well until I drilled the last hole and hit a plastic hot-water pipe. What followed was a scene of which Michael Crawford would have been proud. In true 'Some Mother's Do 'Ave 'Em' style, the water squirted out. I struggled to turn off the water supply whilst Emma blocked the hole with her finger, the result of which was that the water started to squirt behind the plasterboard wall. Murron also heard me shout 'F*CK' very loudly, and came down to chastise me.

I'm not great when it comes to DIY on any utilities, so I called in a plumber, who's due to come round tomorrow morning. After a conversation with my mother-in-law, it is clear that we will need to leave for Grimsby at 11:00 tomorrow morning (she has booked tickets for a pantomime). Phoned the plumber back to tell him that if he couldn't finish the job by 11:00, he shouldn't bother to come round. He only had an answer phone on, so I called a second plumber - one that was recommended by my band mate Andy's girlfriend. He said he would be fine to do the job for 11:00, so I phoned back the first plumber and left a message to tell him not to bother coming over in the morning, given the requirement to leave at 11:00.