I watched Jessica Ennis win her gold medal in emphatic style last evening, which was wonderful to see in a British athelete - the way she came back on the final bend of the 800m was great. A good prelude to Usain Bolt's incredible 9.58 seconds 100 metres - absolutely staggering and it does still look as if he'll go faster still. All this, of course, is an attempt to bury the disappointment of Liverpool's lacklustre start to this season - I listened in agony to the radio whilst collecting Maggie's parents for a few a few days break. So, still on sabbatical and had a bizarre conversation in church yesterday trying to arrange with a friend who's going to help me get going with my golf. The question I'm asking myself is how come it';s so difficult to arrange something when I have such a flexible schedule? The fact is I've planned so many things in my 'spare time', I have busy spare time diary - the thing about blogging is you broadcast your character flaws in public - stupid, or transparency?

Whilst on spare time - had a great evening on friday watching Twelfth Night in the open air at Dyrham Park. Went with some friends and took a lovely picnic - and it didn't rain! It was one of those quintessentially English occasions (well, I imagine a visiting tourist would say that anyway). Average age was .... well, I felt average ..... what was interesting was the friendliness between fellow picnickers - laughter was aided enormously, however, by the guy next to us whose chair collapsed under him just prior to the second half!