A day of such beautiful weather that even a walk to the local shops is a treat: bright sunshine, a warm breeze, clear blue skies with just sufficient fluffy white clouds to make a good photograph. It was Nick’s day to go cycling out into the countryside but the rest of us had a lazy start to the day with Katie coming to snuggle in bed with me and asking for stories about when the children were younger – I have a stock of these and the children never seem to tire of hearing them. This segued into looking at old photos on the computer for another hour or so. Finally went downstairs and made everyone their choice of breakfast about 10 am, then negotiated an hour without interruptions and went back upstairs to do Level 2 Chi Kung – Body and Mind Method and the microcosmic orbit. Very satisfying progress today and afterwards I managed to teach Katie how to stand on one foot (which I had noticed her struggling with when she was trying to copy me doing chi kung a few days ago). I’m aware that, for most people, balance is associated with the ears, but for me it is definitely visual. And, as I’m guessing that Katie probably has my extra-wiggly ear canals, I thought balancing visually might work for her too. It certainly did – she spent much of the rest of the day casually standing on one leg like a stork! After Nick got home (flushed with triumph after achieving a very good time on one part of the route (in the top ten of some league table of networked cyclists) we took the children to the local shops and got shorts for Jack and Dash and new bathing suits for Jack and Katie. As sometimes happens, it was cheaper to buy designer shorts on half price sale than to buy normal shorts at normal price – so the boys will be swanning around Italy in designer shorts this summer! We’ve just got to get new sandals for Jack and then we’ll be sorted. When we got home Katie was desperate to try out her new swimsuit so I took a book, some nice blue cheese, and a glass of wine down to supervise her in the pool. Later I finished all the children’s packing while Nick put the finishing touches to the automatic watering – it feels weird to be organised this far in advance, but I could definitely get used to it!