EF Benson, Mapp & Lucia, Tristram Hunt, Ten Cities That Made An Empire.

It's still too dark to run at the moment and I'm missing it very much. I don’t really get the chance at the weekend as I tend to be looking after Fred & Libs. There's a Park Run in Woking that I'm keen to get along to, particularly as Freddie can take part too; it clashes with Libby's Ballet on Saturday morning though, unfortunately.  Lib is still insisting on me taking her to ballet, even though the door is locked for the duration and we can't see what is going on. On the other hand, she did stay in her bed the whole night last night for the first time in months, and I actually managed to get a decent night's sleep. Let's hope she keeps it up. Lots of praise required

Back in November, Fred and I ran a mile down at Guildford Athletics Track: I'm so proud of him for doing it. He didn’t stop once and was faster than many of the older kids. I ran round the track with him to encourage him and keep him moving. What a star. I don’t want to push him to much, but it's great exercise and something we can do together. As the Park Run is only 1K, hopefully it'll be ideal. Helen's talking about taking part too, but she'll have to work up to it.

Mapp & Lucia was lovely and a joy to read, and read at the same time as the BBC adaption over Christmas. Maybe not as funny as Wodehouse, although I've recently become aware of a male/female split over Wodehouse; women seem not to find him quite so funny as men. Tristram Hunt's book was a very interesting take on the British empire seen through the history of ten cities shaped by and that shaped the empire. Starting with  Boston, then to Bridgetown, Dublin, Cape Town and further east as the empire changes. He's a Labour MP now and the shadow education secretary, but he doesn't seem that inspiring in a field Labour should be wiping the floor with the Tories. Labour's in a state full stop though; to scared of offending the right wing media and the middle-of-the-road voter to offer anything genuinely radical. Rather than do something populust and left wing like bring the railways back under state control, they seem rather to be trying to talk tough on immigration to match UKIP. Embarrassing.