Peter Heather, The Restoration of Rome: Barbarian Popes & Imperial Pretenders, Eric Ambler, The Mask of Dimitrios, Mike Parker, Map Addict: A Tale of Obsession, Fudge & the Ordnance Survey, TH White, The Sword In the Stone, John Keegan, The American Civil War

Listing TH White is a bit of a cheat: it's the first book of the Once And Future King, but I fancied a change after reading it. It's much more irreverent than I was expecting - far more in the Neil Gaiman vein than Walter Scott or the historical realism school. The book before contained not a single mention of fudge, but was an indulgent chat about maps and map-related ephemera. Loved it.  Both were read on holiday in the Vendee. A while ago I came across a list of memories from our honeymoon and many of them would have been forgotten if they hadn’t been recorded. Not the hideous pizza at Milan Railway Station, that will stay with me forever.

In the same spirit, here's my attempt at memories from the Vendee. . .

On the last day, we had a family discussion about everyone's top 3 highlights. My three were (in no particular order); Libby learning to ride a bike, Libby learning to ride a bike, Libby learning to ride a bike. It took some doing and there were lots of tears and stomping, and she's still not happy starting off on her own, but she rode a bike! Hopefully we'll be able to get out this weekend and practise.

. . .[update after the weekend}. Lib appears to have gone backwards sadly - she's not happy riding her pink bike or the blue bike which is a bit big for her, so it hasn’t gone well. It's frustrating as she's shown she can do it.

Back to the holiday.  The best day out was to Puy du Fou, a bonkers historical re-enactment theme park. It's France's second biggest attraction after Eurodisney, and the scale is incredible. Helen wasn't keen to go, expecting a cross between the Chiltern Open Air Museum and the Sealed Knot, but it was a fantastic spectacle, with no attempt at all at historical authenticity. It started with Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, with the Round Table (complete witj knights with an incredible ability to hold their  breath, apparently) appearing when Merlin made a lake disappear, then onto the Vikings invading a village in France where a fullscale longboat complete with vikings emerged from the river, while mahoosive sea eagles swooped around. Couldn’t see how that would be topped, but then in the Joan of Arc story the entire castle walls began to sink below the ground and the keep started moving around the stage. You don't get that with English Heritage. None of this compared to the gladiator show in the Coliseum which took the bonkersness to new heights. First a parade featuring geese, a cart of ostriches and a leopard, and then a full chariot race. The biggest surprise came when the christians were in the arena waiting to be eaten by lions, and they actually released lions into the arena. Whatever they are paying the actors playing the christians isn't enough to be dealing with that every day, twice at weekends. Finally there was the indoors Musketeers show, where they gradually flooded a stage the size of a polo field as horses performed a flamenco. What a day out.

Other memories

• The excitement of Fred and Lib at encountering the inexplicable statue of a Beefeater in a café in St Hilaire. He was surrounded by croquet ephemera
• F&L both won awards at Kid's Club, Fred for being the coolest kid in the club, Lib for being the fastest pizza eater. We're so proud.
• Fred went on a min-quad bike for the first time. He was obviously scared, and had trouble controlling it, and finished early. Afterwards he couldn’t talk about anything else though and listed it as a highlight of his holiday. Maybe we should try karting. . .
• Fred was game to try a few new things. He ate some of my sardines and fish, but couldn't be persuaded to try a mussel. He also went into one of those parlours with the little fish that nibble the dead skin off your feet. 10  euros it cost me for his feet to be tickled by whitebait.
• Bibs is managing to stand by himself for a few seconds and take a few steps, but he doesn’t seem happy about it - it's a bit soon yet though.
• The kids were very good at making new friends, which Helen struggles to get her head round as when she was a kid they would never play with other kids on holiday. Fred had new best friends within thirty seconds of jumping into the pool, and got on with a kid called Finlay in particular. He was properly  distraught when Fin left halfway through our holiday. It only lasted one night though, and the next day he was out playing football with the new kids who had moved in. Lib latched on to some poor 3 year old from Dublin called Aaron, and insisted on showing him round the caravan and the camp. He was so lovely and polite, just responding 'dat's cool' to everything Lib showed him.
• We hired a Rosalie bike, which was apparently invented to torture tall fathers, who bang their knees against the steering wheel with every pedal rotation. Every downhill section where pedalling wasn’t required was bliss.
• In the tiny sliver of downtime Helen and I get between putting the kids to bed, doing the housework and collapsing exhausted into bed, we often watch boxsets. This was the holiday when we completed Breaking Bad (begun nearly 2 years ago when we were on holiday on the IoW), and began Game of Thrones Series 4.
• A Treasure Hunt in the rain that the couriers were making up as they went along. As part of it we had to get a photo of Fred hugging a stranger (some drunken fella in the camp bar) and a video of us all doing the Macarena. Evidence has been deleted.
• On the way back home, we called into Nantes for the day, where they old docks have been converted into a steampunk workshop designing and making gigantic beasts. The 4xlifesize African elephant and howdah was crazy. It was actually better watching it as a spectator than being on board, where you can’t appreciate all the moving parts, trumpets and squirts of water. It was like some mammoth  from Mance Rayder's army of wildlings (obscure GoT reference that will mean nothing to me in a few years).
• Finally, the magic of a beach. The kids seem to be able to stay on a beach forever. It doesn’t seem to matter whether or not they have spades, buckets, kites, balls or whatever, they are just happy to be on a beach and will always find something interesting or exciting. May it stay that way forever.

. . . Fred's wriiten down his own memories on a scrap of paper. We'll put it away and hopefully come across it in a few years/decades and remember a wonderful holiday.

Mark Mazower, Salonica, City of Ghosts, Various, Politico's Guide to the 2015 Election, Lionel Davidson, Kolymsky Heights

I risked the wrath of the gods of fate and read two non-fiction books in a row, and what a mistake that was - a likely Labour coalition government (according to the polls) evaporated with the first exit poll on Thursday to be replaced by a predicted Conservative coalition. As if that wasn't shocking enough, canny pundits pointed out that with the Shy Tory tendency who mendaciously lie to pollsters about their voting habits, a Conservative majority was likely - which is what we ended up with.

I went to Wales to watch it (reading the excellent Kolymsky Heights on the train there and back), and thoroughly depressing it was too. The Labour Party appears to be in an intractable situation now - losing out in Scotland because they weren't left-wing enough, losing out to UKIP in the north as they weren't addressing concerns about immigration, and losing out to the Cons in the south as they were too left wing.  How can you triangulate that? Ed tried, but ended up pleasing no-one. Can't see a way back from this, and two of the best prospects for leader (Alan Johnson and Dan Jarvis) have ruled themselves out already. . .

The unpalatable answer seems to be to move to the centre; Scotland is lost, and in the North we still have the seats. It turns out I'm exactly the sort of person Labour want to win over - southern, prosperous, shops at Waitrose and John Lewis. That's nice, but none of the things that apparently should appeal to me - the 'aspirational' rhetoric which seems to boil down to not taxing or scaring rich people or big business  actually does. If they want my loyalty then start talking about how no-one 'creates' wealth without a support network of education, health, transport, law and order and that needs to be paid for - and those who benefit the most should pay the lion's share - and be proud of it!

In other sad news, Fred really doesn’t seem to be enjoying the park run any more. He managed two miles last week before pulling up and only 1 mile last week. He's not 100%, and I don’t want to push him, so we may have to stop.

Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate and Other Novels

The Other Novels being The Pursuit of Love and The Blessing, both of which I enjoyed rather more than Love in a Cold Climate. 'Love in a Cold Climate' is by far the best title though. Helen and the kids are away in Derby this week, so I spent the evening reading Mitford and making Marmalade. I'm only a twinset away from joining the Woking Women's Institute

Park Run has become our 'Favourite Part of the Week', to join Libby's post-bath towel wrap, the 'Favourite Part of the Day'. I get to do Park Run by myself on Saturday, so hoping for a respectable time which Freddie will no doubt smash before he leaves primary school. . .

Helen Macdonald, H is for Hawk, Karl Ove Knausgaard. A Man In Love: My Struggle Book 2, Owen Jones, The Establishment: And How They Get Away With It

I learnt nothing new from 'The Establishment' and agreed with every word. Reinforcing already-held assumptions among lefties the nation over. He does write well and with an incisiveness and clarity. Whether he can be fairly called ' The Orwell of our times', as Russell Brand does, is another question entirely. He does appear to be utterly hated by commentators at The Spectator website though, which has to be in his favour.

I'm fully invested in Knausgaard's fascinating epic now. It does remain the story of his life in the minutest detail, which no-one can possible remember, so it has to be fictionalised. And yet. . . He opens up his soul, exposes his weaknesses and has ruined his own family life over the writing of these books (or has he?). 'H is for Hawk' is a similar confessional, and 3 stories intertwining; a story about the training of a goshawk, the story of the author's grief for her dead father, and the biography of TH White. Goshawks appear to be great, but they're no badgers.

Freddie and I have been regularly doing the Woking Park Run since Christmas. He's up to the full distance and getting steadily quicker - 11 minute miles now. More to the point, he seems to really enjoy it and it's a lovely thing to do together. His keenness to do it every Saturday may also be influenced by the treats lavished on him by an indulgent father if he manages a PB too, of course. Helen is running too, on a 'Couch to 5K' programme. She's finding it touch, but every time she goes out she gets a bit better. I'd love to see her and Fred to a Park Run (3 miles) sometime this summer. She's convinced she's embarrass herself though, so I'm encouraging her as much as poss. Fred would be so proud to do it with her. 

Sebastian Faulks, Jeeves & The Wedding Bells, Robin Fleming, Britain After Rome: The Fall and Rise, 400 to 1070: Anglo-Saxon Britain Vol 2 (The Penguin History of Britain), Rachel Joyce, Perfect

Was concerned  that Sebastian Faulks' latest homage (after his Bond novel) would be a disappointment, but he's obviously a huge fan and stuck generally to the formula. There were a couple of notes that made for a better novel (it was a novel rather than the short stories of Wodehouse), but didn't ring true; Bertie is given more of a back story and is occasionally given to contemplation of the horrors and loss of the Great War which had no place in the sunny Sunday afternoon atmosphere of a Wodehouse story. 'Perfect' was the follow-up to 'The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry'  which I really enjoyed, with it's shameless tugging of the heart strings. 'Perfect' took longer to grip me, but it kept me rapt towards the end, the sort of book you read every spare second you have; walking along, on the loo, surreptitious glances at work. . .

Libby, along with every other UK female aged 3-11 is absolutely obsessed with the film 'Frozen' at the moment. She had a Frozen-themed birthday party with games like Pin the Carrot on the Olaf and just about every card or present had Elsa or Anna on it. Disney are now responsible for a generation that will pronounce 'Anna' with an r sound after the first 'A'. I love her here singing so much. She doesn't know the words, and only just about knows he tune, but she belts it out like a club singer just the same, bless her. Fred & Lib have come to expect my rendition of 'One Spring Morning' and 'Sally Brown' as their lullabies, so both can belt those out too. Last night Lib decided to accompany 'One Spring Morning' by singing an entirely different song (Do You Want To Build A Snowman?) at the same time

Emory Thomas, Robert E Lee: A biography, Peter Ackroyd, The Death of King Arthur, Brendan Simms, Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, 1453 to the Present

Not  a lot of light reading there: next up is Sebastian Faulks' Jeeves & Wooster homage to Wodehouse as some relief from three books full of internecine massacres and unfathomable strategic decisions. I think the American Civil War may be emerging as my principal interest for the next few months. Helen's parents' trip down the east coast jolted memories, and after watching 'Gettysburg-The Movie' I'm back marching with the Army of Northern Virginia. It is most alarming that I instinctively side with the very wrong but wromantic confederacy over the right but repulsive Union. I know perfectly well that at the time I would have supported the Union fully (at least, I would have after the emancipation proclamation), but figures like Lee are just so attractive, noble and dedicated to their forlorn cause.

Michael Pye, The Edge of the World: How the North Sea Made Us Who We Are, Jo Nesbo, Police

Michael Pye's book has had some great reviews, and the early chapters are very interesting and offer a new perspective, but towards the end it seemed to descend into a fairly standard history of early Modern Europe.  Harry Hole was as entertaining and gory as ever, although no Arsenal-supporting villains cropped up this time. Freddie seems to have turned a corner with reading, and is now doing it voluntarily and for fun. Just Tintin for now, but we all start somewhere. Bibs is an absolute joy - he's so placid, particularly given his big sister pulls and pokes and picks him up against his will all the time. I get a smile whenever he sees me, which  is so lovely. Still haven't run this year, and there's the Surrey half marathon in just over a month. Can't see it being a record pace. . .