Nice pictures, Hubble Bubble coming soon to a real book format near you, and the inadvisability of raising your body above head-height

It's been a busy old week.  Usually half terms are when I get to put my feet, and every other dangley part of me which, at my age, is practically my whole body, up.  Sometimes I put them so far up that I have to stand on a chair to get them back down again, and then they fall on my head with the sound of a thousand displaced marshmallows - and if you've never been hit on the head by your own stomach as you try to get it down off a high shelf... you haven't truly lived.

Anyway, this week was not a week of putting things up. This week I was Adventuring. Firstly, I went to Oxford, where I visited my eldest daughter, who is studying there. It appears that she is mostly studying Playing Computer Games and Taking Extended Naps, but she's apparently doing work as well, although I saw little evidence of this.  We picnicked in the park, and visited the Pitt-Rivers Museum, which was...different.  Imagine an elderly aunt, who has never thrown anything away, and lives in a three-storey house which was modelled on a nineteenth century theatre.  Look.

Now, imagine dusting it. I won't, if you don't mind, because I don't believe in dusting. Dusting happens to other people, like excitement and dandruff.

Then, after a day off, in which I winched various parts of my body from the floor to approximately head-height, I set off for the other end of the country, where I visited the Ribblehead Viaduct.

It's almost totally dissimilar to the museum, except that it is also a total bugger to dust.  I also went here...

Aysgarth Falls. Not surprised, damn nearly tripped over myself.

and here...

Fountains Abbey, from the unfashionable end.

all in the interests of research, plus ensuring that as much of the country was scared of me as possible.  For, on Friday of this very upcoming week, Hubble Bubble will be released into the wild in paperback format! Yes, as a real, living, breathing thing, which you can hold in your hands and riffle at will! And, to celebrate this, I shall be appearing as a real, living, breathing thing at Bakewell Festival of Baking...

Here, I am assured, there will be tea and cake.  In fact, cake is kind of the point, not that cake is particularly pointy, although I was once on the receiving end of a rather sharp scone... So, next week's blog should contain many pictures of myself, possibly reading from Hubble Bubble. Or, and more likely, trying to shove a carefully rounded-end slice of sponge into my hamster-like cheeks.

Right. Better go now, it's back to work tomorrow and I need to lower my stomach so I can get my trousers on.