The childless among you may not have noticed that it is Summer Holidays, but even the childless among you will remember that Summer Holidays are all about not getting dressed before lunchtime, getting bored on quiet afternoons, dashing off with a carload of everything to grab a week hoping for sunshine in some touristy corner of the country.

Casa Uborka has many plans for the holidays, but suddenly we are nearly half way through and have not achieved much yet. I have written out a timetable to cover the days between here and Going To France, but wasn’t able to fit strawberry picking on it anywhere. There’s a fine line between cramming in too much and having to get up in the morning to do it, and long periods of <i>I’ve got nothing to doooooo</i> in a whiny voice. Personally I could fill the time with a couple of paperbacks and daily baking.

Whenever we hear the ice cream van, Bernard becomes apoplectic with excitement, even though he doesn’t actually like ice cream. Occasionally I give in and buy him a lolly, of which he eats the top inch before deciding he doesn’t like lollies either. He finds the outdoors “risky” particularly since achieving his first wasp sting last week, and prefers to be inside, in the shade, on his tab. No idea where he gets this from.

I am on light duties, doing as little work as I can get away with so as not to either limit our opportunities to go camping, or have to cast around for childcare. This means I’m on a very minimal wage for the summer but I’m fairly cheap to run. Only poor old Pete has to keep on keeping a roof over our head, a heroicism that we deeply appreciate and sympathise with. It’s only nine days before we go to France!

We have decided to suspend Uborka for the duration of les vacances, and return in September with New Questions for Where Are They Now, a Big Summer Running Club Update, and more free drinks than you can shake a stick at.