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His Lordship and I have spent a very enjoyable long weekend in the land of the well heeled and affluent in and around Bath.
To the untutored eye, businesses there seem to be booming; we saw no closed shops, very few beggars and a population that looked well fed and expensively dressed. It all seemed like a utopia which is not replicated in other parts of the UK.

For 3 days we have enjoyed the company of close family and friends, eaten too much and exchanged enough news and reminiscences to keep us going for a while.

Kate, my sister-in -law, the birthday girl has come up trumps as usual, not only coping with overseeing her party on Saturday, but spending mothers' day preparing a lunch for ten and never displaying anything other than good humour and patience. My children consider her to be a saint, so unlike their own mother. No wonder then that she has no many friends.

My brother and I caught up on the essentials of life:acknowledging that we like eating raw Brussel Sprouts and reading books by Anne Cleeves and Peter May. We begged to disagree on the reason my father put him out of the car for bad behaviour once upon a time in the middle of Helensburgh; it certainly wasn't my fault.

However much we enjoy our trips away, it is always good to come home again, even if the train is 30 minutes late and we're back in the winter wonderland that is Edinburgh.