Aye so the chums were grown up and sensible, heading home around midnight. I was even more sensible, filling the dishwasher and putting it on before I headed up the wooden hill. That's the thing about being old farts with young kids.

We were up at half seven this morning to get Ewan to his swimming, which I succeeded in doing although in hassling the weans out of the house, my success was undermined by leaving without any of the essentials like goggles, his class-designating swim-hat, his sticker book for achieving things, a towel. He only had trunks because he was wearing them already for a quick change at the pool.

This wasn't entirely unexpected. As I went to bed last night I noticed that Mandy had left a pile of clothes on the radiator for Ewan. I took a photo of it and even had the title - She loves me, she trusts me not - ready for today. She'd left the swimming bag by the door. And then I forgot about the photo and the bag. Doh!

Anyway, I left Ewan there and dashed to the nearest Morrisons to buy a towel. It didn't occur to me to buy pants so he had to go commando until we could get to Asda to buy some under-crackers. We also got some snacks and picnic fixings and headed to Portobello beach, which was nice and sunny although there did seem rather too many dogs running off lead, especially one moron with a puppy. Then we had a walk around the National Museum, a trip to PC World to look at A3 photo printers and then home via the recycling centre and the post office to pick up a parcel from Birmingham.

Now we've got The Simpsons Movie on the big screen, which is usually my cue to have a wee nap.