Freshly baked by Cornish sunshine and two splendid days in Scotland on our return I'm now back at my post behind the counter trying to remember where one can get natural oestrogen, which cleaning fluid has the bunny logo on it, and so on.

It was a lovely holiday, chaotic exhausting, family life, seeing my son again and his little wreckers, BBQs, Cornish pasties, (fantastic and so hot they almost gave 3rd degree burns) Cornish cream tea (I didn't lose any weight obviously) and, for me anyway, lots of sitting around in the sunshine whilst son and grandson did daring and energetic feats in the sea and lakes.

Didn't get to St. Michael's Mount - again. It's only open on scattered weekends which means I'll have to be very lucky ever to cross the causeway to see it up close. Otherwise Cornwall was at its prettiest with blossom on the trees and wayside flowers growing in the earth and rubble walls that make the roads so darn narrow and dangerous but don’t get sprayed with weedkiller or chewed up by council grass and gorse cutters as they do here. Lambs, blue skies and miles of silky sandy beaches.

One day I noticed that that my camera has only 4 pixels. No wonder it doesn't give such clear and beautiful pics as other people’s. Even my mobile has more than that but I can't download or send from it so pointless to use it. In its day - at least five years ago, maybe more - it wasn't bad. Both daughters are having new cameras for their birthdays so I think I might follow the trend. Anyway, mostly all I took were the kiddy-pics which have a limited appeal for those who aren't blood relatives.

London was also looking beautiful (that's a first!) as S & I taxied through Kensington Gardens to the Science Museum in the time between trains on our homeward trek. I hate the underground and was already overly hot so black-cabbing it was the only civilised way. The Serpentine was dotted with blue pedallos and the greensward dotted with peeps. It looked like a painting by Lowry (or somebody who liked showing lots of small details. ) Boris's bikes were being used in squadrons, to the taxi driver's distress. My london-based daughter won't use them because they take a credit card and if you don't know where the next depot for them is it could cost a lot, which seems to be a new catch/cash point to watch for generally because when we got back here we found that before he left home Sandy had logged into a game that kept taking money off his mum's card until he logged out - it cost his poor mother £60

I'm wondering what the Xandman’s best memories will be. Watersports or the flight simulator in the Science Museum??

Mine are: the big hug my son gave me; the big hug g'son Finlay gave me; the impossibly deep voice of two year old Theo, who I didn't know could talk at all so I got quite a fright when this slow, gruff voice said 'Thank you!' He sounds just like Eeyore should.

The other memory will be of staying up late creating a panda suit for Finlay in response to an edict from the school that the next day was to be Panda Day. We swore and cursed about thoughtless teachers, cut up shirts and tights, sewed on ears, etc. then Georgie looked into the school bag to find the letter which read: 'A prize will be given for the best picture of a panda.' Another G&T was needed to subdue the anguish. The next morning we stuffed him into his costume anyway and dumped him into the school telling him to walk tall because he’d be the most panda-y panda for Panda day. . He didn't win a prize but got lots of enthusiastic comments and his friends pestered their mothers to dress them as pandas too, so a good result on the whole!