PIDER

We had a Hallowe'en visitor yesterday in the shape of a multi-coloured "pider"

it reminded us of last Hallowe'en when an orange fluffy pumpkin holding a black balloon on a chopstick knocked on the door.

It was half term last week which gave us the opportunity to get things done in the house. A strip of ceiling paper in my office needed replacing - sounds easy. It took us half a day of neck-breaking contortions, my husband up a ladder and me on a chair, first scraping off all the old paper and then putting up the new. My husband reckoned he'd watched a decorator at work and had seen him paste the paper and then concertina it before putting it up. It was like something off a Laurel and Hardy film - especially when we discovered, after getting all the creases and bubbles out, that the paper was 10 inches short of the wall. That's the very last time we attempt any sort of diy.

The main car has clocked up a very high mileage - and they say the devil finds work for idle hands - so again, while we were free over half term, we searched the internet for a low mileage, one-owner, comfortable car. Found one in Derbyshire, spoke to the salesman by phone - it had had one little elderly owner from new who only took it out of the garage when the sun was shining and in six years he had done just 18,000 miles. Fantastic. We agreed a part-ex price and set off on Friday to claim this fine specimen. We were shown the car documents while the car was being serviced - no service book (funny!) and a load of bills in somebody else's name. Turned out the car had had three owners and the mileage didn't stack up. The interior was more marked and scraped than ours. So no deal. We made the best of the day, stocking up on original Bakewell puddings before we left Derbyshire and as soon as we got home we got to work on Google Street View to look at the little old third owner's address. A very pokey terraced house - WITH NO GARAGE! I'm just glad we weren't born yesterday.

ARMSTRONG & MILLER

We went to see the Armstrong & Miller show when it was on in Manchester. We had great seats - centre front row of the circle. Far enough away not to be hauled onto the stage and a very good view. But I was amazed to find that the small theatre was only half full. Those who weren't there missed a wonderfully funny evening. All the sketches from the television shows were included plus more and best of all, there was no support act.

One of the landmark homes in our area has been demolished. It was a beautiful big 1920s' detached place set in acres of woodland, which the elderly owner had left untouched to encourage local wildlife, including red squirrels, natterjack toads and barn owls. When he died a property developer bought the gorgeous pink house for a knock-down price and knocked it down. The trees have been felled, presumably the wildlife slaughtered or at best homeless and the site flattened. On the plus side we have a ready-made afternoon's entertainment for Oscar within walking distance. The diggers, dumper trucks and men in hard hats who wave give him more pleasure than a trip to Disneyland.

Oscar has started a pre-school group where he has to be left for three hours. This he is not overly keen on. In fact as soon as we get into the car on a school morning he instructs me to drive in the opposite direction. But I can remember the tears and tantrums when I left my own three children at their respective playgroups - and that was just me. So I wait in the car park for half an hour and then ring the very nice pre-school ladies to see if the tears have subsided. They always have.

time for school

QUESTION OF SPORT

We managed to get tickets to watch a recording of Question of Sport in Manchester. I think the bright sparks who decided to move the BBC up north will now be regretting it. When the recordings took place in London you just couldn't get tickets - there was even a waiting list. Yesterday the studio audience was very thin on the ground and there were lots of empty seats. But as luck would have it it was a great show - a celebrity edition. Paddy McGuinness and my favourite X Factor contestant, Olly Murs were guests.

It was a great laugh - but I don't think we needed the warm up man to tell us how to clap and I cringed when he told us to whoop like American audiences. Surely I'm not the only television viewer who'd rather not have our long-standing traditional programmes turned into Oprah Winfrey soundalikes.

BIRTHDAY BOYS

It was a weekend of celebrations. Oscar and his uncle (our younger son) share the same birthday. Oscar was having his party on the Sunday so our son had his on the Saturday and we're still suffering the after effects of birthday cake overload.

Our daughter had gone to great lengths to bid on (and win)  some football boots worn and signed by a Villa player. She told the seller to send them to our address but on Saturday morning they arrived at her home in Hull - annoying. But thanks to the wizardry of mobile phone cameras she was still able to show her brother what she'd bought him.

IT'S ELECTRIFYING

E-on have just sent us a little gadget that tells us how much electricity we're using every second of every day and it's horrifying. I tiptoe into the kitchen first thing in the morning, when only the fridge freezer is on and it tells me that at that rate we'll pay just £10 a month for our usage. Kettle on, dishwasher on and immersion on and it's a bank-breaking £888 a month. I'm like a woman possessed - we now sit in the semi-dark in the evenings, the tumble drier is a no-go area and showers are limited to 30 seconds. My husband says he doesn't want a minute-by-minute account of how much fuel we're using, but I'm afraid that's what he'll get until the novelty wears off. And what has surprised me more than anything is the huge amount of electricity the television uses so I think his football viewing is going to have to be rationed.

CLEANSE YOUR COLON

As soon as I posted the previous piece on this site something popped up above it, advertising "Inner cleanse capsules, best selling colon supplement" perhaps someone, somewhere thinks I suffer from verbal diarrhoea.

RICHMOND

Thanks to a Virgin train offer, we travelled first class last Saturday to Euston. Up at the crack of dawn to board the 7.19am from Lime Street. The London son met us at the station door in his car - what luxury and what a treat, to be driven, free of charge, through the capital. He showed us Michael Winner's house and other landmarks on the way to his new pad in Richmond. Then we walked by the river, through the parks and had a barbeque lunch in a meadow at the back of a pub. Later we sat in the sun enjoying afternoon tea, looking out from a great height over Eel Pie Island. Why does everything about a day in London seem so special?

Then, in the park, we came across a black wrought iron archway with a hole in the middle and a sign that said "St Paul's six miles". When we looked through a handily-placed telescope, there was St Paul's Cathedral, as clear as anything, right in the centre of the hole. Magical.