Starting Whitsun with a Punch

But, like the seasoned performer he is, that didn't stop Clive throwing in all sorts of contemporary references - no, said the Devil, I'm not Gordon Brown, and the baby, Judy told us, was acquired via eBay.

Clive is in Portugal next week in a festival collaborating on a radical new version of the Tempest based in and using the resources of the country's main centre of glass production. The show should be in Stourbridge in August - more info nearer the time.

As we had travelled to this strange Bermuda triangle of an area, where Northamptonshire, Leicestershire and Warwickshire rub shoulders, just off the end of the M6, it's worth drawing your attention to another feature thereabouts.

Some weeks back when I was going on about our bluebell odyssey I mentioned the naturalist and writer Denys Watkins Pitchford and his most famous book, The Little Grey Men, stories of goblins informed by the writer's deep love of the wild.

On the A508 north of Northampton (it's the road that leads to Market Harborough) there is the village of Brixworth and its splendid country park based around Pitsford Water. Terrific cycle tracks and walking routes abound there and the latest is one called The Little Grey Men trail, based on the BB books.

If you're in the area, it's worth a visit, and there's a good play area for the kids as well as cycle hire at Pitsford Cycles, one of those wonderful Local Bike Shops which seem to be fast disappearing under the onslaught of the likes of Halfords.

Has any cyclist got anything good to say about them? Is the new Boardman range as good as they say? And while I'm on about this sort of thing, do go down to The Fort to see the wonderful range of bikes by Specialized on show at the shop there. And the coffee just down the way at The Daily Grind is brilliant, too.

See? This is what blogging is all about - indulging you obsessions and prejudices, just like Mr Punch.