Pannus, pints and smiles for Jeff

She's been meeting up with old friends she hasn't seen for years during her extended UK stay and forcing her father to introduce her to a wide range of English beers and sampling other goodies she misses from home that are not on offer Stateside - sausages, pork pies, fish and chips, stuff like that.

To counter all that she's been coming with dad to his gym most days - not quite as handy as the one just down the road from her new house, but she's been lifting more and more weight as a way of dealing with her stress.

It's been particularly helpful for her to renew acquaintances with people who remembered her husband of 20 years from his younger days, reinforcing her memories of him as a laughing, happy-go-lucky bloke who got on with everyone - except, tragically, his family.

Alice and Jeff, the textbook gentle giant, had some tough times (don't we all?) but for the past 15 years they've lived and worked all over America, accumulating a vast fund of experiences that will stay with her for ever, and I'm sure she's going to be fine.

This may sound odd for someone dealing with a truly shocking bereavement, but we've had some great laughs over the past few weeks, which is in itself a kind of memorial to Jeff, who loved a joke and who most people will remember for his wicked sense of humour - and great cooking. So we've also paid tribute to his memory with some great meals.

Alice helped us celebrate the eighth birthday of niece Rebecca with a restaurant party in London and a visit to Hairspray (above) - it cost a fortune, but was truly worth every penny Becc's mum spent on it. The critic in me spotted a couple of missed lighting cues and some of the 'ad-libbing' was annoying but the feelgood factor was sky-high. Wonderful cast, great songs, and enough energy generated to wipe out the UK's carbon footprint for several years. The great thing was that Becc didn't realise what was happening until we actually walked into the theatre.

Other half term highlights have been visits to two Roald Dahl museums - one part of the Buckinghamshire County Museum, in Aylesbury (pictured), and the other a Dahl-only job down the road at Great Missenden, where he lived. Both highly recommended, although the Great Missenden venue had too many exhibits not working. Excellent cakes at Cafe Twit and loads of free activities. Both big and friendly, of course, although you have to pay, and very much in tune with the spirit of the writer and his illustrator Quentin Blake.

On the way back to the Midlands and for the purposes of planning lessons for this upcoming term we called in at the Living Rain Forestat Hampstead Norreys, which is off the map somewhere between Newbury, M4 J13 and the Ridgeway. Quite good, with an excellent play area, but its conservation theme is a bit of a joke when you consider that the staff can't even pick up the rubbish and litter on their own site. Interesting that most of the animals there have been confiscated from people trying to bring them into the UK as pets.

We stayed at a Holiday Inn on the outskirts of Reading stuck in an industrial estate, a holding centre for half term families heading for Legoland, hence the great meal deals in the restaurant.

On Saturday we also did one of our routine visits to the much-maligned Birmingham Central Library (it works fine for us) and called in at BMAG, where Alice got her first sight of the real Leaving of England. A reproduction we sent her has been on her US walls for years, and it now packs even more emotional significance.

But perhaps the most typical incidents of the widow Alice's trip have been the introduction of new phrases into the language of the Langley family. The term 'pannus' is a medical phrase normally used to describe thickening tissue over the cornea, but is also used in reference to a pendulous belly. That usage has been adopted by us and everyone we come into contact with. I even smuggled it into the wording of an OU assignment, to my tutor's great approval.

Jeff and I were rivals in the pannus stakes.

Alice also helped her increasingly doddery parents with their crossword efforts. During research into one clue we came across an archaic phrase from Oxbridge of yesterday, 'to sport the oak'. It's posh undergraduate slang for having the door to your study closed. We use it all the time now, and Jeff would have loved it, I'm sure.

So, while life inevitably goes on, none of us are sporting oak on memories of Jeff. But we're smiling, not weeping.