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All the fours! Kind of appropriate, given what happened today at St Andrews, a mere 11 miles from where I am seated - but more of that later. As predicted, the boys were much more calm this morning... on account of them not having slept a wink all night. We had to get up at about 8.30am (on a Sunday...) to start making breakfasts. One of the boys had to be ready for 9.30, when he was being picked up to get ready for church. I was on bacon, eggs and toast duty, while Linda made sure that everyone was catered for and transferred clothes from the washing machine to the tumble dryer. After breakfast, they all retired upstairs, leaving Linda and myself to sort out the destruction that was our living room. The only complaint they were to make (or rather, that Liam was to make) came about 1pm, when Linda had made their lunch, and set it all on the garden table... Liam wanted to take it all upstairs and carry on playing with his PS2 - not on when the temperature was in the mid-20s centigrade. He soon forgot the reason for his complaint, however, as soon as he realised that it was actually much more pleasant outside than in. Linda decided to drop the boys off at their homes rather than hang about waiting for their parents to turn up at various times. When they came back, Liam crawled up the stairs, threw himself on the sofa and promptly fell asleep for the rest of the day, waking only to drag his weary bones up to his bed. I received a nice phone call today from a very good friend of mine - one whom I have not seen since September 2002 when he attended my conference in Paris. My friend's name is Michel Cahen, and he is a specialist on Lusophone Africa - Mozambique in particular, where he seems to spend a great deal of his time researching. Anyway, Michel phoned me from St Andrews to let me know that he and his family are spending three weeks hostelling around Scotland, and that he would like to meet up with me while he is here. He seemed a bit surprised at the price of the hostel in St Andrews, though. Usually it costs £14 per night, but because he arrived on the eve of the final day of the British Open, he was charged £40 per person per night (and there's four of them). I'm not sure if the price includes food - but that's pretty expensive for a hostel! Bit of bad planning on his part, I have to say, since he is not a fan of the game of golf. I was thinking about going over to St Andrews to get some images of the town as the Open drew to its close - but then I thought that it would be a nightmare finding anywhere to park, and I was in no mood to pay the overinflated prices that the locals charge tourists during major golf tournaments.

Last year I wasn't contemplating golf balls