Neil Turner

Taking a ferry across the Mersey

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A photo of the Royal Iris ferry on the River Mersey in Liverpool

So, I mentioned in our visit to Eureka Science + Discovery that it’s located in the Seacombe Ferry Terminal in the Wirral, and that a typical visit lasts 2-3 hours. Therefore, that gave us a spare afternoon, and our eight-year-old decided that a ferry journey was in order.

The Mersey Ferries fill a double role. At peak times on weekdays, they offer a fast 10 minute crossing every 20 minutes for commuters. But at weekends and weekday daytimes, they take a less direct route and offer a 50 minute River Explorer Cruise with a commentary pointing out major riverside landmarks. And yes, you’ll get to hear that Gerry and the Pacemakers song too.

Boarding in Wirral, the first part of the journey took around half an hour. You pass the other ferry terminal in Wirral at Woodside, adjacent to the U-Boat Story museum – both are currently closed for renovations, but Christine and I visited in 2010. You then pass where the (much larger) ferries to Ireland depart, before the boat performs a u-turn and passes Liverpool Arena and the Albert Dock. You then arrive at the Gerry Marsden Ferry Terminal (yup) in Liverpool.

The return journey to Wirral heads down the Mersey as far as the under-construction Everton Stadium, before again turning and passing Wallasey and onwards back to the Seacombe terminal.

The ferry we travelled on was the Royal Iris of the Mersey. Built in 1959, it’s seen a lot and various bands and artists have performed on it over the years – Elvis Costello, The Searchers, the aforementioned Gerry and the Pacemakers, and, yes, The Beatles. The on-board interior is rather sparse, but there’s a café which, thanks to a loophole (see this Tom Scott video), can sell alcohol without a license.

Currently the Royal Iris is the only ferry in use, but a new one is being built, to launch in 2026 – and it’s being built locally in Birkenhead.

Our eight-year-old really enjoyed the return trip. It’s not cheap – around £13 for adults and £8 for children. The ferries are accessible though as you can board and alight using ramps, and there accessible toilets on board.

Visiting the ‘other’ Eureka in Wirral

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A photo of the entrance to Eureka Science + Discovery in Wirral

Since 1992, Halifax has been home to Eureka, the National Children’s Museum. But in 2022, a ‘new’ Eureka opened in Wirral, just across the River Mersey from Liverpool, and I took our eight-year-old to visit a couple of weeks ago.

As we live near Halifax, we’ve taken our eight-year-old to Eureka a few times over the years, so we wanted to see what the new museum was like.

Eureka Science + Discovery

The ‘new’ Eureka is branded ‘Eureka Science + Discovery’, and is aimed at slightly older children. The original Eureka was groundbreaking at the time of its opening by being very hands on, when most other contemporary museums locked their exhibits away inside glass cabinets with ‘do not touch’ signs everywhere. Eureka Science + Discovery carries on with the same ethos, and there’s lots of things to touch and interact with. But there’s also more to read, in line with its older target age group of 7-14 year-olds.

Downstairs, you can learn about the body, and there’s an auditorium at the back. Upstairs there are two zones – one focussing on nature, and the other about science, especially in the home. Through a separate entrance is The Burrow, which is a play area for the under-7s and is included in the ticket, and of course there’s a shop and a café – again the café has a separate entrance and is open to the public.

We spent a full morning at the museum. Older kids may get more out of it, if they take the time to read the displays, but allow 2-3 hours for a visit.

A photo of the inside of Eureka Science + Discovery. There is a very large blue cat.

Accessibility

Eureka Science + Discovery is based in the Seacombe ferry terminal in Wirral, and so you can catch a ferry across the Mersey to Liverpool and back. It’s a bit of a walk from the nearest Merseyrail station at Hamilton Square, but there are buses. There’s also a pay-and-display car park, although if you are driving and aren’t using Google Maps or the like, make sure you follow signs for the Seacombe ferry terminal. Although Eureka has been open a little while now, there aren’t any ‘brown signs’ yet for directions.

Being a brand new museum, accessibility is top-notch, with lifts and a changing places toilet. Extra support is also available for those with sensory issues.

Pre-booking of tickets is required, but then they’re valid as an annual pass. Whilst it’s not yet listed on the Max Card web site, if you have a Max Card, then one adult and one child get in absolutely free at present. Tesco Clubcard vouchers are also accepted but can’t be redeemed for an annual pass.

Fully-vaccinated and ready for winter

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A screenshot of the NHS winter vaccinations page

We’re halfway through October, the weather is getting colder and the nights are getting longer. So, it’s also time to get your winter vaccinations.

I’m asthmatic, and so I qualify for a free flu vaccine each year. I’m also eligible for a free Covid-19 booster; my last one was two years ago, but it looks like the eligibility rules have changed in my favour.

I had both vaccines last week. Apart from some tenderness in my arms where I had the vaccines injected, no side effects for me thankfully. Back in 2021, my first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine (AstraZeneca) gave me a fever for a few days, but subsequent vaccinations (Pfizer and Moderna) have been much milder.

You’ll probably find that, if you’re eligible for a free flu vaccine on the NHS, your GP surgery will contact you to ask you to make an appointment. For the Covid-19 vaccine, I was able to book this myself on the NHS app.

Getting vaccinated privately

If you don’t qualify for a free vaccine, but still want to get protected, you can pay for one privately. Boots will charge you £22, and Superdrug £20 (or £10 if you have their loyalty card). Alternatively, check with your workplace; my employer offers vouchers for a free flu vaccination with Boots to all employees who aren’t otherwise eligible for one on the NHS.

The Covid-19 vaccines are rather more expensive – about £100 at Boots, although some may sell them for less, with the cheapest Novavax vaccine costing £45.

If I didn’t get them for free on the NHS then I would probably pay for the flu vaccine. The last time I had flu was in October 2003. The fact that I can remember the rough date 21 years later shows how much I’m happy to have the vaccine to avoid going that again. I was eligible for a flu vaccine back then too, but managed to get flu before I could get vaccinated.

As for Covid-19 – I’ve definitely had it at least once since March 2020, an almost certainly twice. In both cases, it was just like a bad cold (but over more quickly). But I also lost two friends to that virus in 2020, and so I know how serious it could be.

RSV and pneumococcal vaccines

If you’re 65+ or pregnant, then you may also be eligible for one or two other winter vaccines: RSV, against the respiratory syncytial virus, and pneumococcal, against some forms of pneumonia and meningitis. If your GP surgery hasn’t already been in touch, have a chat with them if you meet the eligible criteria.

And remember, vaccination isn’t just about protecting yourself. Not everyone can have vaccines, but if you’re vaccinated, you’ll help to prevent the spread of diseases which continue to kill thousands of people in the UK each year.

Beetlejuice 1 and 2

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The two posters for each of the Beetlejuice films.

Yesterday, Christine and I watched both Beetlejuice films – the 1988 original, and the 2024 sequel. The 1988 film is available on Netflix at present, and we watched the sequel at our local cinema.

Christine had seen the first Beetlejuice film before, but I hadn’t. It’s been one of those things where Christine has been trying to get me to watch it, but we’ve never found the time. Indeed, I had purchased a download of it to watch on a long train journey back in 2021, and I think it’s still downloaded to my iPad, but it remained unwatched.

In fact, my main memories are of the animated TV series; the late 1980s and early 1990s saw many blockbuster films (Ghostbusters, The Mask, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) getting tie-in animated shows for younger viewers. But, like I said, I hadn’t seen the film until yesterday.

Beetlejuice (1988)

The film is very much of its time, and you can tell it was made on a smaller budget – around $15million, which would be in the ballpark of $40million today. The special effects are mostly done the old-fashioned way, with models and animatronics. I also thought it ended quite abruptly – without wanting to give away spoilers, I was expecting at least a couple more scenes. Also, the pacing is slower, but that’s probably true of most older films.

Overall, not bad – I would probably rate it three out of five.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)

So, the sequel. It’s set quite a way in the future, but Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara reprise their roles from the first film. Absent is Jeffrey Jones; his character features in the film, but the actor doesn’t – he’s still alive but, well, you can look up what he did and why he’s not getting any more acting work. Jenna Ortega joins the cast in a new role for this film – you may recognise her from playing Wednesday Addams in the recent Netflix series.

This second film is a bigger budget affair – around $100million, which it’s already gained back and then some since its release last month. Whilst there’s still some animatronics, the bigger budget means better special effects. There’s a lot more going on, with several sub-plots coalescing at the end. Watch out for cameos by Danny DeVito and Burn Gorman (aka Owen from the first two series of Torchwood).

I much preferred the second film. Both are weird, but I found the second film more funny-weird rather than simply weird.

You can watch the second film on its own, without having seen the first one – a friend did this and enjoyed it. But there’s lots of subtle references in the second film that’ll make more sense if you’ve seen the first one.

A third film?

There were 36 years between the original Beetlejuice film and the sequel. If it takes another 36 years to release a third film, then Tim Burton and Catherine O’Hara will both be over 100 if they’re still alive. Still, you have to say Beetlejuice’s name three times to summon him, so making it a trilogy would make sense. Seeing as how the second film has done so well at the box office, I’m sure plans for a third film are being drawn up.

My life in railcards

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A photo of my current Disabled Persons Railcard, and an older Young Persons Railcard

Over the years, I’ve had five different types of railcard, to get discounted travel on Britain’s railways. I guess it’s one way of showing how my life has changed over the years.

Staff privileged travel card

Before he retired, my dad used to work for the railways, and this meant that he got free and discounted rail travel for himself and his dependents – i.e. myself and my mum. It was a pretty good deal: 20 days of free travel per year. Except each ‘day’ was actually 48 hours, so (for example) an outbound trip on a Saturday with a return on Sunday would only use one ‘slot’. These were recorded by writing the day on a credit-card sized piece of card, which was paired with another piece of card with my passport photo on.

Once the 20 free days were used up, or if I was saving them, I could get 2/3rd discount on any other tickets.

I was able to hold onto the card until my early 20s – basically, the point at which I was no longer a dependent of my parents and earning my own wage. I miss the days of being able to simply jump on a train to London from Bradford, to attend something like Open Tech, without having to pre-book tickets or worry about the cost. Oh, and did I mention that I was able to travel in first class too?

There were limitations. First class travel was for off-peak only, and there were no seat reservations. Indeed, I would have to give up my seat to a paying passenger if required. But considering how much long distance train fares cost even then, it gave me a lot of freedom in my early adult life. I have travelled first class since then – our return trip from St Andrews, and some London trips where we won upgrades using Seatfrog – but it’s not a frequent occurrence.

If you’ve read this and thought about a career in the railway industry, just be aware that staff travel privileges have almost certainly changed and may be nowhere near as generous as this nowadays.

Young Persons Railcard

Once I was self-sufficient – or at least, earning my own money through work – I had to get my own railcard. At the time, this was the ‘Young Persons Railcard’ but it’s now known as the 16-25 Railcard, which are the age ranges it’s open to. Like most railcards, it costs £30 per year, and gets you a 1/3rd off any train fares, with some exceptions. It does work at peak times, as long as the discounted ticket would cost £12 or more.

Despite the name, you can buy a 16-25 Railcard if you’re 26 or over, as long as you’re in full-time education. And, it doesn’t expire on your 26th birthday – indeed, you can buy one the day before your 26th birthday and it’ll still be valid for a year.

26-30 year-olds can now buy the 26-30 Railcard, but this wasn’t available when I was in that age range. It offers the same discount as the 16-25 Railcard, but it’s digital-only and not available as a physical card.

Two Together Railcard

I wrote about this one in 2014, when it was still a trial in the West Midlands. Thankfully, the Two Together Railcard trial was deemed enough of a success for it to be rolled out nationally, and so Christine and I have had a few of these. As the name suggests, it allows two named people travelling together to get a 1/3rd off rail fares, but can only be used off-peak.

As it’s £30 to buy the card, I remember someone (probably Martin Lewis) doing a stunt at Euston station one day, finding two random people travelling to the same destination, and have them purchase a Two Together Railcard. Even though they were complete strangers, the £30 cost was less than the 1/3rd saving on the two tickets.

Friends and Family Railcard

Children under 5 travel free on the railways, but they need their own ticket from age five onwards. So, the next railcard we had was a Friends and Family Railcard. With this, you save 1/3rd on adult fares and 60% on child fares, and it’s valid for 1-4 adults and 1-4 children travelling together. Ours is a digital railcard and so it lives in the Trainline app, and can be used by myself and/or Christine when we’re travelling with our eight-year-old (and potentially up to three of their friends). For most of the UK, it can be used at any time, but it’s not valid for journeys within London and the South East during peak times.

Disabled Persons Railcard

I fully expected to carry on using a Friends and Family Railcard until our eight-year-old turned 16 and would need their own railcard (see above), but then I found out I was deaf. The definition of ‘disabled’ is quite broad for the Disabled Persons Railcard, and includes anyone who uses a hearing aid – even if your hearing loss isn’t severe or profound. I suppose this is because Railcards are a commercial paid-for product offered by the rail industry; I’m not (yet) eligible for a free bus pass, for example, which would be paid for by my local authority.

As with other railcards, you get a 1/3rd discount, but with no time restrictions. As such, I can use it on my commute to work, and in the year that I’ve had it, it has paid for itself several times over. You can’t (yet) use it to buy season tickets, so I have to purchase a return fare every day that I’m in the office. If another adult is travelling with you, they also get a 1/3rd discount too – they can be a friend, family member, carer, or anyone else really.

You do need to demonstrate that you’re eligible for the card; in my case, I had to email a PDF form to my local authority who stamped and returned it for me, to vouch for my deafness.

We’ll still keep our Friends and Family Railcard, as this ensures discounts for our eight-year-old too, but we’ve no longer any need for a Two Together Railcard. And, unless there’s some way that my hearing can be restored in future, I probably won’t need a Senior Railcard when I reach 60 either. Assuming that railcards are still around in 20 years time.

Sowerby Bridge blog posts

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A photo the Rochdale Canal at Sowerby Bridge, with some geese in the foreground and a church in the background.

It’s been a while since I last did a summary of old blog posts that I’ve made live again – January, to be precise. This doesn’t mean that I haven’t re-imported any old blog posts since then – I’ve probably brought back 20 or so in the past few months. They’ve tended to refer to events that I’ve wanted to refer back to in new blog posts, such as previous visits to places. Overall, I’ve re-instated over 100 old blog posts so far, so about 3% of the total.

The latest batch that I’ve brought back are about Sowerby Bridge, the town where we live. I’ve chosen these partly to document us moving here 14 years ago, but also because it’s niche content that’s probably not available elsewhere. Here’s an index:

  • Moving out of the City (October 2010). When I first announced that we were looking to move to Sowerby Bridge, as it was convenient for both my current job, and Christine’s (then) new job. Neither of us could drive back then.
  • A year out of the city (November 2011). A retrospective of our first year of living in Sowerby Bridge. The first flat that we rented didn’t work out, but we ended up in another flat in April 2011, that we stayed in until October 2015 when we moved into our current house.
  • Cinemas and Sowerby Bridge (May 2012). A little bit of local history research. Sowerby Bridge once had two cinemas – whilst both buildings are still standing, one is now a pub/venue and the other mostly vacant, having most recently been a shop.
  • Rushbearing in Sowerby Bridge (September 2012). Sowerby Bridge’s most well-known annual festival, which takes place over the first weekend in September. Imagine a cart, filled with rushes, being trailed by morris dancers and calling at every church and pub in the town. It’s still going strong, although we had other commitments this year.
  • Britain’s best high streets (November 2012). Sowerby Bridge was included in a list of Britain’s best high streets, and I suppose the main street is still pretty good. However, we’ve since lost the two banks mentioned in the article.
  • The Sowerby Bridge Geese (September 2013). For years, there was a large gaggle of geese in Sowerby Bridge, that would happily stop traffic to cross the road, or sit in parking spaces. Unfortunately they haven’t had any goslings for a few years now, and I think there’s only three of them left now.
  • My first BuzzFeed Listicle (April 2014). Oh wow, remember BuzzFeed? It still seems to be going, but my first listicle, 9 Surprising Facts About Sowerby Bridge, also turned out to be my last one.
  • Happy Valley (June 2014). The BBC’s gritty award-winning drama was partly set in Sowerby Bridge, and saw two further series.
  • The Brontë Garden at Sowerby Bridge station (September 2014). This is the small garden at the railway station, maintained by volunteers and still looking nice ten years on.

Since starting blogging again in 2022, my only new post of note about Sowerby Bridge was a brief one about ghost signs.

How many parking apps do you have?

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A screenshot showing the icons for six different iOS apps used for parking.

I was chatting to a friend last week as he downloaded and installed yet another app to pay for parking his car. He already had eight different apps to pay for parking on his phone, and yet the one used by this car park wasn’t one of them. So now, he had nine different apps installed to pay for parking.

I had a look at my own phone and counted six parking apps: Connect Cashless Parking, PayByPhone, Trust, RingGo, YourParkingSpace and NCP. And, from memory, I’ve used five out of the six over the past month; NCP is the only one that I don’t use regularly.

Then there are those that I’ve uninstalled – Flowbird, AppyParking and APCOA Connect. APCOA Connect seems to use the same database as Connect Cashless Parking thankfully, and I’ve only had to use the Flowbird app once for one specific car park. AppyParking was used by our local authority for a while but has been replaced with APCOA Connect/Connect Cashless Parking, and I haven’t needed to re-install it.

The convenience of parking apps

A screenshot from the PayByPhone app offering additional insurance for £4.84 as an upsell.

Parking apps are a convenience. I tend to carry very little cash around, and frequently have no change for a ticket machine, so the apps allow me to make a card payment. They also remember your details, such as your car’s registration number, and so they can be quicker than using a machine.

Some apps, like Trust and MyParkingSpace, offer automatic payments in supported car parks. Automatic Numberplate Recognition (ANPR) cameras record entries and exits, and I get emailed a receipt based on the time spent there. It’s not widespread but it’s useful where it’s available.

Parking apps headaches

But the fact that there are so many of them, with different interfaces, is a faff. You have to register an account with each one, and not all of them support Apple Pay or Google Pay so you need to enter your card details each time. And there’s usually a ‘convenience fee’ thrown in; sometimes, as little as 8p but one car park I use regularly adds a 15% fee on top of the parking price for using the app.

There’s also the upsells – what Cory Doctorow may call ‘Enshittification‘. Every time I use the PayByPhone app, which is typically 2-3 times a week on the way to work, I have to decline additional insurance to cover my car whilst it’s parked. What’s worse is that the parking itself only costs £2 – the insurance is a 250% mark-up. I guess some people could find it useful as there’s no excess and it could avoid claiming on your own car insurance, but there’s no way to disable these prompts in the app. You have to opt out every time you park, and of course, the ‘not now’ button is smaller and less prominent. Meanwhile YourParkingSpace flogs a load of offers at you after you’ve parked.

And there’s the issue of how big these apps are. The Flowbird app is almost 200 MB, which could be 20% of someone’s monthly data allowance if they had to download it on mobile data.

Consolidation

I mentioned that Connect Cashless Parking and APCOA Connect use the same database and are therefore interchangeable, but every other app only works with certain car parks. Annoyingly, this is even the case where there’s a common parent company. Connect Cashless Parking, for example, is owned by PayByPhone, but you can’t use the PayByPhone app to pay for parking at APCOA Connect locations. Similarly, MyParkingSpace was taken over by Flowbird two years ago, but there’s been no integration of the databases and so you may need both apps.

This is why this blog post isn’t ‘which is the best parking app?’ because, as consumers, we don’t get to choose. The choice is made for us, by whoever owns or operates individual car parks. Right now, those owners and operators have plenty of parking apps to choose from, but whatever choice they make is then imposed on their users.

One parking app to rule them all?

Whilst I’m sure it would be very low down on the new government’s priorities, it would be great if there was just one, national app that we could all use. To encourage adoption, there could be new legislation mandating local authorities to use it once their existing contracts have finished. It could also offer onward travel options, such as bike hire, or even public transport to encourage park and ride schemes. And there could be an open API to allow some of the third party apps to continue to use it, with some kind of payment reconciliation for private car park owners.

That way, you could view all of your parking receipts in one place – great for people who may need to claim expenses – and not have to faff around with downloading a new app each time you park up. Hopefully, such an app would also be designed with best practice in mind, and not offer annoying upsells each time. I know this is very much a first-world problem, but we can dream, can’t we?

It’s Bandcamp Friday

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A picture of the Bandcamp Friday logo

It’s the first Friday of the month, which, most months, means it’s Bandcamp Friday. And that includes today.

On Bandcamp Friday, Bandcamp waives its revenue share from all purchases made on that day. Instead, their share of the purchase goes to the bands and artists instead. It started during the pandemic in 2020, and has continued most months since.

Basically, if you want to buy a song or album from a band or artist on Bandcamp, today’s the day.

If I may, here are some recommendations:

If, by the time you’re reading this, it’s no longer Friday 4th October, then the next Bandcamp Friday is December 6th (skipping November, it seems). However, buying music from Bandcamp on any other day of the year is still a good idea, as even when it’s not Bandcamp Friday, a higher proportion of the revenue goes to the artists and bands compared to most other digital platforms. Plus, you usually get a choice of audio formats and there’s no digital rights management on the files.

The Current Account Switch Guarantee

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A screenshot of the home page of the Current Account Switch Guarantee web site.

Until this year, I had never changed my bank account. I was still using the same account, with the same bank, that I opened when I was 18, shortly before starting university. But with the account no longer meeting my needs, and incentives to open a new account, I switched back in May, as mentioned last week.

Most UK banks are signed up to the Current Account Switch Guarantee, and this means that the switching process should be relatively painless. It’ll take about a week, during which your new account will be opened, everything moved across, and your old account is closed. You only have to interact with your ‘new’ bank – they take ownership of the process and will handle the closure of your old account for you.

What gets transferred

As part of the switch, the following will get moved across to your new account:

  • Any money in your account. You may also be able to switch if your account is overdrawn, but check your new bank’s terms and conditions.
  • All Direct Debit payments.
  • All Standing Orders.

Plus, any payments made into your old account will be automatically redirected to your new account. Payees should be notified of this and payroll systems may be able to update to your new bank account details automatically. When I logged into my employer’s payroll system to check my details, my new bank account number and sort code were already there.

What doesn’t get transferred

Basically, anything paid for using recurring card payments, or Open Banking, won’t get automatically transferred. When your old current account is closed, your old debit card will be deactivated and so any payments using this will fail. So any subscriptions that use recurring card payments will need to be amended to use your new card details.

Similarly, if you make payments using Open Banking (for example, to app-based savings accounts like Chip (referral link) or Zopa), these will need re-authorising using your new account.

Incentives for switching

Banks often offer incentives for switching your account – I got a low three figure sum as a reward for switching my account. MoneySavingExpert tracks the current deals on offer – £175 seems to be the going rate, but such incentives come and go. Also, I was able to get a little bit more by initiating the switch using Quidco (referral link), which gave me around £10 cashback in addition to the switching incentive.

Just be aware that whilst almost all banks are signed up to the Current Account Switch Guarantee, not all of them are. If they aren’t, then you may have to manually switch over your payments, which is a major disincentive to switch.

Welcome to October

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A photo of some trees turning yellow in Shelf Hall Park near Halifax in October 2018.

Well, it’s October now – which means three quarters of the year has gone. We’re past my busiest month at work, now that the university term has started again. It’s also Black History Month in the UK, for which this year’s theme is Reclaiming Narratives.

Also, it’s International Raccoon Appreciation Day today, according to some web sites that seem to only exist to tell you what is observed on each day of the year.

It’s definitely getting colder now. We relented and switched our heating back on last month, after what seems to have been a particularly cold September. The days where we can use less than £2 of grid electricity and gas are behind us now until May next year – not least because energy prices went up by 10% today.

Speaking of cold, our household is also starting the month with colds. Kids going back to school, and the dreaded Freshers’ Flu at universities mean that we’re all a little under the weather. At least I get my annual flu vaccine this week.

I’ve had my first (and second, and third) Pumpkin Spice Latte, and family plans for Christmas are starting to be drawn up. And I’m sure our eight-year-old will end up doing something for Halloween. I’m sure there’ll be days out (when we’re feeling better) but I’m not sure where and when yet.