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What a beautiful morning. I'm sitting in Watts Park, Southampton, looking up at a memorial statue to Isaac Watts, the eighteenth century nonconformist minister and hymn writer. You might recognise some of his greats: When I survey the wondrous cross, or Joy to the world, or maybe O God our help in ages past. Isaac is sometimes called the Godfather of English hymnody, presumably because with his superb poetic hymn writing he offered the church a gift she couldn't refuse. Up until his day, most sung worship in churches was either psalms sung to various chants, or metrical versions of psalms set to more rhythmic tunes. Isaac almost single-handedly created the modern hymn and wrote hundreds of them; they became wildly popular in his day and inspired a new generation of Christian poets and song writers, not least the Wesleys. And if you're here at the right times of day (I was!) the bells on the civic clock tower nearby play a verse of O God our help. Should you be s...

That's me, back in 1970, with my first vehicle: a toddle truck. It was, along with my rocking horse, my favourite toy. It has nothing to do with this post, but I thought you might enjoy it. I also thought you might enjoy the Badger Story. This was the only somewhat serious accident I've had so far on the bike. A couple of years ago I was riding Rocinante back from Wolverhampton and was only a couple of miles away from home. It was dusk, and I was pootling along a country lane at top speed: 30mph. And suddenly a badger ran right out in front of the bike. Badgers are a bit like little black and white tanks: they're hefty, solid, a bit bigger than you remembered, and have an impressively low centre of gravity. And scooter wheels are small. So Rocinante stopped dead in her tracks while I, the mug on the back, got catapulted forward down the road like Wile E Coyote. I bounced around a bit before coming to rest some distance further on. For a short while I lay on the ...